Chapter I: Foreword

The following chapters are primarily an attempt at showing the position of the Quakers in the family to which they belong--the family of the mystics.

In the second place comes a consideration of the method of worship and of corporate living laid down by the founder of Quakerism, as best calculated to foster mystical gifts and to strengthen in the community as a whole that sense of the Divine, indwelling and accessible, to which some few of his followers had already attained, and of which all those he had gathered round him had a dawning apprehension.

The famous "peculiarities" of the Quakers fall into place as following inevitably from their central belief.

The ebb and flow of that belief, as it is found embodied in the history of the Society of Friends, has been dealt with as fully as space has allowed.

My thanks are due to Mr. Norman Penney, F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S., Librarian of the Friends' Reference Library, for a helpful revision of my manuscript.

D. M. R.

LONDON,
1914.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BIRTH OF QUAKERISM 1
II. THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 16
III. THE QUAKER CHURCH 33
IV. THE RETREAT OF QUAKERISM 52
V. QUAKERISM IN AMERICA 61
VI. QUAKERISM AND WOMEN 71
VII. THE PRESENT POSITION 81
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 94
BIBLIOGRAPHY 94
NOTE 96

THE QUAKERS PAST AND PRESENT