Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-11-02
The Decline of the Quakcrs.

From the New York Mail and Express.
Much interest and some public discussion
has been aroused in Pennsylvania by the
assertion that the Society Of Friends is
dying out. Leading authorities among the
Quakers contend that this assertion is not
well founded, bat is born of the fact that
the younger Friends have generally ceased
to wear the peculiar garb that once dis
tirGuished the members of the society.
They hold that the euakers in this country
were never more vigorous full of vitality
than they are today, and that next sum-
mer's national gathering will prove their
strength and the positive character of their
influence in the United States.
Strange as it may appear both sides of
this Pennsylvania discussion are in the
right. The processing Quallers are un-
douotedly declining in numbers yet Quak-
erism was never SO strong. The Qaakers
are disappearing because the world is an
nually growing nearer to the principles for
which, during a century and a half they
suffered and died. The better men become,
the more they become unconscious Quakers
and the younger members of the society
nnolng the worlds best sentiment so close
ly in touch with their traditions and their
creed have come to meet their fellows half
way in the concession of outward symbols
and gradually disappear in the glsater
army OF those who are striving for the bet
terment OF mankind and intoxicating the
u&ily and hourly, as We'll as the Sunday
practice of Christianity
from the middle OF the seventeenth GEN.
fury, when George Fox founded the Society
OF Friends in England as a protest against
tie existing forms of Christian teaching
and laid the corner stone of system of
persecution second to none that had ever
marked the development of religious war
fare-the Quakers, more nearly than any
other sect, have exemplified i'm their daily
life the teachings of Christ. Their faith
was based upon the equality and brother
hood of man. the utmost plainness and
simplicity in living unfaltering opposition
10 immortality in every form, to war even
IN seIedefense; to slavery, and TO oppres-
sion of every sort.
Their creed. like all true creeds has sur
Vived persecution, exile and death. Their
organization, negative In its force has not
shaped the advance of civilization II was
generations ahead of its period and has
waited patiently for the world to catch up
with It, As the world advanced to the doc
trines of Quakerism, the rising generations
of Quakers have been more and more alb
sorbed in the general march. abandoning
the distinctive cut of their garments adj
uniting the elevating mission of music and
throwing down the barriers between the
sexes in the houses Of worship.
The processing Quakers argue that these
are prone to attract more attention than
their true significance justifies But they
are wrong. These changes are straws in
dicating the direction of the wind, and
straws under such circumstances are bur-
dened with importance. Every society of
ethical culture, every home mission society,"
of Christian Endeavor. the Kings Daueh-
tiers and kindred bodies. the mutual
tolerance of all Christian denomina-
lions. the uplifting OF the black man and
the ame1ioratfon OF the condition of the
red man. the growing favor of international
arbitration. and every project. local or Co.'S
mopolitan. that makes for universal peace
and justice. the stamping out of immoral
ity in thought and deed, the abhorrence of
barharism In all its hideous phases and the
substitution OF Christianity for theology as
ruling force. is positive step toward
Quakerfsm's strongest and best.
The Quakers are disappearing because we
are all gradually becoming Quakers. The
millennium is not yet in sight, but we are
rearer to II than when the Society of
Friends began to teach us how best to live.