The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1869-08-28
The Friends.
BY THE REV. b. II. NADAL, d. D.

George Fox, the founder of the Society
of Friends, was a peculiar man, both in
brain and heart. The forms Of his think
ing were odd, even grotesque, but his spirit
was earnest and deep. His activity never
tagged, and his courage was unconquera-
able. What was strange in him was hu-
man; what transform ed him, and, through
him, was, of course, divine. Quakerism is
a form of Christian mysticism, reminding
the reader of the history of Montanism in
the second century. Montanus claimed
that the promise of the Comforter, who
was to guide the Church into all truth, had
been fulfilled in him. The Spirit in him
was an authority equal, or more than equal
to the Holy Scriptures. His followers,
therefore, claimed to be spiritual, and
sought to describe and degrade their oppo-
nents-the orthodoX-as psychical. One
can scarcely fail to remember these early
pretensions in reading the Life Of George
For. He claimed to have the Spirit, and
to be especially commissioned ''to turn the
people from darkness to light. !
was,' he writes, ''to direct the people to
the Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures,
by which they might be led into all truth,
and so up to Christ and God, as those had
been who gave them forth. Yet
had no slight esteem of the Holy Scrip
lures; they were precious to me, for l was
in that Spirit which gave them forth, and
what the Lord opened in me l afterward
found was agreeable to them The as
sertion here of an inspiration equal in au-
thority to the Holy Scriptures is manifest.
He accepted the sacred writings, and found
comfort in them because they confirmed
''what the lord had opened i'll him. In
his own view, he was inspired precisely as
were the Apostles; but his treatment of the
clergy and Church of his day, his denun-
citation of mass, and stecple-houses, and of
hircling priests, also reminds of the stern
ness of Montanist aceticism. The parallel
between Montanism and Quakerism, how
ever, cannot, without injustice to the lat
Ter, be carried much beyond the fundamen-
tai principle which was common to the two
movements, and the acetic tendency which
marked them both.
Indeed, even the Montanistic movement
must have contained much that was good;
it meant to be reformative and purifying
it filled its people with profound earnest
ness, which made them capable of any CHI
durance. But its false priciple was CON-
mitted to the soil of the unfortunate age,
and soon went to seed. The keen and
powerful spirit of Tertullian could not pre-
vent its overthrow. Quakerism, on the
other hand, sprang up after the age of Luz
ther and Calvin-after the Re formation had
wrought hundred years upon the mind OF
Christendom. There was an unconscious
force of Christian life in England that ever
in the minds of the new prophets, kept
watch and ward against moral degeneracy
But, above all, there was in George Fox,
and those enlightened under his almost
fearfully earnest ministry, a power of viz
| tue, a sense of the new and heavenly life
an image of divine goodness, that worked
out their subjective inspiration in practical
benevolence and self-sacrafice. Their mys
ticism was not that which merely seeks tC
climb up to heaven by idle, poetic, serene
ontemplation-which finds God merely tt
see and talk with him. Their waiting il
stiffness for the Spirit meant more than tn,
beatific vision-more than assurance ant
bliss for themselves-it meant also thu
painful belief that the world around wa
dark, and in danger OF eternal death, san
dalled, and with staff i'll hand, it expected
a message to lost sonls, or mission to thu
degraded and ignorant. To the eterna
honor of George Fox and his people, be i
remembered that they have been among
ameliorate the horrors of prison life, to in
weigh, though not always soundly, agains
war; to aid in the Christian civilization o
the American Indian, and, above all, to pro
test, both by word and example, agains
the barbarous system of American am
British slavery.
This practical and humanitarian turn O
the Quaker is as curious as it is honorable
How strange that men and women devote
to contemplation, ignoring all outward
journalistic expression of their religion
should be precisely the persons to blool
,, out over their whole life with all the form
, of practical bcnevolence! Generally, h,
, man nature is too one-sided to lay emphas
on strongly contrasted forms of life. I'll
thinker and the actor, though necessary
make complete man, are generally foun
. to be two men. The delights of mystic
u contemplation too commonly grow I'M
' luxury, and, as a great living writer h;
i. said, are apt to become DRAM III
Friends have done this service to MANKIND
: and to the Church especially; they ha'
shown how earnest contemplation may
+, yoked with the greatest ardor and indust
f. in the service of mankind; has Christianl
$ may be at once profoundly subj cctlve al
= broadly objective; how the quiet soul, in