een
methods aggressive enough to arouse the indolent and those beyond the
bounds of Quaker propriety was indeed difficult to draw."[129]

In such a statement we find a conception of compromise which is
different from that usually encountered. In it the advocate of the ideal
says that for the time being he will accept less than his ultimate goal,
provided the change is in the direction in which he desires to move, but
he will not accept the slightest compromise which would move away from
his goal.

FOOTNOTES:

[125] Case, _Non-Violent Coercion_, 92-93.

[126] Rufus M. Jones, _The Quakers in the American Colonies_, 175-176.

[127] Jones, _Quakers in the Colonies_, 459-494; Isaac Sharpless, _A
Quaker Experiment in Government_ (Philadelphia: Alfred J. Ferris, 1898),
226-276.

[128] Fry, _Quaker Ways_, 171-172.

[129] _Ibid._, 177.

The Third Alternative

The logical pursuit of such a principle leads even further than the type
of compromise which Ruth Fry has described, to the establishment of a
new basis of understanding which may not include any of the principles
for which the parties in conflict may have been striving, and yet which
brings about reconciliation.

Eric Heyman, speaking in religious terms, has said of this process of
discovering a new basis of understanding through the exercise of
positive goodwill, even toward an oppressor:

"That is the way of God, and it is therefore the way of our
discipleship as reconcilers; the way of non-resistance to evil, of
the total acceptance of the consequences of evil in all their lurid
destructiveness, in order that the evil doer may be reconciled to
God.... The whole consequences of his presence, whether small or
great must be accepted with the single realisation that the whole
process of the world's redemption rests upon the relationship which
the Christian is able to create between himself and his oppressor.
This course has nothing in common with resistance; it is the
opposite of surrender, for its whole purpose and motive is the
triumphing over evil by acceptance of all that it brings.... The
resistance of evil, whether by way of violence or 'non-violence' is
the way of this world. Resignation to evil is the way of weak
surrender, and yields only a powerless resentment; at its best it
is non-moral, at the worst sheerly immoral. Acceptance of evil is
the triumphant answer of t