It was not until after the death of Fox, when the first generation of "born Friends" was growing up, that he began to express his sense of the danger he saw ahead. Then we find him accusing Friends of neglecting the historic evidences of their faith, of sacrificing the outer to the inner. His main doctrinal divergence from them was his assertion that salvation is impossible without the knowledge of and belief in the historic Jesus. But doctrine was not his only difficulty. He went to the very heart of the situation. He saw that the Quakers could never become in the world what they hoped to be--a mystical church, a body of men swayed without let or hindrance by the Divine Spirit, pioneers for the world upon the upward way--unless they were willing to pay the price of the saintly office. He begged for the abolition of birthright membership, for an open confession of faith for incoming members, that the children of Friends should come and offer themselves as strangers, their spiritual claims weighed and considered; that marriage should not be celebrated according to the Quaker rites between those who were not faithful Friends; that a sort of register should be kept of those who, in and out of meeting, were live and consistent Christians. His view of the situation, though put forward with a violence and bitterness which prejudiced it with his hearers, and brought his own spiritual life under suspicion, is largely justified by the subsequent experience of the society. His challenge attracted a large following in America, whither he had gone as headmaster of a Friends' school. The other leaders of the society, both in London and Pennsylvania, denied his assertion of the neglect by Friends of the historical Christ, while protesting that we must believe that the light of Christ reaches every man, whether he have heard of him or no. In 1692 the matter came before the Yearly Meeting, and Keith and his large body of followers were condemned in writing of the "spirit of reviling, railing, lying, slandering," and of mischievous and hurtful separation. So the schism was formed, and a new sect arose, which established many meetings amidst controversy and bitterness. The following year London Yearly Meeting, considering his case in sittings that sometimes lasted for days, finally declared him to have separated himself from the holy fellowship of the Church of Christ, and disowned him. His following gradually disappeared. For some years he travelled about in America, visiting meetings and protesting against his disownment. Later on he became an Independent, then an Episcopalian. He died as a minister of the Church of England. There is a story, which most authorities consider to be well authenticated, representing him as saying before he died that if God had taken him while he was a Quaker, it would have been well with him. CHAPTER IV THE RETREAT OF QUAKERISM