The Message and Mission of QuakerismBraithwaite, William C. (William Charles)
Religion
The Message and Mission of Quakerism
Braithwaite, William C. (William Charles)
Society of Friends
When one looks back upon the past 250 years and attempts to estimate
the value of Friends to the Christian life of England and America,
there are certain outstanding features which at once arrest
attention. Amongst the chief contributions which the Society has been
successful in making hitherto to the Christian life of England and
America are the following:
1. At a time when religion was in danger of becoming, to a large
extent, formal, ceremonial and external, the early Friends succeeded
in calling the attention of their own generation to the necessity for
a vital, inward experience. They undoubtedly helped many besides those
who actually joined with them into a clearer understanding of the
inwardness of the Christian gospel, and into a personal experience of
the living and indwelling Christ.
2. The Reformation and post-Reformation period was marked by that
intensity of religious conviction which so often leads to intolerance
and religious bigotry. Even those who had suffered persecution
themselves followed the very example one would have expected them to
avoid as soon as the opportunity occurred. That our spiritual
forefathers had an immense influence upon that age, in bringing about
a greater spirit of religious toleration, cannot be doubted by any
who read carefully the religious history of that time.
3. From the day that William Penn entered into treaty with the Red
Indian Chiefs till the day when John Woolman made his protest against
Negro Slavery, and on till John Greenleaf Whittier thrilled the nation
with the songs which called to love and brotherhood, Friends have
consistently stood for an attitude of sympathetic understanding of
other races. Nowhere perhaps has this been more publicly and more
deservedly acknowledged than by the action of President Grant in
handing over to Friends the management of certain reservations for Red
Indians, a policy which he declared had proved “most satisfactory.”
4. Even at the time when Quakerism ceased to be a powerful evangelical
force, and when Friends seem to have lost something of their first
love, the Society was producing men and women of outstanding Christian
character, who were known to be no hypocrites; whose word was their
bond; whose business integrity was proverbial and whose character for
truthfulness and honesty was surely an outstanding contribution to the
Christian life of the eighteenth century. This type of character has,
I believe, been largely maintained till the present day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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