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 it is real worship, common worship may take the individual soul
a good deal further than it may go alone. We make the atmosphere for
one another—courage, depression, hope, study, reflection or whatever
it may be; and faith is, as a matter of fact, as liable to be helped
as hindered by environment. Prayer, when it is reality, and when it
is the common activity in one place at one time of a community of like
experience, may reach a higher plane than we have known before, not as
a matter of mere emotion but with results that do not pass away.
“Love is reinforced by this solidarity of the Christian communion, for
in it Christ becomes more real, and things are apt to be seen here
_sub specie aeternitatis_ in their true proportions. Such vision of
reality will over and over again be translated into action and
consecration. The common worship, if it is the act of all, and done in
deep seriousness, passes out of the formal into the effective, with or
without mystical rite or element, it becomes communion, and we
understand in a new and quieter way what the early Church meant by its
doctrine of the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is not bound by our
choosing, but it is possible for us to become more receptive. It is
easy to see how men have come to the view that through the Church the
gift of the Spirit is mediated.”[6]
[Footnote 6: Swarthmore Lecture, 1912, pp. 68, 69.]
He has to add however, “It is, I think, right to say here that these
paragraphs are an epitome of my observations and experience of the
Student Christian Movement;” a statement which may well suggest to us
in England that our Meetings have not been all they might have been in
recent years. Although I do not consider the following statement as
satisfactory as that previously quoted from the same source, I should
like again to refer to the statement drawn up by the members of the
Friends’ Mission in West China.
“1. United worship should provide opportunities for the Spirit of God
to deal individually with each worshiper as well as for each worshiper
to approach to God in the way best suited to his individuality.
“2. Each individual has a ministry for the benefit of all, to be
exercised in spirit, and the true worship of believers depends upon
the faithfulness of each.
“3. Worship should provide an opportunity for this ministry to assume
vocal form, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who may thus use
any worshiper.”
I recently received a letter from one of the most prominent religious
leaders in this country in which he said: “This morning I attended the
Old Friends’ Meeting here in Philadelphia and was much refreshed in
spirit. I believe we must have more of the spirit of the Friends if we
are to save North American Christianity.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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