Year: 1867

we cut the following from the brooklyn
Church Union, the organ of the policy
which its name indicates, and the staunch
opponent Of Ritualism in the Episcopal
Church. Without regard to its principal
topic, there are many good things in the
sketch. .-EDs. CoMMERcIAL.1


Are Quakers not Christians? Then are
they branch of the Church of Christ in
Brooklyn. The Spirit led us to Packer
Institute on the morning of the first Sun
day after Easter. A kind friend had simply
informed us that "Caroline E. Talbot, a
minister of the Society of Friends from Ohio,
will attend Friends Meeting, at Packer
Institute, at given hour" Perhaps not a
word would be spoken. The first Quaker
meeting we ever attended was on that
peculiar island of the sea, Nantucket, and
though the house was well filed, we sat one
solitary hour with our hat on by the side of
our Quaker friends, gazing at vacancy, and
not word was spoken, yet do we never
remember more profitable hour than that
in our lives. Have you never witnessed,
even In weekday prayer-meeting, a GER
tain formality, an eXactness of movement, a
rising al just such q time to commence, a
hymn long and monot0nous, pause with a
sepulchral sigh, an exhortation from the
leader, ''to improve the time, then longer
and more deathly silence and then some
one, chastised by his own conscience or
more likely the fear ofman, would arise and
mourn over the desolations of Zion, and
then sit down, putting everybody in cen
serious mood, and then the minister would
rise and berate the Church for its GOODNESS /;
and after singing the doxology, every soul
would depart, feeling that nothing but the
Uirpet moral nf 1nty xuf,rII mi
him into that place again Have you not
felt this Now far better say nothing when
you have nothing to say. Away on that
desert island, in that still hour, with the
dress, habits and character of two centu-
ries about me, what musings, what con-
victions of the hollowness of human wor-
ship, what sweet communings with ones
own spirit, and thoughts on the spectres of
Cromwellian age and Cromwellian
Puritanism moving about us as ''silently
the shades of evening" gathered around us.
1t was just before the war, and God seemed
to reveal to us the PLAIN and only course
through it all, namely, integrity to Puritan
principles to the last. Then we saw the evil
OF mocking God with forms without spirit,
and great resolve was made to devote
ourselves to dashing the idols of the idola-
tiers. We did not become Quaker, but the
element of the Christian found there and
nowhere else put us in fellowship with them
ever after that.


AT the hour Of eleven, half an hour later
than is the custom of other people to COM
mence worship, whether God is with them
or no, the Spirit moved the woman who was
to address us to prayer. She was attired in
the simple costume of the seventeenth CEN
tury Everybody then dressed as Quakers
now do). The people were mostly strang
ers, with here and there a hat kept upon the
head, but all rose by common consent, while
the preacher laid aside her hat and kneeled
in prayer. Womans power is here. How
much we lose of spiritual strength in our
public prayer-mectings by not allowing our
mothers to pray. Prejudiced son of cold
and irrational as well as unscriptural whim,
did you ever hear your mother pray? Wo-
mans voice is so tender. She is all prayer
Incver yet heard one who could pray as
a man can. We let her sing. Why not
let her pray, which is the higher act
of worship, and who is better fitted for
faultless diction. true feeling, fearful penti-
tence, joyous gratitude, all rendered in such
winning and musical tones than woman ?
All, in heaven will we hear our mothers
voices! Blessed thought! One thing we
noticed. The historic I,atoning, the peculi-
arity of the Cromwellian age, peculiar
singing in infection of the voice, when de-
livering the most eloquent sentences. This
is natural, not artificial, and is in striking
contrast with the set and mechanical inton-
ings of the Ritualistic service. We noticed
it in the sermon also occasionally. Some
may have been repelled by 1t, but what has
taste to do With the sinner before the loving
Saviour in view of his own guilt? Salvation
is so good that we wonder there are no more
singings and shouting.


The sermon was evidently not premedi-
tated. She informed us incidentally that
the subject was given her then and there.
1t was in every sense extempore, and in
the same sense gift. Simeon's skeletons
had evidently never been studied. Some
time we mean to speak of "grand preach
ers" and "great sermons" All, Christ
would hardly recognize his simple methods
in some of our best pulpiis She spoke es-
pecally of the spiritual oneness of the diff
ferent branches of the one Church catholic.
Never have we listened to more complete
and hearty exposition of simple truth, 1. e.,
All that Christ has put within us make us
one. All that self puts there make us sec
tarans. Look at that, High Churchman,
moment. Christ never taught you anything
by experience or by his word that tends to
schism. All your schsms are to self. As
Bishop McIlvaine has said, "They are all
carnal." There is no Christ in sect. Think
of that, close communion brother; think of
it, all We who build up sect-church. Christ
never was with you in one thought, act
or device, for building up your denomina-
tion. All that is ''carnal.."


Many were in tears as she passed to speak
of the children who partook also of this
Spirit, and especially of one gone TO glory.
A simple prayer, after short pause, not
unlike bcnediction, dismissed us, and we
felt that we had worshipped in spirit and in
truth.