ruth of Quakerism, but in a failure to rightly comprehend it; in
an attempt to fetter with forms and hedge about with dogmas that great
law of Christian liberty, which I believe affords ample scope for the
highest spiritual aspirations and the broadest philanthropy. If we did
but realize it, we are "set in a large place."

"We may do all we will save wickedness."

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

Quakerism, in the light of its great original truth, is "exceeding
broad." As interpreted by Penn and Barclay it is the most liberal and
catholic of faiths. If we are not free, generous, tolerant, if we are
not up to or above the level of the age in good works, in culture and
love of beauty, order and fitness, if we are not the ready recipients of
the truths of science and philosophy,--in a word, if we are not full-
grown men and Christians, the fault is not in Quakerism, but in
ourselves. We shall gain nothing by aping the customs and trying to
adjust ourselves to the creeds of other sects. By so doing we make at
the best a very awkward combination, and just as far as it is successful,
it is at the expense of much that is vital in our old faith. If, for
instance, I could bring myself to believe a hired ministry and a written
creed essential to my moral and spiritual well-being, I think I should
prefer to sit down at once under such teachers as Bushnell and Beecher,
the like of whom in Biblical knowledge, ecclesiastical learning, and
intellectual power, we are not likely to manufacture by half a century of
theological manipulation in a Quaker "school of the prophets." If I must
go into the market and buy my preaching, I should naturally seek the best
article on sale, without regard to the label attached to it.

I am not insensible of the need of spiritual renovation in our Society.
I feel and confess my own deficiencies as an individual member. And I
bear a willing testimony to the zeal and devotion of some dear friends,
who, lamenting the low condition and worldliness too apparent among us,
seek to awaken a stronger religious life by the partial adoption of the
practices, forms, and creeds of more demonstrative sects. The great
apparent activity of these sects seems to them to contrast very strongly
with our quietness and reticence; and they do not always pause to inquire
whether the result of this activity is a truer type of practical
Christianity than is found in our select gatherings. I thin