of the world. There are two offices in the Quaker body: that of Elder, whose duty it is to use discretion in acting as a restraining or encouraging influence with younger members in their ministry; and that of Overseer, exercising a general supervision over members of their meeting, admonishing them, if it should be necessary, as to the payment of just debts; the friendly settlement of "differences" about outward things; the discouraging and, as far as possible, restraining legal proceedings between members; "dealing" with any who may be conducting themselves, either in business or in private life, in a way such as to bring discredit upon their profession; caring for the poor, securing maintenance for them where necessary, and assisting them to educate their children. When any person has been found to be specially helpful in a meeting, and his or her ministry is recognized over a considerable period of time as being a true ministry, exercised "in the spirit," such a one is, after due deliberation, "acknowledged" or "recorded" as a "minister." This acknowledgment, however, confers no special status upon the individual, and implies no kind of appointment to preach or otherwise to exercise any special function in the society. There is, apparently, to-day a growing feeling against even this slight recognition of ministry as also against the custom hitherto prevailing of the special "bench" for Elders, which is usually on a raised dais, and facing the meeting. Men and women work, both in government and in ministry, side by side. Until the year 1907 they held their Yearly Meeting separately,[12] with occasional joint sittings. Since then all Yearly Meetings are held jointly, though the women's meetings are still held for certain purposes. [Footnote 10: Nicholas Hermann.] [Footnote 11: 1870.] The superficial structure of the society has existed, together with its founder's system of the methodical recording of births, marriages, and deaths, much as we know it to-day from the beginning. The distinctive Quaker teaching--with its two main points, the direct communication of truth to a man's own soul: the presence, in other words, of a "seed of God" in every man; and the possibility here and now of complete freedom from sin, together with the many subsidiary testimonies, such as that against war, oaths, the exclusion of women from the ministry, etc., depending from these points--has also survived through many crises, and, in spite of the perpetual danger of being overwhelmed by the Calvinism amidst which it was born, and which to this day takes large toll of the society, and perpetually threatens the whole group, is still represented in its original purity. [Footnote 12: See chapter on Quakerism and Women.]