Among the present-day critics of Elias Hicks, is Dr. J. Rendell Harris, of England. In his paper at the Manchester Conference in 1895, this quotation from Elias Hicks is given: "God never made any distinction in the manifestation of his love to his rational creatures. He has placed every son and daughter of Adam on the same ground and in the same condition that our first parents were in. For every child must come clean out of the hands of God."[202] Doctor Harris says Elias Hicks "was wrong not simply because he was unscriptural, but because he was unscientific."[203] Doctor Harris prefaces this remark by the following comment on the quotation from Elias Hicks: "Now suppose such a doctrine to be propounded in this conference would not the proper answer, the answer of any modern thinker, be (1) that we never had any first parents; (2) we were demonstrably not born good."[204] We do not at all assume that Elias Hicks had no limitations, or that he was correct at all points in his thinking, measured by the standards of present-day knowledge or any other standard. But we must claim that in holding that we had first parents, he was scriptural. The poor man, however, seems to have been, unconsciously, of course, between two stools. The orthodox Friends in the early part of the nineteenth century claimed that Elias was unsound because he did not cling to the letter of the scripture, and his critic just quoted claims that he was unscientific although he used a scriptural term. Doctor Harris then concludes that "a little knowledge of evolution would have saved him (Hicks) all that false doctrine." But how, in his time, could he have had any knowledge of evolution? A man can hardly be criticised for not possessing knowledge absolutely unavailable in his day and generation. We are then informed "that the world at any given instant, shows almost every stage of evolution of life, from the amoeba to the man, and from the cannibal to the saint. Shall we say that the love of God is equally manifested in all these?"[205] To use the Yankee answer by asking another question, may we inquire, in all seriousness, who is qualified to say with certainty that it is not so manifested? Who has the authority, in the language of Whittier, to ... "fix with metes and bounds The love and power of God?" [202] "Report of the Proceedings of the Conference of Members of the Society of Friends, held by Direction of the Yearly Meeting in Manchester," 1895, p. 220. [203] The same, p. 220. [204] We do not hesitate to say that had Elias Hicks made this statement he would have suffered more at the hands of the Philadelphia Elders in 1822 than is recorded in this book. [205] Report Manchester Conference, pp. 220-221.