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1406304
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 02280 0814
West Branch Meeting House
1807 1907
Centennial Anniversary
OF
West Branch Monthly Meeting
of Friends
Established 1st Month 7th, 1807.
HELD AT
WEST MILTON, OHIO
10th month, nth and 12th, 1907
COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS.
Anna May Pemberton, Pres. ; John Coate, Vice-
Pres. ; I [erbert R. Pearson, Sec. ; Win. A. Jones, Treas.,
I. N. Carter, Delia B. Erven, L. M. Elleman, John
Thomas, Anna Thomas. Presiding Officer, Dr. H. R.
Pearson.
The programme was interspersed with solos by
Janette Woollam, Ethel Coate, of West Milton and
Celia Carroll of Richmond, Ind. Seasons of worship
were observed at the beginning of each meeting, and
a number of ministers present appeared in supplica-
tion at the different sessions.
1406304
SIXTH DAY, 10 A. M.
Scripture reading 84th Psalm and Address of Wel-
come, J. Arthur Woollam, West Milton, Ohio.
It seems almost a form of error when custom makes
it necessary for us to pause at the opening f a Quaker
gathering to hear an address of welcome — we, who
for generations have been trying to teach the blessings
of true altruism more than any other people living,
and yet it devolves upon me to express in a few words
the welcome that awaits you in West Milton. We
welcome you as brothers and sisters in the Lord, be-
cause of the cause you represent. You have come here
to talk about what Quakerism has meant to this world
of ours, and what it ought to mean to the generations
of the future, as well as of the blessings of God that
have fallen upon VVest Branch during the last ten de-
cades — blessings the recollection of which will bring
tears to many eyes, and which have made this centen-
nial possible. We welcome you here to meet each
other, and to greet each other in the name of the Eter-
nal Son of God, whose blood alone atones for human
sin, because the religion which we hold says, "One is
our Master, all we are brethren."
It has been granted to us as Friends in the opening
years of this wonderful twentieth century to live in a
most wonderful age. Back of us lie two hundred and
sixty years of human effort, — effort perhaps often mis-
directed, but never wholly useless; for who can tell
all of its accomplishments? We are not ashamed of the
record we have made. We have stood well at the head
of many, if not all of the great reforms for two
centuries and a half. We were friends in need to the
savage red men. Our voice was heard in thunder
tones against the awful scourge of human slavery, and
it has been abolished forever. W r e have the honor of
making, as Voltaire, the French historian, has said,
the only treaty never sworn to and never broken, be-
cause our yea was yea, and our nay, nay. We have
ever stood opposed to war. Whether the effort of the
past has led to victory or to defeat, it has lifted the
level of opportunity high. Toilsomely, and through a
great deal of suffering, generation after generation has
climbed up the steep slopes and the rocky hillsides, until
we to-day stand at an immense altitude of opportun-
ity above our fathers. We know that sorrow and suf-
fering and death for very many of them are behind us.
But with the record of their deeds before us, and the
Spirit of their God within us, may we go forth propa-
gating the principles which give us our right to an
existence ; and lift above the nations of the earth the
face of our blessed Lord, in whose name we welcome
you to-day.
PREHISTORIC WEST BRANCH.
By Eli Jay, Richmond, Indiana.
West Branch Monthly Meeting of Friends, set off
from Miami Monthly Meeting, Warren County, Ohio,
with its approval and authorized by Redstone Quarter-
ly Meeting, held in southwestern Pennsylvania, 12th
Mo., 6th, 1806, was opened at West Branch Meet-
ing house, two miles south of West Milton, Miami
County, Ohio, 1st Mo., 17th, 1807.
Friends, we are met here to-day, many of us de-
scendants of the pioneers of that early day, to com-
memorate this event, the establishment of Friends'
Meeting at West Branch one hundred years ago, and to
consider developments that led up to that event and
some of the consequences that have followed from it.
In the topic assigned me on this occasion I propose,
first, to trace the line of descent of West Branch
Monthly Meeting through the Monthly Meetings from
which it has sprung, by one or many steps ; and, second,
to give some account of the emigration and family
names of the leading members and actors in the West
Branch meetings of the early day, before they emi-
grated to Ohio.
Descent ov Meeting.
As a matter of interest showing the rapid emigration
of the Friends to Southwestern Ohio, one hundred
years ago, it is well to note that the act of Miami
Monthly Meeting and Redstone Quarterly Meeting es-
tablishing a Meeting for Worship, Preparative and
Monthly Meetings, called West Branch, in Miami
County, also established a Meeting for Worship, Pre-
parative and Monthly Meetings called Centre in Clin-
ton County, Ohio, to be held alternately at Cesar's
Creek and Centre ; a Meeting for Worship and a Pre-
parative called Cesar's Creek in Warren County,
Ohio; and a Meeting for Worship and a Preparative
called Elk Creek in Preble County, Ohio.
The first of these meetings to be opened were those
at West Branch in First Month, 1807, and the others
in the Second Month. On account of the distance of
Redstone Quarterly Meeting, the appointment of a
committee to officially open these meetings was delegat-
ed to Miami Monthly Meeting and Asher Brown,
David Pugh, John Townsend and Samuel Spray, ap-
pointed by that meeting, were in attendance at West
Branch in that capacity.
When the first Monthly Meeting was to be set up
in the Miami Valley in the first years of the last centu-
ry, the Friends about to compose it being far removed
from other Friends' Meetings and belonging to many
different Monthly Meetings, they chose to make ap-
plication to Westland Monthly Meeting, Pennsylvania,
about three hundred miles away, of which some of
them were members, and to which the membership
of others was transferred by certificate. The records
of Bush River Monthly Meeting, South Carolina, give
us such transference of about one hundred of their
members who were then residing in "the Miami
country north of the Ohio River." Probably other
Monthly Meeting records would show the same. And
thus Miami Monthly Meeting was opened at Waynes-
ville, Ohio, 10 Mo. 13th, 1803, by the joint action of
Westland Monthly and Redstone Quarterly Meetings.
In a similar manner it appears that Westland Month-
ly Meeting, Washington County, Pennsylvania, was
set up in 1785, by Hopewell Monthly and Fairfax
Quarterly Meetings, Virginia ; and that Hopewell
Monthly Meeting, Frederick County, Virginia, near
Winchester, was set up in 1735 by Nottingham Month-
ly and Chester Quarterly Meetings ; that Nottingham
Monthly Meeting, Cecil County, Maryland, was set up
in 1730 by New Garden Monthly and Chester Quarter-
ly Meetings ; that New Garden Monthly Meeting,
Chester County, Pennsylvania, was set up in 1718 by
Newark Monthly and Chester Quarterly Meeting ; that
Newark Monthly Meeting, Chester County, Pennsyl-
vania, was set up in 1686, by Concord Monthly and
Chester Quarterly Meetings ; that Concord Monthly
Meeting, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, was set up
in 1684 by Chester Monthly and Chester Quarterly
Meetings. It appears that Chester Monthly Meeting
was a self-constituted Monthly Meeting opened in 1681
for the accommodation of the Friends west of the Del-
aware River.
It thus appears that the line of descent of West
Branch Monthly Meeting is from and through the
following Monthly Meetings established in the years
given ; Chester 1681 and Concord 1684, both in Dela-
ware County, Pennsylvania; Newark, 1686 and New
Garden 1718, both in Chester County, Pennsylvania;
Nottingham 1730, in Cecil County, Maryland; Hope-
well 1735, in Frederick County, Virginia; Westland
1785, Fayette County, Pennsylvania; Miami 1803,
Warren County, Ohio ; West Branch 1807, Miami
County, Ohio.
From the foregoing we might conclude that West
Branch Monthly Meeting was a child of Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting, but we learn that, in 1790, by a new
arrangement, the meetings in Western Pennsylvania
and Virginia, which had belonged to Philadelphia were
transferred to the Yearly Meeting for Maryland, which
was thereafter to be held at Baltimore, which seems
then to have taken the name of Baltimore Yearly
Meeting. Since the Redstone, Pennsylvania, Meeting
belonged to Baltimore Yearly Meeting in 1803, all the
Friends' Meetings west of the Alleghenies are to be
reckoned descended from Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
EMIGRATIONS.
Pennsylvania, founded in 1682, was one of the last
of the English colonies formed in America. The fav^
orable terms offered by William Penn caused such
rapid emigration to Pennsylvania that the parts near
Philadelphia were soon occupied and there was a de-
mand for fresh lands which resulted in the expansion of
the colony to the southwest away from the coast, as the
lands there were already settled. By 1725 the settle-
ments and the meetings of the Friends had passed the
Susquehanna River westward and were well on their*
way to the Potomac southward. About 1730, a com-
pany, principally of Friends, at the head of which
were Alexander Ross and James Wright, secured a
grant from the government of Virginia, of 100,000
acres of land on Opequan Creek in the valley of the
Shenandoah River, This brought about a rapid emi-
gration to that region and, the settlers being largely
Friends, resulted in the opening of many Friends' meet-
ings amongst them. Of these the leading one appears
to have been Hopewell, five miles north of Winchester,
Frederick County, Virginia, which became a Monthly
Meeting in 1735 and soon had many subordinate meet-
ings around it, there being at one time five large Pre-
parative Meetings tributary to it.
Soon after the settlement of Friends around Win-
chester, Virginia, other Friends settled in Loudoun
and Fairfax Counties, about forty miles east of Win-
chester, and this resulted in the establishment of Fair-
fax Monthly Meeting, set off from Hopewell in 1744.
Both of these settlements of Friends now became
centers of emigration further to the South producing
a chain of meetings across Virginia and well into North
Carolina. The trouble with the Indians in Virginia dur-
ing the French and Indian War hastened the emigra-
tion southward, where the Indians of the border were
more peaceable and thus strengthened the Friends'
Meetings already begun, particularly New Garden in
Guilford County, North Carolina, and Cane Creek in
Orange County, which had their origin about 1750.
The emigration continuing southward entered South
Carolina soon after 1760, and in a few years large and
prosperous settlements of the Friends were formed in
Union and Newberry Counties, South Carolina, and in
Columbia County, Georgia. These northern emigrants
were also joined by some families of Friends
that came direct from England and Ireland and located
in these settlements. In 1770, Bush River
Monthly Meeting was opened in Newberry Coun-
ty, by authority of Western Quarterly Meeting,
North Carolina, set off from a monthly meet-
ing held near Camden, South Carolina, on the Wateree
River, sometimes called Fredericksburg, or Wateree,
or Camden. This meeting had been subordinate to
Western Quarterly Meeting, North Carolina Yearly
Meeting. In 1774 Wrightsboro Monthly Meeting, Co-
lumbia County, Georgia, was established ; in 1789, Cane
Creek Monthly Meeting, Union County, was set off
from Bush River.
In 1 79 1 Bush River Quarterly Meeting, set off from
Western Quarterly Meeting, was established by it and
North Carolina Yearly Meeting for the convenience
of these three Monthly Meetings. In an Almanac pub-
ro
fished in i/</j by direction of Baltimore Friends, giv-
ing a list of Friends' Meetings in America, we learn
that there were then twelve meetings subordinate to
these three monthly meetings. It is not possible to give
the number of members belonging then to Bush River
Quarterly Meeting, but as we have record of nearly one
thousand members that removed from its limits in the
next eight years, it seems that its membership could
not have been much if any less than fifteen hundred
in Ninth Month, 1802, when the first removal certificate
was issued for those already gone to the "Ohio
country."
As far as I have been able to learn, the location of
Friends in this far Southland was very desirable and
pleasant as far as outward comfort and ease were con-
cerned. Their land was fairly productive and their cli-
mate almost ideal. Their communities were prosper-
ous, their meetings were harmonious and pleasant and
there was loving fellowship amongst them as brethren
of the same household of faith. But as the eighteenth
century drew to a close there was unrest amongst them
and a general feeling that a change of location was de-
sirable.
Friends at first in common with others held slaves to
some extent. But there was all the time a protest against
the practice as inconsistent with their Christian pro-
fession. When they located in South Carolina and
Georgia, slaveholding was still tolerated amongst the
Friends, but in the years of their residence there the
Society had taken a very advanced position on the sub-
ject. This change had been gradual and was the re-
sult of heartfelt conviction. One by one it was laid up-
on their hearts and consciences that it was wrong to
hold their fellow-men in bondage, and they freed their
slaves. This conviction spread and soon became the
concern of the whole Society. By loving, though per-
sistent persuasion, pressing the truth, as it was ap-
prehended, upon the conscience and judgment of the
membership, the Society of Friends, as a body, became
united in forbidding the practice of holding slaves by
the members.
This pronounced stand, of course, put them in op-
position to the prevailing sentiment of the country. The
increasing number of slaves — the census of 1800 shows
that in the preceding decade the slaves in Newberry
county had increased 25 per cent, while the white
n
population was stationary— showed them the disad-
vantage to which their free labor would* soon he put
in competition with slave lahor. This conviction of
conscience in the line of duty and of judgment as to
economic considerations, came to them as a Divine
Voice to get out of that country to a land that would
be shown them. That land was the new Northwest
Territory then opening to settlers with its fundamen-
tal ordinance dedicating it forever to freedom and free
institutions. And they were not disobedient to the
visions opened before them, but came with great rapid-
ity as a van-guard to a mighty host that soon followed
to lay enduring foundations, free citizens in great states
and prosperous commonwealths. And here in this
Miami Valley they met members from the somewhat
delayed wave of western emigration from Pennsylva-
nia, who finally crossed the Alleghanies and planted
themselves in the western part of the state, and also
met those that had found homes and religious fellow-
ship in the meetings in Virginia and the ''old North
State."
We do not know the number of members in Miami
Monthly Meeting when it was opened in 1803, — but
perhaps between two and three hundred. For the
next four years the names of all Friends locating in
Warren, Clinton, Highland, Montgomery, Miami and
Preble Counties, Ohio, and in Wayne County, Indiana,
who brought removal certificates, are given on the
records of Miami Monthly Meeting. The date of the
issue of these certificates and by what meeting issued
are also given. The number of such certificates re-
ceived in the four years, 1803 to 1807, is four hundred,
transferring the membership of eighteen hundred and
twenty-six persons to that meeting. So that, when
West Branch Meeting was set up in 1807, Miami must
have had over two thousand members. These cer-
tificates come from forty Monthly Meetings in seven
different states, and from four Yearly Meetings. From
the one Monthly Meeting in Georgia there came twen-
ty-eight certificates for one hundred and fifty-five per-
sons, and from the two Monthly Meetings in South
Carolina there came one hundred and forty-three cer-
tificates for six hundred and fifty-five persons, making
one hundred and seventy-one certificates for eight hun-
dred and ten persons from Bush River Quarterly Meet-
ing, or about four-ninths of the whole. From eleven
Monthly Meetings in North Carolina there came nine-
/2
i\ certificates \o\~ three hundred and eighty-seven per-
sons, and from two Monthly Meetings in Tennessee
there came forty-five certificates for two hundred and
twenty-one persons, making, in these four years, three
hundred and six certificates from sixteen Monthly
Meetings belonging to North Carolina Yearly Meeting,
for one thousand, four hundred and eighteen persons
or seven-ninths of the whole emigration. Of the re-
maining two-ninths, four hundred and eight persons,
there came fifty-five certificates from six monthly meet-
ings, for two hundred and sixty-nine persons from Vir-
ginia and belonging to Virginia Yearly Meeting; and
eight certificates from six monthly meetings for twen-
ty-five persons in Maryland ; sixteen certificates from
six monthly meetings in Pennsylvania for forty-five
persons ; and fourteen certificates from seven monthly
meetings in New Jersey for sixty-nine persons.
It is thus seen that while the bulk of the members
added in these four years came from the southern
states, there were representatives from all the Ameri-
can Yearly Meetings but two. As near as I am able
to determine, all the charter members of West Branch
Monthly Meeting came from North Carolina Yearly
Meeting, and by far the larger part of them from Bush
River Quarterly Meeting in South Carolina, and of
these the majority were from Bush River Monthly
Meeting, though the Cooper, Davis, Jones and Mote
families from Wrightsboro, Georgia, contributed a
considerable number.
Family Names.
I now proceed with brief accounts by name of some
of the families before they came to Ohio, that were
prominent in the early history of the West Branch
Meetings. In doing this I shall draw largely from
the records of Friends' Meetings with which it has
been my privilege to become acquainted in different
ways, supplemented by such other information as
seems trustworthy. I am sorry not to be able to treat
all families alike, in the extent of their history, but
the limitations of my knowledge forbids this, and com-
pels me to omit some altogether. I can only give such
information as T have been able to obtain. For con-
venience of arrangement I shall take up the names in
alphabetical order.
Baixingkr. James and Lydia Ballinger and their
family of thirteen children are on Bush River Family
13
Registry. In 1797 they took their removal certificate
to New Hope Monthly Meeting, Tennessee, from
whence some of the family came to Ohio.
Brooks. James and Sarah (Wright) Brooks were
parents of a family at Bush River. The Brooks and
Wright families were both from Pennsylvania. Sarah
Wright, probably born at Fairfax, Virginia, was the
daughter of John and Rachel (Wells) Wright, who,
in 1749, removed from Fairfax, Virginia, to Carver's
Creek, Bladen County, North Carolina. In 1768 they
were living at Bush River, South Carolina, where two
of their children married in the meeting that year.
Brown. Samuel Brown and his wife brought their
removal certificate from Nottingham Monthly Meet-
ing to Bush River in 1775. He seems to have been a
man of superior capability and education, as he served
as clerk of Bush River Monthly Meeting four terms,
making in all more than eight years. He also was the
first clerk of West Branch Quarterly Meeting, serving
about three years.
CoaTE. The Marmaduke Coate and his seven sons,
who settled in Miami County, Ohio, about 1805, are
descendants of a Marmaduke Coate who lived in
Somersetshire, England, and died there in 1689. He
was one of the steadfast early Friends and suffered
imprisonment for his religious profession, being im-
prisoned most of the time from 1670 to 1685. His wife,
Edith, and his son, Marmaduke, born 1651, were also
imprisoned at the same place for some time. The son,
Marmaduke, married Ann Pole in England, and later
came to America and settled near Burlington, New
Jersey. According to the minutes of Burlington Meet-
ing, his coming there was in 171 5. There, four of his
children, three daughters and one son, married in the
years, 1719 to 1727. The last of these to marry was
William Coate to Rebecca Sharp, 2 Mo. 6th, 1727. The
father, Marmaduke, died 12 Mo. 16th, 1728, and the
mother, 11 Mo. 4th, 1729.
It is not known when William Coate removed to
South Carolina, but Judge O'Neal in his "Annals of
Newberry," says he was living there as early as 1762.
William's son, Marmaduke, born in 1738, appears to
have married in South Carolina, Mary Coppock, who
had been held as a captive by the Indians several years.
Their family of nine children given on the Bush River
Family Registry, were born in the years 1766 to 1788.
14
Five of their sons married in South Carolina, two
marrying daughters of Joseph and Jane Coppock ; one,
a daughter of Isaac and Lydia Haskett ; and two,
daughters of William and Jane Miles. The removal
certificate of Marmaduke and Mary Coate and their
younger sons, John and Jesse, is dated 8 Mo. 25th,
1804, and was received at Miami Monthly Meeting,
Ohio, 12 Mo. 8th, 1804. The certificates for the three
older sons and their families are dated earlier in the
year 1804, and those for the other two, William and
James, in 1805.
Cooper. Isaac and Benjamin Cooper and their fam-
ilies are mentioned in the Meeting Minutes in Geor-
gia and South Carolina. They came South from the
vicinity of Philadelphia. Isaac Cooper, the son of the
Isaac above, married in 1802 Elizabeth Kennedy in
Georgia, and came to Ohio soon after, settling in Mont-
gomery County, Ohio, six miles north of Dayton.
Coppock. Two Coppock families, John and Abigail,
and Joseph and Jane, are on the Registry of Bush
River Monthly Meeting, South Carolina. They came
from the limits of Nottingham Monthly Meeting,
Maryland. Joseph, born in 1742, married there in
1769 Jane Wilson, and in 1772 they took a removal
certificate from Nottingham Monthly Meeting, Cecil
County, Maryland, to Bush River, South Carolina.
John, born in 1736, received a removal certificate from
the same meeting for himself and family in 1777. John
and Joseph were sons of John and Margaret (Coulson)
Coppock, who died in Maryland 1788 and 1789. This
John was the son of Aaron Coppock. Most of the
children of these two families were early settlers in
Miami County, Ohio.
Bush River also mentions another Coppock family,
the parents being Moses and Martha, who according
to the family tradition came directly from England to
South Carolina and settled on the frontier. In the
absence of the father the Indians raided their home
and, killing the mother, captured the children, one of
whom, named Mary, they held for several years. She
afterward became the wife of Marmaduke Coate. The
Bush River records give the marriage of Martha Cop-
pock, the daughter of Moses and Martha, 12 Mo. 30th,
1771, to William Tomlinson, of Fredericksburg Town-
ship, South Carolina. She and her descendants after-
ward lived in North Carolina. James Coppock, son
15
of Moses and Martha, about 1784, married Hannah
Pugh, and they and their children, Moses, Susannah,
and Martha Coppock, came to Miami County, Ohio,
their removal certificate from Bush River Monthly
Meeting bearing date 8 Mo. 30th, 1806.
Davis. Abiathar Davis and Rachel, his wife, and his
seven younger children, received a removal certificate
from Wrightsboro Monthly Meeting, Georgia, to Mi-
ami Monthly Meeting, Ohio, 5 Mo. 5th, 1804. He was
born in Wales, 1754 and died in Ohio in 1840, and
was the father of ten children, four sons and six
daughters.
Duncan. Judge O'Neal, in his "Annals of Newber-
ry," gives Samuel and John Duncan as Friends in Bush
River Monthly Meeting and says they were of Scotch
descent. The family of Samuel and Mary Duncan is
given in the Registry of that Meeting. In 1801, the
family received a removal certificate to New Hope
Monthly Meeting, Tennessee, and in 1806 a removal
certificate from that Meeting to Miami Monthly Meet-
ing, Ohio, which endorsed it to West Branch Monthly
Meeting where it was received in the Fourth Month,
1807.
EllEman. The ancestor of the Ellemans in this
country was Enos Elleman, a native of Wales. His
father, John Elleman, was an Englishman and his
mother, Mary, a Welsh woman. The time of his com-
ing to America is not known. He seems to have come
to New Jersey and from there to have emigrated
southward, marrying Catherine Collins, of German
birth and locating in Orange County, North Carolina,
before 1758. The family remained here until some time
between 1766 and 1769, when they came to Bush Riv-
er, North Carolina. He was the recorder of the
Family Registry of Bush River Monthly Meeting
from 1772 to 1782, when a recorder was appointed in-
stead of "Enos Elleman, who has removed out of these
parts." In recording his own family he appends a note
saying that his first five children were born in Orange
County, North Carolina. This embraces his son John,
born in 1766, and four daughters, born in the years
1758 to 1763. His only other child was his son Wil-
liam, born in 1769, at Bush River. His oldest son John
married in 1787 Susannah Coppock, daughter of John
and Abigail (Skillern)' Coppock, and removed perhaps
soon after, to east Tennessee, from whence in 1806
16
they eame to Miami County, Ohio. His other son,
William, about 1790, married Jane Jay, daughter of
Joseph and Mary (Cothran) Jay. They remained in
South Carolina several years later. Their removal cer-
tificate from Bush River to Miami Monthly Meeting,
Ohio, is dated 7 Mo. 27th, 1805. Perhaps they lived
some years before that date in Washington County,
Tennessee, where other members of the family had re-
moved.
Embree. Two families, Moses and Margaret Em-
bree, with eight children, born in years 1753-1773, and
John and Mary Embree, with eight children, born in
the years 1753- 1772, are given in the Family Registry
of Bush River Meeting. From the minutes of that
meeting it is quite certain that the Embrees came from
Exeter, Pennsylvania. In 1775, John and Mary Embree
and family removed from Bush River to Wrightsboro
Meeting, Georgia. In 1804, John and Mary brought
their removal certificate from that meeting to Miami
Monthly Meeting, Ohio, and their son, Amos, his wife,
Sarah, and six children brought a certificate removing
their rights of membership from Georgia to Miami
Meeting. In the year 1806, Thomas and Esther Em-
bree and their three children, and Isaac and Hannah
(Ballinger) Embree and their four children brought
their removal certificate from New Hope Monthly
Meeting, Tennessee, to Miami Meeting. Thomas and
Isaac were sons of Moses and Margaret, mentioned
above, who were born in the years 1755 and 1762.
Isaac Embree's family, and perhaps others of the name,
settled in this county.
Evans. Three families of this name belonged to
Bush River Quarterly Meeting. The heads of the
oldest of these were Robert and Rebekah Evans, par-
ents of nine children, born in the years 1763 to 1783.
All these but one who died in childhood, grew up and
were married at Bush River Meeting, and perhaps all
came to Ohio. The oldest child, Ann, born in 1763,
married in 1784 Enoch Pearson, the preacher; Martha,
born in 1766, married David Jenkins in 1789; Rebekah,
born in 1780, married in 1803 Isaac Haskett, and Jo-
seph, born in 1773, married in 1798 Rachel McCool,
daughter of Gabriel. He laid out the town of West
Milton one hundred years ago. All these were prom-
inent citizens in Miami County, Ohio, and in the West
Branch Meetings. Robert, the father, died in South
Carolina in about 1784.
17
Another Evans family lived at Wrightsboro, Geor-
gia. The parents of this were Joseph Evans (1749-
1828) and Esther Buffington (1751-1830). They
were married in 1773. and were parents of twelve chil-
dren, the youngest being Sallie, born in 1797, who
married John Furnas in 17 18. The removal certifi-
cate for Joseph Evans and his wife Esther and chil-
dren, Margaret, Robert, Mary, Aaron and Sallie, from
Wrightsboro Monthly Meeting to Miami Monthly
Meeting is "dated 4 Mo. 6th, 1805, and received at Mia-
mi Monthly Meeting 6 Mo. 12th, 1806. Robert and
Joseph Evans were probably brothers, though I have
not met with any records to prove it. The minutes
of Bush River Monthly Meeting show that Robert
Evans was one of its leading members for more than
twenty years in its business affairs. He made at least
one journey "as far as to Philadelphia in regard to his
temporal affairs," which is pretty. good proof that he
was a native of Pennsylvania.
The head of the other Evans family at Bush River
was Benjamin Evans, who came to South Carolina
from near Philadelphia as a young man and married
there about 1790. He came to Ohio with his family
in 1803 and settled in Warren County, where he lived
and died. It is not supposed that he was related to the
other two families and certainly no near connection.
He was a blacksmith by trade and the inventor of the
screw augur.
Furnas. John Furnas, born 1736, and Mary Wil-
kinson, born 1742, in the north of England, were mar-
ried at Friends' Meeting at Wigton, Cumberland Coun-
ty, England, Third Month 24, 1762, and the same
year emigrated to America, landing at Charleston,
South Carolina, in the latter part of February, 1763.
In a short time they located at Bush River, Newberry
County, South Carolina, where they lived and died, he
in 1777 and she in 1782. They were parents of seven
children, five sons and two daughters, born in the
years 1763- 1775. All their children married in
South Carolina and had children born there,
and all but two retained their membership with
the Friends. Five of them and their families re-
ceived removal certificates from Bush River Monthly
Meeting in 1804 and 1805 to Miami Monthly Meeting,
and three of these, one son and two daughters, settled
in Miami County, Ohio, and their families added thirty
18
members to West Branch Monthly Meeting. Although
John and Mary Furnas died rather young, a little more
than forty years each, the children all lived to a fair
age, the average of the seven being sixty-nine years
and four months, a high average for a whole family.
Haskett. Isaac and Joseph Haskett appear to have
come to Bush River from eastern North Carolina.
Isaac probably lived a while on the Wateree River
at the Camden Meeting before coming to Bush River.
Joseph remained there only a short time, receiving a
lemoval certificate from Bush River Meeting to Center
Monthly Meeting, North Carolina, in 1775. The family
of Isaac and Lydia Haskett, two sons and seven
daughters, born in the years 1765 to 1781, is given in
the Bush River Family Registry. Isaac Haskett's
name occurs often in the business of the meeting on
committees requiring clearness and accuracy of judg-
ment. His two sons, Thomas, born in 1766, and Isaac,
born in 1777, both married in South Carolina; Thomas
married a daughter of Marmaduke Mills, and Isaac
married, in 1803, Rebekah Evans, daughter of Isaac
and Rebekah. Their removal certificate in coming to
Ohio is dated 4 Mo. 26th, 1806, and was received at
Miami Monthly Meeting 1 Mo. 8th, 1807, nine days
before the opening of West Branch Monthly Meeting.
They settled near West Milton, Ohio, and Thomas'
family settled in Warren County, Ohio. Thomas and
Isaac Haskett were carpenters and built the new meet-
ing-house at Bush River which was finished about the
beginning of the exodus of the Friends from South
Carolina.
Holungsworth. The early settlers of the name of
Hollingsworth in Miami County, Ohio, were descend-
ants of Valentine Hollingsworth, born in England
about 1630, who died in the State of Delaware after
1710. In 1682, he, his wife Ann and seven children
came to America from the Parish of Sego, County of
Armagh, Ireland, and settled on a large plantation of
nearly one thousand acres in New Castle County, Del-
aware, five miles north-east of the present city
of Wilmington. His son, Thomas Hollingsworth,
born in Ireland, in 1661, died in Winchester, Virginia,
in 1702-3, whither he had removed a few years be-
fore. Thomas' son, Abraham, born in Delaware, 1686,
died near Winchester, Virginia, in 1748. His son,
George, the great-grandson of Valentine, the immi-
19
grant, had a family of eleven children by two wives,
nine sons and two daughters. In 1762, he sold his
property near Winchester, Virginia, and all the family,
except the son, Robert, went south and settled at Bush
River, Newberry County, South Carolina. His oldest
son, Joseph, born in 1735, went to South Carolina,
a widower with two sons, where at Bush River Meet-
ing, in Sixth Month, 1768, he married Margaret Ham-
mer, a widow, daughter of John and Rachel Wright.
They were the parents of ten children, but none of
them on coming north, settled in Miami County, Ohio.
Their second son, Isaac, was the father of Gulielma
Hollingsworth, the mother of Joseph Gurney Can-
non, present Speaker of the United States House of
Representatives.
Isaac Hollingsworth, 1739-1809, second son of
George, also married a daughter of John and Rachel
Wright, Susannah, 12 Mo. 12th, 1771, at Bush River
Meeting. She was a prominent minister in the So-
ciety of Friends, both in the South and after coming
to Ohio, which they did in 1805. They had nine chil-
dren, some of whom are ancestors of active members
in the West Branch Meeting the last one hundred
years. Their daughter Ruth, born in 1781, married
John Pearson, born in 1776, son of Benjamin and
Margaret (Evans) Pearson. John and Ruth were the
great-grandparents of our worthy presiding officer, Dr.
H. R. Pearson. Their daughter, Keziah, born in 1784,
married Robert Pearson, born in 1771, brother of John.
Both these marriages took place in South Carolina.
Their youngest daughter, Susannah, born in 1788, mar-
ried Elisha Jones, born in 1786, and they were grand-
parents of Arena Kersey and William A. Jones, from
whom we are to hear this afternoon on the program.
The families of two other sons of George Hollings-
worth settled in Miami County, James and Henry. Of
Henry's seven children four married companions of the
name of Coppock.
Jay. John Jay, 1752-1829, an early settler in Miami
County, Ohio, was the son of William Jay, born in
Maryland or Virginia about 1720. The first account
we have of him he was living in Frederick County,
Virginia, near Winchester. There, about 1743, he
married Mary Vestal, daughter of William and Eliza-
beth (Mercer) Vestal.' The Vestal family came from
Chester County, Pennsylvania, to the settlement of
20
the Friends in the Shenandoah Valley, already men-
tioned, about 1730. They were Friends, and it appears
that their daughter's marriage to William Jay, who
was not a member, caused her to lose her right. Wil-
liam and Mary Jay had eight children, five sons and
three daughters, born in the years 1744 to 1765. My
father's account of these children to me almost a half
century ago, as he remembered them in the order of
their ages was : that James was a Baptist preacher ;
William, the grandfather of Elijah Jay; Joseph, the
father of Jane Elleman, wife of William Elleman ;
John his father; Mary married Charles Patty; Rachel
married George Arnold ; Lydia married James Mills ;
and David, a very jovial and social man with young
people, was a Methodist preacher, had a son John and
emigrated to Alabama from South Carolina. None of
these were members with the Friends in Virginia,
though they no doubt grew up among them in the
vicinity of Hopewell Meeting.
When the wave of southern emigration passed over
that region, about 1770, this Jay family was carried
along in it to Bush River, South Carolina. The three
older sons seem to have married in Virginia, but they
and their families were in the migration. It appears
that soon after their removal to Bush River, the five
younger children became members in the Society of
Friends ; they are so enrolled in the Family Registry
of that meeting. Unfortunately, the minutes of the
meeting, prior to Fourth Month, 1772, are lost, and
so we cannot learn the time or the way in which this
came about. From the minutes of Hopewell Month-
ly Meeting, Virginia, we learn that in the latter part
of the year 1772, their mother, Mary Jay, formerly
Vestal, gave there a paper concerning her outgoing in
marriage, which was taken "as satisfaction/' and she
received a removal certificate of membership with the
Friends to Bush River, South Carolina. In the Third
Month, 1773, two of her children were married ac-
cording to Friends' order in that meeting. John, on
the 4th to Elizabeth Pugh (1755-1821), and Mary,
born in 1755, on the nth, to Charles Patty. In the
marriage certificate of John Jay he is described as
son of William Jay, deceased, and Mary Jay, from
which it is evident that William Jay had died some
time previous to that date and probably before the
family left Virginia.
21
Elizabeth PugB, wife of John Jay, was daughter of
Thomas Pugh, born in 1731 and Ann Wright, born
in 1725. both natives of Pennsylvania. She was the
granddaughter of Jesse Pugh, born 171 1, who was
the grandson of Ellis Pugh, born in 1656 in Wales,
from whence in 1687, he came to the province of Penn-
sylvania and died there in 1718. Ellis Pugh was an
approved minister amongst the Friends, both in Wales,
and in Pennsylvania, preaching- in the Welsh language
and was instrumental in gathering many of that na-
tionality around Philadelphia into membership with
the Friends. John and Elizabeth Pugh Jay were
parents of eleven children, seven sons and four daugh-
ters, born in South Carolina in the years 1773 to 1795.
Three of them married at Bush River Meeting. In
the first half of the year 1803, John Jay and family,
including ten of his children, came to Warren County,
Ohio. There he engaged in mercantile business at
W r aynesville, Ohio, for about five years. In that time,
for the purpose of buying goods, he made two trips
with his own five-horse team to Baltimore, Maryland,
with produce from the new country. My father, Walter
Denny Jay, went with him as companion and teamster.
In the meantime he entered land in the south-west cor-
ner of Monroe township, Miami County, Ohio, and
when a home was prepared the family settled on this
land. From the date of the certificate transferring
their membership from Miami to West Branch this
removal appears to have been in the autumn of 1808,
and here in a few years nine of his eleven children with
their families were settled around him, most of them
on farms adjoining each other.
Grandfather John Jay's brother, William, "grand-
father of Elijah Jay," also had eleven children from
two marriages, seven sons and four daughters. The
six children by his first wife all joined Friends in South
Carolina, and the oldest one, Susannah Jay, of the
second marriage. Four of these seven married in
Friends Meeting in South Carolina ; James and Lay-
ton Jay marrying two sisters, Jemimah and Elizabeth
Mills, and the two daughters, Anna Jay (1765-1821),
marrying in 1790 John Coppock, son of John and
Abigail, and Susannah Jay (1778-1859), marrying in
1796 Benjamin Coppock (1772-1850), son of Joseph
and Jane. The two oldest sons of William Jay, David,
born in 1764, and James, born in 1766, on coming
22
north, settled a while in Warren County, Ohio, then
lived from 1822 to 1842 in the northern part of Wayne
County, Indiana, at a meeting- called Center, and then
went to Henry County, Iowa, where many of their de-
scendants still live.
Jenkins. In giving an account of the Friends of
Bush River, Judge O'Neal says that David Jenkins
came there about 1762, or possibly a few years earlier.
Although we have no records telling us where he came
from, there are certain facts which make it quite sure
that he came from Pennsylvania. Possibly he had
stopped for awhile at some of the Friends' Meetings
by the way, it may be at Hopewell, Virginia, where
some of the name are known to have lived later on.
The family of David and Elizabeth Jenkins on the
Bush River Family Registry consists of seven sons
and two daughters, born in the years 1755 to 1776.
The marriages of five of these sons, Isaac, born in
1757, David, born 1760, Thomas, 1762, Jesse, 1766,
and Amos, 1769, and the daughter Elizabeth, born in
1772, were in the Friends' meeting at Bush River. The
oldest son, William, born in 1755, did not marry ac-
cording to the order of Friends, and there is no ac-
count of the marriage of the other daughter, Mary,
born 1764. The youngest child Enoch, born 1776, was
unmarried when the family came to Ohio, 1805. Two
of the sons, Isaac and David Jenkins, were very prom-
inent in the business transactions of the meeting. Isaac
died when about thirty years of age, leaving a son,
David, perhaps an only child. David Jenkins, Jr., mar-
ried Martha Evans, daughter of Robert and Rebekah
in 1789. They had a family of eight children, two
sons and six daughters, all born in South Carolina in
the years 1790 to 1805. No name occurs oftener in
the business of Bush River Monthly Meeting than that
of David Jenkins. As there were two of the same
name, father and son, both active in the business of
the meeting, it is sometimes difficult to understand
which one was intended. There were eight removal
certificates issued by Bush River transferring the mem-
bership of David Jenkins and his descendants in the
years 1805 and 1806, four in each year, and these em-
braced thirty-five persons. In coming to Ohio there
were three David Jenkins, David, the father, David,
his son, and David, his grandson, the son of Isaac,
born about the year 1786. The marriage of this David
23
Jenkins to Ann Russell was the first one that took place
under West Branch Monthly Meeting', the marriage
being in the Concord settlement, Monroe Township.
He was afterward a leading citizen in that township,
serving as Justice of the Peace nearly thirty years and
was widely known as Squire Jenkins.
Jones. There were in the early times four families
of the name of Jones in the limits of West Branch
Quarterly Meeting. The first of these to settle there
came from Georgia. Their ancestor in America was
an emigrant to the Province of Pennsylvania in the
time of William Penn. His wife is said to have been
a sister of Sir Isaac Newton. His son, Francis Jones,
married in Pennsylvania and must have been born
about 1730 to 1735, as his oldest child was born in 1752.
In his southern emigration we find that he lived for
awhile at Cane Creek Meeting, North Carolina. The
records of Bush River Monthly Meeting show' that
the removal certificates for Francis Jones, his wife and
their twelve children from Cane Creek Meeting dated
10th Mo. 3d, 1772, was received 1st Mo. 30th, 1773.
This was before the opening of Wrightsboro Monthly
Meeting and probably marks the time of their settle-
ment in Georgia. Two other children were born in
this family in Georgia, making fourteen in all. They
remained in Georgia about thirty-two years. The re-
moval certificates of Francis Jones and his son Samuel,
wife and ten of his eleven children to Miami Monthly
Meeting, Ohio, was dated in 1805. This son, Samuel
Jones, about 1780, married Mary Mote, daughter of
David and Dorcas (Nichols) Mote. They settled near
West Milton, Ohio, in 1805. They had seven sons
and four daughters.
The head of a second family was Elisha Jones, who
settled near West Milton, Ohio. He was the son of
John and Margaret Jones. They were not members of
the Friends. Elisha Jones was recorded a member
by Bush River Monthly Meeting, 7 Mo. 31st, 1802,
when he was sixteen years old. His removal certifi-
cate from that Meeting to Miami Monthly Meeting,
Ohio, is dated 12 Mo. 28th, 1805, and he married under
sanction of Miami Monthly Meeting the next summer,
Susannah Hollings worth, youngest daughter of Isaac
and Susannah Hollingsworth. This match is under-
stood to have been made in South Carolina, but con-
summated in Ohio.
24
A third Jones family of Miami County is represented
by two Wallace Joneses, father and son. Though
coming to Ohio from Bush River settlement, South
Carolina, they were not Friends. The father died in
1823. The son, born in South Carolina in 1773, mar-
ried there about his twentieth year, Rachel Patty,
daughter of James and Margaret (Mote) Patty. They
came to Ohio about 1806; they were parents of seven
children, the most of whom were born in South Caro-
lina. Wallace Jones, in his younger days, is described
as being active and impulsive, but in later years after
he joined the Friends, he was an example of sincerity
and self restraint, though always original and somewhat
eccentric in his ways. Wallace and Rachel Jones and
their seven children joined the Friends at West Branch
in First Month, 181 1. His wife, Rachel, dying in 1828,
he had for a second wife Ruth (Hollingsworth) Pear-
son, widow of John Pearson. They both died in 1854.
The fourth line of the Jones name came from Deep
Creek Monthly Meeting of the Friends, North Caro-
lina, and has Abijah Jones as its representative. He
was the son of Richard and Jemima Jones, was born in
1767, and in 1791 married Rachel Harris, daughter of
Obadiah. They had a family of eight children, six
of whom were born in North Carolina. He was a
recorded minister among Friends and lived in Mont-
gomery County, Ohio, at a meeting called Randolph,
where also there were two other Jones families, sup-
posed to be of the same line. Stephen, born 1792, and
Francis, born 1797, both had large families there
which are recorded in the Registry of Mill Creek
Monthly Meeting, Ohio.
Kelly. Two brothers, Samuel and John Kelly, and
their sister Abigail, from Kings County, Ireland, were
living on the Wateree River, near Camden, South
Carolina, as early as 1753. In 1762, Samuel Kelly and
probably the others also, was at the Bush River settle-
ment, being among the earliest Friends to settle there.
Samuel Kelly's wife was Hannah Belton, of Queens
County, Ireland. The Bush River records show that
they had five children, born in the years 1758 to 1767.
His daughter, Anna Kelly, married Hugh O'Neall, son
of William and Mary, and their son, John Belton
O'Neall, who was at his death in 1863, a judge of the
Supreme Court of South Carolina, was the author of
the "Annals of Newberry," mentioned above. John
25
Kelly's wife was Mary Evans. They had six children
that grew up and three that died in childhood. Their
daughter, Anna Kelly, married Abijah O'Neall, brother
of Hugh. Pie was born in 1762, in Frederick County,
Virginia. He and his brother-in-law, Samuel Kelly,
Jr., were the leaders in the exodus of the Friends from
South Carolina ; Abijah, with a company, coming to
Ohio in 1799. Moses Kelly, the youngest son of John
and Mary, born in 1783, married in South Carolina,
in 1800, Mary Teague, daughter of Samuel and Re-
becca. They came to Ohio in 1805 and lived in the
limits of West Branch Quarterly Meeting about twenty
years, when they moved to Western Indiana. Their
grandson, Robert L. Kelly, is now president of Earl-
ham College, Richmond, Ind. None of the descend-
ants of Samuel Kelly, Sr., appear to have come north.
He was one of the very few< Friends, at Bush River,
who suffered himself to be disowned rather than free
his slaves. His brother John's family were strong
in their opposition to slavery, Abijah O'Neall, his son-
in-law, getting the Friends to leave there on account
of slavery. Most of John Kelly's descendants settled
in Warren County, Ohio.
Another Kelly family about West Milton was rep-
resented by Samuel and Seth Kelly, who came from
New England, as young men, bringing their right of
membership with Friends from Smithfield Monthly
Meeting, Rhode Island. Samuel, born in 1792, came
in 1 8 16 and Seth, born in 1794, came in 1822. They
were great-grandsons of a Seth Kelly, born in Ireland
in 1700, who came to America and settled in Eastern
Massachusetts, where he died in 1758.
He is described as one of three brothers who came
to America. If the Kelly ancestry were examined in
Ireland, the South Carolina line and the Massachusetts
line would probably be found to have a common origin,
not many generations back.
Macy. Three families of the name of Macy settled
in the limits of West Branch Quarterly Meeting. They
were: Thomas Macy, son of Paul and Bethiah, born
in Nantucket in 1765, and brought to Guilford County,
North Carolina, by his parents in 1773 ; he married at
Deep River Meeting, 1787, Anna Sweet, also born in
Nantucket, and removed to East Tennessee in 1797,
from whence he came to Ohio in 1807; second, his
brother Paul Macy, born in Guilford County, North
26
Carolina, 1780, and married in 1801, Eunice Macy r
came to Ohio with his father in 1818; third, Stephen
Macy, son of Enoch and Anna, horn in Guilford
County, North Carolina, 1778, married in North Caro-
lina, Rebecca Barnard, and came to Ohio in 1808.
These three men were of the sixth generation of the
Macy family in America, being" great-grandsons of
a Thomas Macy, born in Nantucket in 1687 and who
died there in 1759. This Thomas Macy was grandson
of Thomas Macy, the immigrant from Salisbury,
County of Wilts, England, where he was born in 1608,
and who came to America between 1635 and 1640, and
settled at Salisbury, now Amesbury, Massachusetts.
Here he lived till 1659. In the fore-part of that year
he was one of a company of ten stockholders who pur-
chased the island of Nantucket as a place of residence
and as a refuge from the bigotry and persecution of
the Puritans in Massachusetts. In the autumn of that
vear, 1659, with his young family, accompanied by his
trustv friend, Edward Starbuck, some years older than
himself, and Isaac Coleman, a lad, he went to Nan-
tucket from Salisbury in an open sailboat. They re-
sided there through that winter, surrounded by three
thousand Indians, who received them kindly and as-
sisted them in getting a living by fishing and such other
pursuits as they followed to sustain themselves. The
next summer they were joined by other families of the
company and the colony increased and prospered. This
Thomas Macy died in 1682, seventy-four years of age.
The early settlers of Nantucket were generally of the
Baptist persuasion and in settling in Nantucket they
sought a home where, unmolested, they might practise
and enjoy their religious convictions. It was about
forty years after the settlement of the island before
it was visited by ministers of the Society of Friends.
John Richardson, Thomas Story and Thomas Chalkley
visited the island at different times and found there
an honest-hearted people, willing to hear them and,
when their judgments were convinced, ready to re-
ceive the truths of the Gospel as they presented them.
This soon led to the establishment of a Friends' Meet-
ing on the island which took place in the year 1708.
The first of the Macy name to join the Friends was
John Macy, grandson of the immigrant Thomas Macy,
and his wife, Judith (Worth) Macy. This was in 171 1.
This John Macy was born about 1675 and died in
1 75 1. The maiden name of the mothers of Thomas,
27
Stephen and Paul Macy, mentioned above, was Macy,
being granddaughters of the John Macy who first
joined the Friends. Their sons were therefor not only
great-grandsons of the Thomas Macy mentioned be-
fore, but also of his brother John Macy.
Of the three Macy settlers in Ohio, Stephen was
cousin to Thomas and Paul, their fathers, Enoch and
Paul, being brothers, both emigrants from Nantucket
to North Carolina in 1773. Paul came to Ohio when
near eighty years of age. He sat at the head of Mill
Creek Meeting many years, dying in 1832 in his ninety-
second year. His son Paul died at Troy, Ohio, in
1868 in his eighty-ninth year, and his grandson Paul,
son of Thomas, in 189 1, near Dayton, Ohio, in his
ninety-fourth year. Stephen Macy's family resided
in Montgomery County, at Randolph Meeting, from
where he removed in 1826 to Richmond, Indiana. He
died there in 1857. His son John M. Macy was a
noted teacher in Friends' schools from seventy to fiftv
years ago. He died in Henry County, Indiana, in
1887, in his eighty-first year.
A Robert Macy and family also came to Ohio in
1808 from North Carolina but returned there the next
year. He came again in 18 12 and returned in 181 6.
His wife was Elizabeth Gardner, sister of the wives
of Caleb and Joseph Mendenhall.
Mendenhall. Caleb and Joseph Mendenhall were
among the early settlers at West Branch. Thev were
sons of Phineas and Tamar (Kirk) Mendenhall, born
in North Carolina, Caleb in 1769 and Joseph in 1772.
Phineas was the son of James and Hannah (Thomas)
Mendenhall. He is described as James Mendenhall,
the miller of Jamestown, North Carolina. He was the
son of Aaron and Rose (Pierson) Mendenhall, mar-
ried under sanction of Concord Monthly Meeting,
Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1715. James was
no doubt born in Pennsylvania. Aaron Mendenhall
was the son of John, the immigrant from England, and
Elizabeth (Maris) Mendenhall. He came to America
in the time of William Penn. They were married in
Pennsylvania in 1685. All the American ancestors of
Caleb and Joseph Mendenhall were members of the
Society of Friends.
Phineas Mendenhall, his wife and their five chil-
dren went from North Carolina to Wrightsboro, Geor-
gia, in 1772. Their removal certificate was received at
28
Bush River Monthly Meeting", 12 Mo. 26th, 1772, and
they were members of that meeting till the establish-
ment of Wrightsboro Monthly Meeting the next year.
While residing in Georgia, the Creek Indians, in a
state of war, made an attack on the Mendenhall home,
killed the mother and one of the children, and took the
son, Joseph, captive. They held him for some months
till ransomed by his father. The family finally left
Georgia and returned to North Carolina. There, in
1 791, Caleb Mendenhall and Susannah Gardner were
married, and in 1795, Joseph Mendenhall and Rachel
Gardner were married. Both these marriages were at
Deep River Meeting, Guilford County. A few years,
afterward they removed to Ohio and settled at West
Branch on farms east and south-east of the meeting-
house. Their wives were sisters, daughters of William
and Susannah Gardner and sisters of Robert Macy's
wife, Elizabeth Gardner. Both Caleb and Joseph had
large families.
Mote. David and Dorcas (Nichols) Mote were an-
cestors of the most of the Mote family that were early
settlers at West Branch. David Mote was born in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1733, and Dorcas a
year or two earlier. David Mote was the son of Jona-
than Mote, the immigrant to Pennsylvania from Mid-
dlesex County, England. The time of David Mote's
family going to South Carolina is not known. His
name occurs in the proceedings* of the first meeting of
Bush River Monthly Meeting of which we have the
minutes. From the records of that meeting it is
evident that the Mote family was residing at Bush
River when Wrightsboro Monthly Meeting was set
up in 1773. More than a year after it was opened,
3 Mo. 25th, 1775, David Mote and family requested
a certificate of membership to Wrightsboro Monthly
Meeting, Georgia. They had at that time five sons and
four daughters, one other son was born afterwards.
Their rights of membership remained at Wrightsboro
between twenty-eight and thirty years. The re-
moval certificate for the son Jeremiah Mote and
family to Miami, Ohio, is dated Third Month, 1803 ;
for David and Dorcas, the parents, Third Month, 1804;
for their son Jonathan and family, Fifth Month, 1804 ;
and for the son John and family, Fourth Month, 1805.
These certificates transferred the membership of twen-
ty-six persons to Miami Monthly Meeting. A great-
29
>
grandson of David and Dorcas Mote writes that they,
in company with their sons, Jeremiah and William,
came to West Branch in September, 1802, and that
the rest soon followed. This- would show that they
did not request the transfer of their membership with
Friends until they had been in Ohio some time. They
all settled in the vicinity of West Branch Meeting-
house.
Neal. Two families of this name came from New
Hope Monthly Meeting, Tennessee, to Ohio ; William
and Rachel Neal and their son Mahlon ; and Henry
and Rebecca Neal and their children, Benjamin, Phebe
and William. We have no account of the ancestry or
origin of these families. William, the father of the
first family is mentioned in the Bush River Records as
early as 1773, when he was one of the committee to
visit the Georgia Friends at Wrightsboro about the
request for the establishment of a monthly meeting
amongst them. It appears that he left Bush River soon
after and was, perhaps, an early settler among the
Friends in eastern Tennessee. He was a recorded
minister in the Society of Friends when he came to
Ohio, but where he was recorded is not known. He
was perhaps the first resident minister amongst the
West Branch Friends. It appears that the removal
certificates of four recorded ministers, afterwards mem-
bers at West Branch, were received at Miami Month-
ly Meeting before the establishment of W r est Branch
Monthly Meeting. They were Mary Pearson and
Susannah Hollingsworth from Bush River, certificates
received Seventh Month, 1805 ; William Neal from
New Hope Monthly Meeting, certificate received
Twelfth Month, 1805 ; and Enoch Pearson from Bush
River, certificate received Ninth Month, 1806. Neither
Mary Pearson nor Susan Hollingsworth appear to
have settled in Miami County for some time after the
reception of their certificates, but W'illiam Neal and
Enoch Pearson located there before or soon after the
reception of their certificates. Of these ministers, Mary
Pearson died first, about 1812; William Neal about
1822; Susannah Hollingsworth about 1830, near eighty
years of age ; and Enoch Pearson in Twelfth Month,
1839, m hi s seventy-ninth year.
Patty. Margaret Mote, the oldest daughter of
David and Dorcas Mote, born in 1753, married James
Patty. They had at least four children, three sons,
30
James, David, and Charles, and one daughter, Rachel,
who was the wife of Wallace Jones. There were per-
haps other children. These four all came to Ohio from
Bush River and settled in the limits of West Branch
Quarterly Meeting. James, who married Anna Brown
in South Carolina, was an active member of West
Branch Monthly Meeting in its first twenty years, and
in Indiana Yearly Meeting from its beginning in 182 1
to 1828. He appeared to have died soon after the last
date. All three of the sons had good sized families.
Pearson. The Pearsons who were early settlers in
Miami County, Ohio, from Newberry County, South
Carolina, were descendants of three brothers, Samuel,
Benjamin and Thomas, who went to South Carolina
a few years before the Revolutionary War. They were
natives of Pennsylvania, born it seems in the years,
1720 to 1730. They were sons of Enoch and Mary
(Smith) Pearson, married in 1719. Three other chil-
dren are known to have belonged to this family ; first,
Enoch who died young; second, William, who re-
mained in Pennsylvania, but going in 1780 to South
Carolina afoot to visit his brothers and to conclude
some business transactions with one of them, took sick
there and died at his brother, Thomas's, and was
buried in the burying ground at Bush River ; and third,
Margery Pearson, who, nth Mo. 15th, 1759, mar-
ried Nathaniel Squibb at Chester Meeting, Pennsyl-
vania. Enoch Pearson, born 1690, was the fourth son
of Thomas and Margery (Smith) Pearson who were
married according to Friends' order at Cheshire,
England, 2 Mo. 18th, 1683. They came to America
the same year, arriving at Philadelphia 7 Mo. 20th,
1683. It appears that they settled on land in Marple
Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, which
Thomas' brother, John Pearson, had bought of William
Penn before his leaving England. The record of the
deed for this land is in the City Hall, of Philadelphia.
Records at the Court House at West Chester, Penn-
sylvania, show that this land or a part of it, was trans-
ferred by John Pearson to his brother Thomas, who,
in turn transferred it to his oldest son, Robert Pear-
son, before his death in 1734.
Of the three brothers who went to South Carolina,
Benjamin and Thomas went direct from Pennsylvania
to what was afterward Newberry County, South Caro-
lina, about 1768.. Samuel, who was living in Virginia
31
before 1767, at a place called Worthington's Marsh,
ten miles from Winchester and five miles from the
Shenandoah River, in 1771 removed to South Carolina.
He received from Hopewell Monthly Meeting, Virgin-
ia, a certificate of the membership of himself and
family to Bush River Monthly Meeting, South Caro-
lina. Neither Benjamin nor Thomas nor their families
appear to have been members of Friends when they
went to South Carolina. From the records of Bush
River Meeting we learn that Thomas Pearson and his
eight children became members of that meeting, by re-
quest, in Twelfth Month, 1773. This was after the
death of his wife Ann (Powell) Pearson, whom he
had married 6 Mo. 5th, 1751, at Philadelphia. In
1775, Thomas Pearson married his second wife, Mary
Campbell, with approval of Bush River Monthly Meet-
ing, at Padgett's Creek Meeting. She was a widow,
the mother, of three children by a husband named John
Inscoe, and two named Campbell by her second hus-
band, Samuel Campbell ; and by Thomas Pearson had
two daughters, making the number of his children ten,
six sons and four daughters, born in the years 1753
to 1778. Five of these sons and two daughters ap-
peared to have lived and died in Monroe Township,
Ohio, after coming north.
Samuel Pearson married four times ; first about
1749, place unknown, Martha Worthington, by whom
he had three children ; second, in 1757 at Fairfax Meet-
ing, Virginia, Christian Potts, by whom he had one
child name Martha, afterwards the wife of Henry
Steddom ; third, in 1762, in Frederick County, Virgin-
ia, Mary Rogers, who was the mother of four of his
children ; and fourth, Mary Steddom, a widow with a
son and daughter who afterwards married a daughter
and son of Samuel. This fourth wife was afterwards
Mary Pearson, the minister. By his fourth wife, Sam-
uel had a daughter named Sarah, born in 1773, who
in 1790 married Joseph Furnas. In all Samuel Pear-
son had nine children, four sons and five daughters.
Two sons and two daughters settled in Miami County,
living and dying there. One of these, Samuel, born
in 1767, marrying in 1790 Mary Coate, daughter of
John Coate the blacksmith, located in Monroe Town-
ship. They had nine sons and two daughters. The
other three, Benjamin, born in 170?. Eunice Mills,
born in 1770, and Sarah Furnas, born in South Caro-
32
lina in 1773, located in the southern part of Newton
Township. Benjamin Pearson in 1790 married Esther
Furnas at Bush River, South Carolina. They had
seven sons and three daughters.
Benjamin Pearson, the third of the three brothers,
had two wives ; the first Agatha Brooks, the mother of
three sons and two daughters ; second, Margaret Evans
the mother of six sons and one daughter who died
young. Both of these marriages appear to have been
in Pennsylvania, the first about 1752, and the second
about 1762. In all. his children were nine sons and
three daughters. Two sons and a daughter died in
South Carolina, leaving seven sons and two daughters
who came to Ohio. Of these, four sons and the two
daughters appear to have located in Monroe Town-
ship ; two sons, Robert and John, who married daugh-
ters of Isaac and Susannah Hollingsworth, located in
Union Township, on Ludlow Creek, and one son
Joseph Pearson in the northern part of Montgomery
County. It might be noted that each of the Carolina
brothers had a son named Enoch, two of whom lived'
in Monroe Township, Ohio, Enoch the blacksmith, son
of Benjamin, born in 1760; and Enoch, the preacher,
son of Thomas, born in 1761. In my boyhood days
there were in my acquaintance in Miami County, Ohio,
six Enoch Pearsons. In addition to the two named
above, the blacksmith had a son called Teant Enoch ;
and the preacher, a grandson called Nuck Enoch ; there
was also a grandson of the elder Samuel called Pony
Enoch ; and a great-grandson called Lame Enoch. Of
the three Pearson brothers that went to South Caro-
lina, Benjamin died there in 1788 and Samuel in 1790.
Only Thomas came to Ohio, in 1806, where he died
10 Mo. 13th, 1820, aged ninety-two years, six months
and twenty days, which gives his birth 3 Mo. 23d,
1728. He was probably the youngest of the three.
In his emigration to Ohio, in his seventy-ninth year
there came along with him, children, grandchildren,
and at least one great-grandchild, Sarah Pearson, born
in 1805, afterward the wife of Moses Pearson who
died here in West Milton in 1874, thirty-three years
ago last summer. No family name contributed more
families or persons to the membership of West Branch
Monthly Meeting one hundred years ago than the
Pearson name, the number of persons being about
forty.
33
Pemberton. It is understood that the Pembertons
of West Branch came from Bush River, South Caro-
lina, although I have found no removal certificates for
any of them to meetings in Ohio. The records of
Union Monthly Meeting, Ohio, state that Robert, John
and Isaiah Pemberton, born in the years 1788, 1789,
and 1790, whose large families are given on the family
registry of that meeting are sons of Isaiah and Esther
Pemberton, of South Carolina. This Isaiah is no
doubt the son of Isaiah and Elizabeth Pemberton,
whose family of twelve children, six sons and six
daughters, born in the years 1753 to l 77S are given
in the Bush River Family Registry. Isaiah and Eliza-
beth Pemberton and eleven of their children were
recorded members with the Friends at Bush River 3
Mo. 26th, 1774. Their daughter Ruth, born the next
year, in 1797, married Abel Thomas. The marriage
of two others of the daughters of this family — Ann,
born in 1764, to John Thomas in 1786, and Sarah,
born in 1772, to William Thomas in 1802 — occurred in
Bush River Meeting. These Thomas men were broth-
ers, sons of Isaac and Mary. It is supposed that the
Pembertons are of the Philadelphia line of that name
and in their southern emigration may have resided for
a time in Virginia. Some evidence if this is found in
the fact that on two occasions, in 1776 and 1784, some
of the family received from Bush River Monthly Meet-
ing certificates of membership to travel to Virginia
about their temporal affairs. It would seem that only
a small part of this large family came north, as all the
Pembertons in Miami County sprang from one of the
six sons of Isaiah and Elizabeth, viz., Isaiah born in
1766.
Teague. Samuel and Rebecca (Furnas) Teague,
two substantial Friends with their large family of chil-
dren all born in South Carolina, in the years 1783 to
1803, and their oldest daughter, who had married
there, were among the early members of West Branch
Monthly Meeting. Samuel, son of Elijah and Alice
Teague, was born in 1754. He was not a Friend but
is said to have been a soldier in the Revolutionary War.
Becoming convinced that war was wrong he left the
service and was tried by a court martial for desertion
and would probably have met the deserter's fate if his
principal judge had not been an officer whose life
Samuel had saved al the risk of his own on a former
3
34
occasion. He married Rebecca Furnas in 1783 and
subsequently joined the Friends at Bush River, but
when I have not learned. In reading the minutes of
Bush River Meeting', the first mention of his name
that I noted was in 1794. In 1799 ne was P ut * n the
station of Elder, a position long held by both himself
and wife in Union Monthly Meeting, Ohio. In the
"Genealogy of the Furnas Family" lately published,
giving the list of them down to 1897, the descendants
of Samuel and Rebecca Teague number eleven hun-
dred and thirty, in three hundred and two families;
certainly a very good showing for one hundred and
fourteen years.
Thomas. On the Family Registry of West Branch
Monthly Meeting there are eighteen families of the
Thomas name. The two oldest of these are John and
Abel Thomas, born according to the Bush River
Records in 1766 and 1768. Their wives were both
Pembertons and they were married in Bush River
Meeting in 1786 and 1797. From their marriage
record we learn that they were sons of Isaac and Mary
Thomas, whose family of twelve children, seven sons
and five daughters, born in the years 1761 to 1783, is
given on the Bush River Family Registry. This family
according to the investigations made by Francis W.
Thomas, of Spiceland, Indiana, is a branch of the
family that settled at New Garden, Wayne County,
Indiana, nearly one hundred years ago. This Thomas
family came from Pennsylvania and in their southern
emigration settled for awhile in a Friends settlement
near the border between North and South Carolina,
their meeting being called Piney Grove. Some of
them came to the settlement on Bush River. Where
or when this Bush River line branched off from the
other I have no means of knowing. Descendants of
the Piney Grove Thomases appear to have moved fur-
ther north in North Carolina and from there into
Wayne County as stated above.
Isaac Thomas and his family of Bush River were
recorded members 4 Mo. 30th, 1774. Three removal
certificates issued for members of the Thomas family
by Bush River Monthly Meeting were received at
Miami Monthly Meeting, Ohio, in the Spring and
Summer of 1807, bringing the membership of twenty-
five persons to that meeting. Several families of this
name located near Philipsburg, Montgomery County,
35
Ohio, south-west of West Branch Meeting and had a
meeting there called South Fork, which has been laid
down for many years, the members having moved
1406304
Thompson. The removal certificate of Joseph
Thompson issued by Hopewell Monthly Meeting, Vir-
ginia, 9 Mo, 6th, 1773, was received at Bush River in
the Twelfth Month following. Along with the certif-
icate was the recommendation of his five children to
the care of Friends, "they only having rights by the
father." Judge O'Xeal describing Friends Meeting
at Bush River in his "Annals of Newberry" says, along-
side David Jenkins "might be seen the tall form and
gray hairs of Tanner Thompson as he used to be called.
Scarcely could the sacred stillness of a Friends Meet-
ing keep him from snapping his thumb and finger to-
gether as if feeling a side of leather." But notwith-
standing his gray hairs he lived to come north, set-
tling in Monroe Township. His sons Richard and
Joseph in 1778 joined Friends and Richard in 1782
was married at Bush River Meeting to Hannah Stid-
man, from Pennsylvania and their family of seven
children, born in the years 1783 to 1797, is on the
Bush River Registry. Some of these children came to
Ohio, and three of their sons married sisters of Elijah
Jay, in the eighteen-twenties.
I have thus sketched brief accounts of some of the
families before they came to Ohio, that made up the
membership of the West Branch Meetings. No one
can be more conscious than myself how imperfectly
this has been done. Enough, I hope, has been brought
out to show that there were in these families persons
of such character and qualifications as fitted them to
be leaders, able to plan and execute what ought to be
done as new- occasions required. Many of these early
settlers had been trained in pioneer experience and
success before coming here, that well qualified them to
make comfortable homes and convenient surroundings
in the dense forests of the Miami Valley. Nor did
they rely solely on the arm of flesh to give them suc-
cess. They were men and women of religious experi-
ence and practice, accustomed to look for guidance
and help to a higher power than themselves, to a Being
that rules in the affairs of men. They first sought to
be conformed to the divine standard, believing that
then their labors would be blessed and crowned with
success.
36
It was my lot in early life to be acquainted with
many of these early pioneers, and it gives me great
pleasure to bear testimony to their goodness of heart,
to their considerate and loving judgment and their
correct walk in life, seeking to do justly, love mercy
and walk humbly with their God. With all their limi-
tations and shortcomings they were noble men and
women, faithful in the work assigned them. May we,
their descendants, be as faithful according to our light,
wider knowledge and better opportunities as they were
in their dav and generation.
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF WEST
BRANCH.
By Joseph Pemberton, West Milton, Ohio.
Impromptu — no paper.
It seems to me that we have just listened to a more
than ordinary interesting talk. Who would have be-
lieved that one mind could contain so much informa-
tion on this subject? Our friend, Eli Jay, has given
us an historical account of almost every family repre-
sented here to-day. I hope we will all remember what
we have heard.
What I say will be on the northern settlement here.
The Friends that settled up north of West Milton when
this country was all woods, owned nearly all the land
that was entered between Milton and Pleasant Hill.
They had no roads only an Indian path along the Still-
water River to the place where Dayton now stands.
They settled mostly on quarter sections. They did not
have such houses as we have now, but built their little
huts of small round poles, and covered them with
clap-boards which were cut out of logs. Some had
dirt floors, and others puncheon floors. They had no
'churches, but believed in the worship of God, and
came with a determination to carry it on. They held
meetings when they first came, by meeting around
from house to house. Later they built a meeting
house where they could all go, which was located just
north of where Ludlow now stands. It was built out
of round logs, and they hung quilts for a partition be-
tween the men's and the women's meeting.
Friends kept coming from the south, and some set-
tled on the east side of the river. The meeting kept
growing until this house would not hold the people,
37
and they built another down close to the river on a
hill. This one was made out of bigger logs, that were
hewed. I was a small boy when this house was built,
and can remember it very well. It was quite a house
in those days — the best there was in the country. It
was a little on the style of a Jewish Synagogue ; they
had a gallery.
The Friends all went to meeting in those days. They
filled that old meeting house even at Fourth-day Meet-
ing. I can remember about sixty-five years ago of my
father taking me with him, when I was a little fellow,
and I would stand up beside him in the meeting. This
is where I got my education. They appointed a com-
mittee to seat the members, and they put my father
upon one of the gallery seats facing the meeting. I
had to stand beside him even after that. It was a great
treat to me to stand beside my father in the gallery,
as I could look upon the congregation that assembled.
I would get tired sometimes, however, and my little
bones would ache. It would seem like an hour was a
whole day.
When any one offered prayer, the congregation stood
up and turned their faces the other way. That was
their custom then ; and sometimes the "Amen" was
said before the whole congregation got turned around.
The people had to go through the woods to get to
the meeting, and they blazed the trees to mark the
way so that no one would get lost. The whole family
went, no matter how many there were in number.
They went on horse-back, and those that could not get
a horse to ride on, walked. I remember of going with
my father's family, when I was the fourth one on the
horse. But it was a great treat for me to go, even
when I was the fourth one ; and if I could go back
sixty-five years and look upon the faces and witness
the kindly band-shaking of those old Friends, it would
do me a great deal of good even now. They were a
very honest people in all their dealings. If any of
them owed anything, they always paid it. If we had
fifty of those old-time Quakers introduced into the
business of West Milton, there would be no need of a
Farmers' Supply Company.
These old-time Friends were very hospitable, and did
not hesitate to entertain strangers. They manifested
a uniform kindness that was remarkable. They took
care of their own members that were poor, needy and
38
helpless. There were no hospitals in this country in
these early days. I remember of my father taking in
a poor member, and he stayed at our house six months.
When anybody was sick, they would go to see them.
It was not a question whether they were relatives or
not. They would alw r ays go to look after the suffering
and needy in the community about them.
After the country was cleared, the Friends in our
community mostly drove to meeting. I was used to
going where there were lots of horses hitched. Nearly
everybody went for four miles around, and took their
families.
Once I went over to Phillipsburg to visit my sister's
son, Edward Thomas. We were boys about the same
age. I stayed with them all night ; the next day was
their mid-week meeting. Edward went to build a fire
at the meeting house, that was near their home, and I
went with him. The name of this meeting was South
Fork. A fresh snow had fallen. We built a fire, and
went out to get some wood, when we saw a rabbit
track. The Friends had not come yet to the meeting,
so we struck out, boylike, to hunt the rabbit. Of course
we never thought but that we would get back before
the meeting assembled. We were gone longer than
we thought. When we started back to the meeting
house, as we were getting over a fence, Edward ban-
tered me for a race. We ran as hard as we could to
the meeting house. We did not hear a sound or see
a soul ; not one horse was hitched there. I finally got
ahead, and happened to be first when we reached the
meeting house. We were running so fast, I hap-
pened to strike the latch, the door flew open, and I
tumbled head long into the meeting house with Ed-
ward on top of me, never dreaming that there was any-
one present. Just as Edward fell, he caught a glimpse
of his surroundings, and cried out in surprise, "Why
there's somebody here." I looked around, and there
sat the old Friends assembled in solemn, silent wor-
ship. Living near the meeting house, they had walked
in without bringing horses and conveyances. Old Ed-
ward Thomas sat at the head of the meeting, and in
spite of his dignified position, this scene brought a
smile to his face. Isaac Thomas and Uncle George
Thomas were there. We boys were scared nearly to
death, and crept to our seats with our hearts beating,
until we imagined they could be heard all over the
39
house. That was the first time I can remember of
going" to meeting' where no horses were hitched, and
since then I have been pretty careful how I get into
meeting houses. I never went that way since.
Allusion was made at the town Centennial to the
high standard of morality and Christian character,
that exists among the people of our community at the
present time. Union Township was spoken of as the
banner township in Miami County. No wonder it is
spoken of in that way ; it ought to be the banner town-
ship, for it had the banner start.
I want to praise my Heavenly Father for the good
lives of these old pioneers, and I pray that the light
placed by them here in old Union Township may
never go out. We ought to thank God for the good
bringing-up that they strove to give us, and for the
blessings that have come to us, as a result of this, all
through the years. And you that have come here to
this Centennial, from the north and from the south
neighborhoods, may God bless you, every one, and
help you to live lives not less devoted to truth and prin-
ciple, than those of the dear old Friends, that settled a
century ago on the banks of the Still-water.
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF WEST
BRANCH MONTHLY MEETING.
By Enos Pkmp.erton, West Milton, Ohio.
Impromptu — no paper.
As I look at this programme that has assigned to
us our duties upon this occasion, it seems a pleasure to
me to look at the picture here of the old West Branch
meeting house building, which was erected about two
miles south of this place. The most of us here to-day
are very familiar with that old place of worship, — a
place where our forefathers worshipped, — a place
where their children worshipped, — and a place where
some of us, in our young experiences in life, had our
hearts touched with the love of God.
Well do I remember when my father moved to this
country. I was born in 1837, and according to the
rules of the Friends, was born a member of the So-
ciety. You need not expect as much of me as of my
Uncle Joseph, for he is four months older than I am.
I remember my first impression of West Branch
Monthly Meeting. It was composed of a large body
40
of Friends; and sometimes I look back over the past,
and think of what these men and women have done for
the citizenship of this country. As I look back, I can
see some of the noblest men and women that I ever be-
came acquainted with. Among them were Thomas
Jay and Thomas Hasket.
In the early history of West Branch, there was a par-
tition in the meeting house, that divided the men from
the women. After awhile, there was some agitation
in reference to. removing the wall that separated them,
but some objected. One day after a wind in the Fall,
leaves had been blown into the chimney ; and when
the fire was started, the room on the women's side was
filled with smoke, so that they had to take their seats
with the men. One of the agitators took occasion to
remark, that if they couldn't get them out any other
way, they would smoke them out.
Well do I remember how bashful I was, when I was
asked to carry a message to the women's meeting.
None but members of the meeting of Ministers and
Elders were allowed to attend the business sessions of
that body. Sometimes the husband would belong and
sometimes the wife, but the one that was not a member
stayed outside while the other was in the meeting.
Along about the close of the Civil War, I came home
from the conflict and was married to Mary Hoover,
who was not a member of the Friends. I married con-
trary to the Friends' rules and discipline. A commit-
tee was appointed and came to see me, and wanted me
to make acknowledgement. I thought a great deal of
my wife, and asked them to give me a trial, which they
decided to do, and I was continued in membership.
My present wife was first married to Henry Yount,
who was not a member of the Friends. A committee
waited upon her, and not getting satisfactory results,
she was disowned from the meeting. The committee's
decision in the case was as follows :
"Thursey Yount, formerly Pearson, who has had a
right of membership in the Society of Friends has ac-
complished her marriage contrary to the discipline,
and has been treated with, without the desired effect,
therefore she ceases to be a member with us."
Linas Mote,
Hannah L. Mote,
Clerks.
In after years, her husband died; I was married to
4i
her, and she was received back into membershfp. We
have both been members ever .since, and are neither
of ns sorry of it.
I remember when I first commenced my ministry.
I began in West Branch Monthly Meeting. I needed
a great deal of encouragement, my friends. Some-
times I would become very discouraged, but Thomas
Jay and Thomas Hasket would come to me and say,
"Be of good cheer." Then, there were others that
would say they were a little fearful that I would not
hold out. They would look back over my life, — my
army life, — and it was very discouraging to me.
It used to seem to me an odd thing to sit in a meet-
ing and listen to an organ and singing ; but now I am
used to it and, in fact, I rather like to hear it. I never
pretend to sing very much myself, but I like to listen to
others. We are progressing, my friends, but we want
to keep in close touch with the power of God, for we
must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
The men used to keep their hats on when they sat
in the meetings, refusing to uncover their heads, be-
cause it was obligatory upon the subjects of the old
world to remove their hats, when entering the pres-
ence of the crowned heads, and by their action they
demonstrated that they did not bow to worship human
beings, but recognized a higher power.
When I reflect upon what West Branch Monthly
Meeting has accomplished, — when I think of the young
men and women preachers, that God has sent out from
here, that have gone from place to place to preach the
Gospel, I feel thankful for the privilege of being a
member of this monthly meeting.
After I had commenced preaching here, I asked the
privilege of the monthly meeting to visit some other
meetings ; and the Friends granted me the liberty of
doing so. I cannot forget the kind hands that were
extended to me, as I went about from place to place
to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As we look back over the history of the past, we
know that God has watched over us, — over the citizens
and Friends in this community, — not only over West
Branch Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, but all of
the religious work in general. May God bless the dif-
ferent meetings represented here to-day, and may He
bless you all.
2 P. M. QUAKERISM AND SLAVERY.
By Anna May Pem barton.
If one line of work more than all others has char-
acterized the Friends, it has been the line of reform.
In the early days of Quakerism, to be a Quaker was
to be a reformer. They believed in the inward light
as something higher than conscience, — the revelation
of God himself in the human soul. They laid great
stress on human responsibility and the Divine guidance
of the individual. No priest did the thinking for them.
It was but natural that a people, that believed in the
universal priesthood of believers, should advocate the
inherent right of liberty to every man, regardless of
color or race. From the very dawn of Quakerism,
they set to work to right the wrongs about them.
Christianity meant something to them only as it had to
do with the betterment of human life. "Stitch away,
thou noble Fox :" wrote Carlvle, "every prick of that lit-
tle instrument is pricking into the heart of slavery, and
World-worship, and the Mammon-god." George Fox
himself was a reformer. He opposed everything in
law, government or common life that was contrary to
the spirit of Christianity. The light that illumined
his pathway has never been extinguished. The prin-
ciples he advocated and to which he devoted himself,
have been felt in every step of human progress since
his time.
In 1 67 1, in the West Indies, Fox was crying out
against the evils of slavery in the very midst of it. He
earnestly advised his people to deal justly with the
slaves, to bring them up in the fear of the Lord, and
after certain years to set them free. This was the
means of stirring up great opposition and persecution ;
and in 1676 a law was passed "to prevent the people
called Quakers, from bringing their slaves to meet-
ing." But they did not feel that so unjust a law could
justify them in relinquishing their advanced ideas of
justice toward an oppressed people. The meetings
were held at their homes ; but for allowing slaves to
attend them, at one of which were eighty, at another
of which were thirty, Ralph Fretwell was fined eight
hundred pounds and Richard Sutton three hundred.
It was said the safetv of the island would be endan-
43
gered, if slaves imbibed the religious teaching of their
masters.
Individual Friends bore testimony from the begin-
ning' against slavery, but it had existed for genera-
tions, had come to many by inheritance, and was not an
easy thing to be gotten rid of. Among the converts to
Quakerism in the new world were many slave-holders.
Members and even ministers in other denominations
held slaves.
The first protest ever entered by any religious or-
ganization against slavery was in 1688, when a com-
pany of German Friends, who had settled in Pennsyl-
vania, sent a memorial to their Monthly Meeting on
the subject. It was written by Francis Daniel Pas-
torius, a young man of education and refinement, a
member of the Society of Friends and a friend of Wil-
liam Penn.
"Who, in the pow-er a noble purpose lends,
Guided his people unto nobler ends.
And left them worthier of the name of Friends."
They put the question on the basis of the Golden
Rule: — "Pray, what thing in the world can be done
worse toward us, than if men should rob or steal us
away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries,"
"Being now this is not done in a manner we would not
be. done at therefore we contradict and are against this
traffic of men-body."
Whittier writes,' in his "Pennsylvania Pilgrim,"
"behind the reverend row
Of gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous show,
I saw, methought, dark faces full of woe."
"Help for the good man faileth : Who is strong,
If these be weak? Who shall rebuke the wrong,
If those consent? How- long, O, Lord! how long?"
For a long time the original paper was lost, but it
was found by William Kite, in 1844, an( l * s now m
Philadelphia.
After eight years, in 1696, Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting sent down its first advices on the subject.
Thus, this little company of German Friends began a
movement, that was destined to spread into wide phil-
anthropy and purge the Friends' Society from the guilt
of slave-holding.
44
At first the queries read were in reference to buying
and setting of slaves, and then the question began in
reference to holding slaves at all. Many a heated de-
bate took place on the subject in the different meetings
before the Society was purged, but finally, they de-
clared, that no one could be a member of the Society
of Friends and be a slave-holder. Wilson, in his "Rise
and Fall of the Slave Power," says, ''The Friends' So-
ciety was the first and only denomination to purge it-
self entirely of the great iniquity ;" and not until the
conscience of the Society was aroused by the unequivo-
cal decisions of its ecclesiastical tribunals, showing
slavery to be a sin to be repented of and forsaken, did
it achieve the distinction." The Society often required
members to compensate slaves for past services on set-
ting them free.
John Woolman, a minister among Friends, was a
potent factor in the work of clearing the Society, and
many times his voice was heard in the meetings. His
attention had been called to the subject in 1843, wnen
a young man, when asked to write a bill of sale for a
negro his employer had sold. He did it, but was
greatly troubled in conscience over the thought of writ-
ing a bill of sale for a fellow creature. From this time
on, he was an uncompromising advocate of freedom for
the slave. He traveled, both in the North and South,
trying to convince the people, especially his own breth-
ren, that slavery was inconsistent with Christianity.
Anthony Benezet was another faithful advocate ; and
while his brothers were engaged in trade, he esteemed
wealth of small consequence compared to a work for
humanity. He wrote articles for publication on the
subject of slavery. So earnest was he that if he went
for a drive or walk, he took tracts with him and studied
how to make it serve the cause.
Friends organized the first Anti-Slavery Societies in
America. In communities where they had freed their
slaves, other persons would bring their slaves into the
neighborhood. For the purpose of hindering this and
as a means of advancing the cause, they began to form
organizations, Clarkson says, as early as 1770. From
this time on, until the emancipation, America was nev-
er without Anti-Slavery Societies within her borders.
These first societies were formed exclusively by mem-
bers of the Society of Friends ; but interest grew and
deepened, and four years later, in 1774, under the lead-
45
ership of James Pemberton, individuals of other de-
nominations were united with them. Benjamin Frank-
lin became a member, and finally was chosen Presi-
dent of the Pennsylvania Society.
As the Quakers led in America, so did they lead in
England. In 1783 the English Friends organized the
first Anti-Slavery Society ever organized in England.
The same year they sent a petition to the British
Parliament against the slave-trade, being the first ever
addressed to that body on the subject.
The Society of Friends, having cleared itself of the
sin of slave-holding, a great desire took possession of
it for the entire extinction of the slave trade and of
slavery itself. Then memorials and remonstrances be-
gan to pour down upon legislative assemblies and per-
sons of power. In 1773, Friends living in East and
West Jersey, obtained more than three thousand peti-
tioners to the Legislature, praying for more equit-
able manumissions of slaves in that province.
The first American Congress met in 1789. Ihe next
year, 1790, the Quaker petitions were sent in. Then
came the great storm in Congress, over the Quaker
petitions on the subject of slavery, and kept that aug-
ust body in a constant uproar for days, while the men
in Quaker garb sat in the galleries, awaiting the de-
cision of the highest power of Government, on this
important question.
The first petition was sent by the Yearly Meeting of
Friends in Pennsylvania, and was seconded by one
from New York. These petitions asked whether it
were not within the power of Congress, "to exercise
justice and mercy, which, if adhered to, must produce
the abolition of the slave-trade." Violent opposition
at once arose. The Quakers were branded as mis-
chief makers, who had come here to meddle in a busi-
ness, with which they had nothing to do. Smith, of
South Carolina, said the mere discussion would create
alarm. His constituents wanted no lessons in mor-
ality, least of all, of such teachers. Baldwin, of Geor-
gia, declared that there was more important business
of the Union to be transacted. There was the plan
for the support of the public credit, there was the
Post Office Act and the Additional Revenue Act.
What more important business could the government
be engaged in than the freedom of the slave [Tad
the Quaker petitions -been granted, it would have pre-
vented the awful war of the 6o's. It is much the
46
same way now, many in politics tell us that they have
no time to consider questions of moral reform, that
there are questions of greater importance. After all
that had been said, Congress failed to grant their peti-
tions in behalf of human freedom, and increased the
lines given to slavery. But the Quakers were not dis-
heartened, and as they vacated the seats in the galler-
ies, and left the hall, it was with no scowl or wicked
insinuations against their opposers. They felt that
they were right in this matter, and heeded little the
scorn and abuses cast upon them. Firm in their con-
victions that right and truth would conquer, they went
quietly away, but only to return again and enter their
protest against the great evil. Von-holst says, in his
Constitutional History, — "Year after year, the Quakers
came, indefatigably, with new petitions, and each time
received the same scornful treatment. Southern dele-
gates expressed their scorn in a bullying fashion, for
the tenacity with which these men of earnest faith
ever constantly came back again to their hopeless
work."
In 1793, a fugitive slave law was passed. In 1797,
when the Quakers came with a petition from the Year-
ly Meeting at Philadelphia, one of their grievances
was, that one hundred and thirty-four negroes, that
had been set free by Friends, had, by a law made in
North Carolina in 1777, been seized and reduced again
to bondage. This stirred bitter opposition. Harper,
of South Carolina, declared that it was not the first,
second or third time that the house had been troubled
by such applications, and that they had a very dan-
gerous tendency. Thacher, of Massachusetts, said,
that if people were aggrieved, they would not be like-
ly to stop until the house took some action, if it were
seventy times seven. Rutledge, of South Carolina, fa-
vored a strong censure, such as a set of men ought to
meet, "who are incessantly importuning Congress to
interfere with a business, with which, by the Constitu-
tion, they have no concern." He was for laying the
memorial on the table or under the table, that the house
might have done with the business, "not to-day, but
forever." But they were not done with the business
forever, and if slavery remained, they never would be,
while the right of petition was open and there were
any Friends living under the American flag. Theirs
was a voice never to be silenced, while the sound of
a chain was heard, Dr. David Gregg, in his little
47
book, "The Quakers as Makers of America," says,
"History can ask no grander illustration of the power
of protest than Quaker life on American soil. Why
is it that there is no African slavery to-day within our
borders? It is because the Quakers as early as 1688
issued their protest against slavery, and kept it issued
until the nation was educated up to the emancipation
proclamation. But mark this : They invested their
all in their protest. They meant it, and they made the
American people feel that they meant it."
In Virginia, the heart of the slave country. Friends
bore faithful testimony on the subject. One of the
most faithful workers here was Robert Pleasants, who
was President of the Manumission Society, organized
in 1790. Through his interposition in courts of law,
he was the means of procuring liberty for several hun-
dred slaves. He wrote letters to Washington, Madi-
son and Patrick Henry on the subject of slavery, and
received favorable and kindly replies from all. Pat-
rick Henry says, "Believe me, I shall honor the Quak-
ers for their noble efforts to abolish slavery. It is a
debt we owe to the purity of our religion, to show
that it is at variance with a law that warrants slavery."
There was a time when Friends had much power
and influence in the state of North Carolina, and a
number of their members held offices of trust. Steph-
en D. Weeks speaks of the time when John Arch-
dale was governor, as the "golden age of Quakerism,"
here, but with the increasing power of slavery and
their testimony against it, they met severe opposition.
In spite of their petitions to the Legislature and other
efforts, a harsh act was passed in 1779 that struck
a heavy blow to their work in the interest of colored
people, that they had been carrying forward so hope-
full v. From this time on, they found themselves com-
bated more and more strongly by the slave power.
Slavery and Quakerism could not agree, and it is
not to be wondered at, that when the Northwest Ter-
ritory was opened up, declaring that "neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude" should exist "except as a
punishment for a crime," they set their faces to-
ward the new territory. Many of them sold their land
for less than its real value. On horse-back, in wag-
ons, over mountains, wading rivers, they came by hun-
dreds and settled in Ohio, Indiana and other states.
T am told that there are thirty-five thousand Friends in
Indiana. What Quaker home in Ohio and Indiana
48
has not its legends concerning the departure? Their
watchword was, "Away from the land of slavery."
The exodus of Friends from the South, on account of
slavery, presents one of the most pathetic scenes in
American History. The number of those that mi-
grated amounted to thousands. Almost all left Georgia
and South Carolina. Great numbers left Virginia, and
her numbers were so weakened that Virginia Yearly
Meeting was laid down, after it had existed for al-
most a century and a half. In its place, the Half
Yearly Meeting was established, that reports to Bal-
timore.
While the South lost some of its best citizens by
the removal, those that came north to Ohio and Indi-
ana, had much to do in making them the strong,
liberty loving states they became. In Indiana, deter-
mined effort was made to introduce slavery into the
Territory ; and the Friends, by their persistent efforts,
— working through "Log Conventions" and in every
possible way, furnished much of the agitation, that
succeeded in driving back the pro-slavery sentiments
in the growth of the young state. Theodore Clark
Smith says, "Wherever the Quakers settled, we can
trace the anti-slavery agitation."
These settlements in the North also became centers
for the underground railroad. When this myster-
ious institution began its work no one can tell, but
before 1800, it is known, that numbers of slaves escap-
ed from the South, quietly crossing the line into the
free states, and Friends aided them on their way to
Canada. There were regular stations, with men as
careful as any salaried conductors could be. These
men risked property and, in many cases, their lives,
for the one sole purpose of benefiting humanity, with
no hope of popularity or money. They recognized a
law higher than the law of state, and would be true
to principle at any cost. They were accused of being
disloyal to the government, and were opposed and
often persecuted for their faithfulness in this matter.
But now, how changed ! Thev are looked upon by
many as the glorified in American History, because
they sacrificed so much for what they believed to be
right. We have not time to go into details on this
interesting subject, or even to mention the leaders.
The way Friends dealt with the question, both in
the North and South, forms the basis of a very in-
teresting study. In the Southern states it was against
49
the law to emancipate slaves without removing them-
Consequently, consignments were made, from time to
time, to North Carolina Yearh Meeting, and it entered
into the business of removing them to other places.
For years, the Yearly Meeting was burdened with law
suits, brought by heirs, and other troubles relating to
the emancipated slaves in their possession ; but they
succeeded in sending hundreds away. The remnant
of North Carolina Yearly Meeting gave large contri-
butions for the purpose of removing these people of
color. They were assisted liberally in their work, by
Philadelphia and other American Yearly Meetings and
also London Yearly Meeting.
In 1 8 14, Charles Osborne, a minister among friends,
was interested in organizing Manumission Societies in
Tennessee, the first of which was formed at the home
of Klihu Swain. They pledged themselves to vote for
no governor or legislator unless he favored emanci-
pation. There were eight signers to the constitution,
all of whom were Friends. 'Charles Osborne went to
Mount Pleasant, Ohio, later, and started a paper in
1817 called. "The Philanthropist," devoted largely to
the discussion of different lines of reform of which
Anti-Slavery was one.
That Friends have the honor of giving to the cause
the first Anti-Slavery papers has never been ques-
tioned. Elihu Embree edited a paper in Tennessee,
being the first devoted exclusively to the cause. Ben-
jamin Lundy's paper, published at Mount Pleasant in
1821, was the first to make the question a great politi-
cal issue.
Benjamin Lundy was the first man in America to
devote all his life to the cause. Horace Greely calls
him the Father of Abolitionism, The Society of
Friends had not since the days of Fox given to the
world a man of such far-reaching influence, as Ben-
jamin Lundy. To him, more than to any other man,
does the nation owe a debt of gratitude, for carrying
the flames of liberty beyond the borders of the Society
of Friends, and creating a sentiment, that refused to al-
low the existence of slavery in the Republic.
He was born in N T ew Jersey in 1780.
When nineteen years of age, he went to Wheeling.
Virginia, to learn the saddler's trade. Here he saw
the coffles of slaves on their way South, — going two
by two with a chain passed between them, to which
handcuffs were attached. Such scenes fired his soul
50
with deepened convictions on the subject, and he
pledged his life unreserved to the cause. "My heart
was deeply grieved," he says, "I heard the wail of the
captive. I felt his pang of distress. The iron entered
my soul."
He settled at Saint Clairesville, Ohio, where, in four
years, he saved three thousand dollars' worth of prop-
erty, working at his trade. But he could not forget
the slave. In 1816, he called in his neighbors and
organized a Union Humane Society with six members.
This was the first Anti-Slavery organization in Ohio.
He went here and there organizing, and by persistent
effort soon had five hundred members. He wrote an
appeal to the philanthropists of the United States ; and
laid a plan for Anti-Slavery Societies, much like those
organized later. He had been contributing articles to
Charles Osborne's paper, and finally decided to sell his
saddlery wares and join him in the printing business.
He went down the Ohio river on a flat boat to sell
his saddlery wares. It was at the time of the great
excitement on the Missouri question. People did not
care much for the little man with his wares ; but he
made his influence felt on the Slavery question by en-
listing in the discussion in the Illinois and Missouri
papers. There was great stagnation in business at
this time ; he lost his property, and walked home, —
a distance of seven hundred miles. Charles Osborne
had sold his paper during his absence.
When he came back, he started a paper of his own
at Mount Pleasant, which he called the Genius of Uni-
versal Emancipation, and which, as we have said, was
the first paper ever published that made the question
a great political issue. After the death of Elihu Em-
bree, he removed his paper to Tennessee, afterwards
to Baltimore and later to Philadelphia.
Pie traveled through the country, lecturing against
slavery and talking to individuals on the subject. In
his travels, he called upon most of the leading men
of his time, trying to interest them in the all-absorbing
subject. John Quincy Adams was his devoted per-
sonal friend. He enlisted a great number of men and
women in the cause, who gave themselves in solemn
consecration to the agitation of the subject. Among
them were a number of the younger generation, who
became leaders after Lundy's work was finished.
Among them was Wm. Lloyd Garrison. He met him
first at Boston, and later walked across in the winter
51
snow to Bennington, Vermont, to persuade him to
assist in editing his paper, which lie did for a time.
Garrison says of Lundy, "To him, I owe my connec-
tion with the cause of emancipation, as he was the
first to call my attention to it ; and, by his pressing
invitation to join him in printing and editing the Gen-
ins of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore in 1828,
he shaped my destiny for the remainder of my life."
While in Baltimore, Lundy was assaulted by a slave-
trader, Austin Woolfolk, who attacked him because
of some statements he had made in his Genius against
the slave-trade. He pounced upon him on the street
with brutish ferocity, threw him to the pavement, and
struck a blow 7 that came near ending his life. Lundy
carried to his grave the scars made upon his face by
Woolfolk's heavy boot.
After the death of Lovejoy. Lundy went to Illinois
to edit his paper. John Greenleaf Whittier succeeded
him in Philadelphia, and carried on the work he had
established there. For eighteen years Lundy's bugle
call was heard. It remained for him to lay the founda-
tion for the Republican party in Illinois and prepare
the way for Lincoln. He died at Lowell in 1839.
For the reunion of Anti-Slavery pioneers, held in Chi-
cago, in 1874, Whittier wrote:
"Nor is that pioneer of freedom, Benjamin Lundy,
to be forgotten. It was his lot to struggle for years
almost alone, a solitary voice crying in the wilderness ;
poor, unaided, yet never despairing; traversing the
Island of Hayti, wasting with disease in Xew Orleans,
hunted by Texan banditti, wandering on foot among
the mountains of East Tennessee and along the Ozark
hills, beaten down and trampled on by Baltimore slave-
dealers ; yet, amidst all, faithful to his one great pur-
pose — the emancipation of the slave."
We also quote from Win. H. Burleigh's tribute to
him : —
"Peace be to thee who gave no peace
To Freedom's foes till life did cease!
Oh, hadst thou lived to see
The triumph of thy noble cause, •
The reign of RIGHT AND EQUAL laws.
And listen to the world's applause.
Which vet shall sound for thee —
How had thy spirit leaped to join.
With strength and ecstacy divine.
The anthem of the free."
52
Of the Anti-Slavery Society, that was organized at
Boston in 1832, about which so much has been said,
Arnold Buffum, a member of the Friends, was elected
president. He was a hatter by trade. People sneered
at the "Quaker hatter" and his company of umnrluen-
tial citizens. They were only twelve in number, and
were looked upon as a set of fanatics. But the little
company pledged their all to the righteous cause.
Arnold Buffum had been in England, had given his
first Anti-Slavery lecture in London Yearly Meeting
house, had been associated with the great leaders there,
— with Elizabeth Hayrick, — a Friends' minister, who
had succeeded in convincing Wilberforce and other
great leaders in England of the necessity of immediate
emancipation for the West Indies. He had been
trained to believe in the principles of universal free-
dom, and was eminently fitted to act as President of
this Society. The little company commissioned him
and sent him out to plead the cause of the suffering
slave. They had no salary to pay him, but by his
careful effort, wise judgment and courage he drew
many to the cause. He lectured in a number of
states, and finally came to Old Newport, now Fountain
City, Indiana. The meeting of Arnold Buffum and
Levi Coffin was significant. And what a power Old
Newport did become in the cause of freedom ! Here
was Levi Coffin's famous depot of the underground
railroad, and all about here were homes consecrated
to the cause, in the village and out. So safe were
they, when they reached Old Newport, that it was
called the dividing line.
Arnold Buffum was the pioneer lecturer in the state
of Indiana. All through the Quaker part the interest
grew and deepened. He started a paper in Old New-
port, in 1841, called The Protectionist. His pen
proved to be his most powerful weapon. After he had
sent out five numbers of his paper, he had seven hun-
dred subscribers. From the little village so replete
with Anti-Slavery sentiment, three Anti-Slavery pap-
ers were published at one time :
a. "The Protectionist," championing the cause of
political reform, ably edited by Arnold Buffum.
b. "The Free Labor Advocate," edited by Henry H.
Wav and Benjamin Stanton.
c. "The Jubilee," published by the Anti-Slaverv Tract
Society, intending to be a message of glad tid-
ings, exhibiting the progress of the cause. All
were out and out abolition papers.
53
They had here a large number of societies. In one
of Buffum's papers I read the announcement on ten
meetings. There was the General Anti-Slavery So-
ciety, The Woman's Society, The Debating Society for
political discussion, Free Labor Meetings, &c. The
meetings when assembled often lasted two or three
days. These words I found in one of the announce-
ments : "There will be a great Anti-Slavery Meeting
at this place," giving time, &c. "Friends of the
cause, come one and all. Come early in the morn-
ing, prepared to stay all night." At 'one time, New
Garden was the banner township, in the Union, for
the Liberty ticket, giving a larger majority of votes
than any other township in the country.
Time forbids us speaking of the work of individuals
or even of communities which affords much material
of interest. The value of the Quaker agitation rests
not wholly upon what they did themselves, but also
on the influence they exerted upon other classes ; and
they kept it up until the emancipation proclamation was
issued. Wherever there were Friends' communities,
or, sometimes even an individual Friend, there the
agitation was carried, and it was a leaven that finally
leavened the whole lump.
The organization of the National Anti-Slavery So-
ciety, in 1833, was one of the most important meetings
in the history of the movement. The representatives
assembled in Philadelphia on the fourth of December,
and perhaps not since the disciples of Jesus met in
the upper room to receive the promise of The Father,
has there been a people more nearly one in spirit.
They had come from different states, but the com-
mon cause of love for the oppressed united all hearts
in one. Only fifty-seven years before, in the City of
Brotherly Love, liberty bell had rung out from In-
dependence Hall, proclaiming "Liberty throughout all
the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." At the
time of this Convention, great excitement prevailed. The
air was filled with violence, and the delegates could
not be promised safety, even in the day time. Whit-
tier savs, that the abolitionists were everywhere spok-
en against, their persons threatened, and in some in-
stances a price set on their heads. Pennsylvania, be-
ing on the borders of slavery, it "needed small effort of
imagination, to picture to one's self the breaking up of
the Convention and maltreatment of its members."
It was a significant fact that at this trying time, when
54
it cost so much to be an abolitionist, out of the whole
number of sixty-two delegates, twenty-two were mem-
bers of the Society of Friends, being more than one-
third of the entire delegation. The truth was, there
was more real reform in the Society of Friends, even
though small, than in any of the larger organizations.
John Greenleaf Whittier was a member of the com-
mittee to draft the Declaration of Sentiments. The
company organized on the basis of the entire abolition
of slavery in the United States. Every line of the
Declaration is significant. The paragraphs and sen-
tences were considered separately ; for five hours, there
was discussion, and it was unanimously adopted. What
significant words ! "Our trust for victory is solely in
God. We may be personally defeated, but our prin-
ciples, never. Truth, justice, reason, humanity, must
and will gloriously triumph." "We hereby affix our
signatures," &c. "Come what may to our persons, our
interests, or our reputation — whether we live to wit-
ness the triumph of LIBERTY, JUSTICE, and HU-
MANITY, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great,
benevolent, and holy cause." Whittier says, they
went forth, each to his place of duty, "not knowing
the things that should befall us, as individuals, but
with a firm confidence, never shaken by abuse and
persecution in the certain triumph of our cause." He
said afterwards, that he set a higher value on his
name appended to that Declaration, than on the title
page of any book. What a power Whittier was as
the Poet Laureate of the Liberty movement ! Who
can • estimate the value in American History, of the
sweet singer of freedom, who gave up all other hopes,
that he might sing for the slave? He was "true to
the cause, when such service was hard." As the years
go by, he is destined, we believe, to live more and
more in the hearts of his fellow countrymen. While
he was a reformer and an active force in the cause,
he was ever gentle in spirit, and never forgot that
"God is Love."
The Society of Friends, from the beginning, having
placed woman on an equality with man, it was but
natural that she should engage in the public agitation
of the subject. Lucretia Mott, a noted minister of the
Hicksite branch was among the number.
During the dark hour of the movement, the two
daughters of Judge John F. Grimke, of South Caro-
lina, came up from the South. They left the Episco-
55
pal Church and came to the Friends because of their
opposition to slavery. Anglima Grimke published an
appeal to the women of the South in 1836. They were
invited to New York City to address woman. Great
crowds flocked to hear them. Oliver Johnson said he
believed the pro-slavery ministers were more afraid of
those women than they would have been of a dozen
lecturers of the other sex.
Some of the clergy, that were opposed to women
speaking in public, became concerned and wrote a
pastoral letter, protesting against women's public
work in reform, calling attention to the dangers,
that "threatened the female character," and regret-
ting that countenance had been given to "any of the
sex who so far forgot themselves, as to itinerate in
the character of public lecturers and teachers." The
document spoke against lecturers and preachers being
allowed to discuss certain topics of reform Within
the limits of settled pastors, without their consent :
Whittier sent out as a reply to this document his poem,
"A Pastoral Letter."
"So, this is all, — the utmost reach
Of priestly power the mind to fetter !
When laymen think — when women preach —
A war of words — a Pastoral Letter."
Abbey Kelley, another woman Friend, studied her
subject thoroughly, and was a gifted speaker; but be-
came a target for newspaper and pulpit ridicule and
mob violence. She had much to do with the founding
of the Anti-Slavery Bugle. Lowell pays her this trib-
ute :
"A Judith there, turned Quakeress,
Sits Abbey, in her modest dress.
* # ' * * * * * *
No nobler gift of heart or brain.
No life more white from spot or stain.
Was e'er on Feedom's altar laid
Than her's — the simple Quaker maid."
The campaign song, — "The Quakers are Out," was
written for a Republican mass meeting at Newburv-
port, Massachusetts, October 11. i860. Pennsvlvania
was a doubtful state, the vote of which some thought
would decide the National election. Tf the Quakers
could be thoroughly aroused and all vote, it was
thought that Pennsvlvania could be counted for Lin-
56
coin. As to whether Quakerism was thoroughly
awake to the importance of the contest pending would
be decided by the state election, which occurred sev-
eral weeks before the National. The state election was
satisfactory to the friends of Freedom, and Whittier
penned these lines :
"Not vainly we waited and counted the hours,
The buds of our hope have all burst into flowers,
No room for misgiving — no loop-hole for doubt, —
We've heard from the Keystone! The Quakers are
out.
The plot has exploded — we've found out the trick ;
The bribe goes a-begging ; the fusion won't stick.
When the wide-awake lanterns are shining about,
The rogues stay at home, and the true men are out!
The good State has broken the cords for her spun ;
Her oil-springs and water won't fuse into one ;
The Dutchman has seasoned with Freedom his kraut.
And slow, late, but certain, the Quakers are out!
Give the flaes to the winds set the hills all aflame ! •
Make wav for the man with the Patriarch's name!
Awav with misgiving — awav with all doubt.
For Lincoln goes in when the Quakers are out!"
FIRST FIFTY YEARS OF WEST BRANCH.
Arena Kersey, Oregonia, Ohio.
Some time previous to the Revolutionary War
Friends from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the island
of Nantucket, emigrated southward, influenced, no
doubt, by glowing reports of its balmy air and sunny
skies. A large proportion of these settled in North
Carolina, others went farther on and settled in South
Carolina and Georgia. In all these places they found
themselves surrounded by the institution of slavery
and all its attendant evils. So abhorrent was all this
to their ideas of justice that it is little wonder that
they were amongst the first to seek homes across the
Ohio river amid the wilds and forests of that great
free territory opening up to emigrants.
This influx was hastened by what was considered
a prophetic warning of a noted minister in the church,
Zachariah Dicks, who went through the length and
57
breadth of the land warning the people to flee, for
this land would be overthrown and wasted and blood
would flow as a river, for the cry of the down-trodden
had been heard in Heaven and deliverance was coming
for the oppressed.
Judge O'Neall in his book "Annals of New Berg,
S. C," says that at Bush River in a well built house
erected 5 years before with full expectancy of long
continuance and where 500 Friends often assembled,
Zachariah Dicks began his sermon with the words,
"Oh, Bush River, Bush River ! how hath thy beauty
faded and gloomy darkness eclipsed thy day."
This warning, together with other utterances pro-
duced almost a panic for these early fathers believed
the speedy fulfilment was at hand, whereas three score
years elapsed before all this was brought about. This
occurred about the year 1803.
Prior to this, a few Friends had penetrated these
western wilds and bought an extensive tract of military
land where the village of Waynesville was soon laid
out and made a point for these pioneers to gather and
thither the tide of emigration flowed. The result of all
this was that in order to emigrate, many sold their
lands at great sacrifice and with their families and
such goods as they could carry joined the emigrant
train. Many stopped near Waynesville, while others
pushed on to a point 12 or 15 miles north of the newly
laid out town of Dayton and settled on the west branch
of the Big Miami, hence the name West Branch.
The 1st Friend settling here was John Hoover, who
came in the spring of 1802 (and located i 1 /* miles
S. E. of W. B. meeting house). The same year
brought many more, but the year 1805 is said to have
been the time of the arrival of the greatest number.
Among these we find the names of Jeremiah Mote,
John Waggoner, Caleb Mendenhall, Dr. John Mote,
John Hoover, James Hollingsworth, Jonathan Mote,
James Patty, Abeather Davis, Samuel Jones, Frederick
Youmt, Win. Mote. Jr., Robert Macy, Sam'l Davis,
Carter Hollingsworth, Samuel Teaq-ue. Tsaac Embree,
Henry Youmt, Jonathan Cox, Jesse Jankins.
These early settlers soon began holding meetings.
The first of these was in the cabin of Caleb Menden-
hall (on what is now known as the Thomas Jay farm)
and- for a while after in a cabin nearby, which had
been vacated by its owner, until the site of the present
meeting house was selected and a rude structure was
58
erected in the year 1804. This was situated east of
the present building and was 40 feet by 25. It was
roughly finished with puncheon floor, two doors and
four eight light windows.
New arrivals of emigrants soon made it evident that
a larger house was needed for their accommodation,
and another was erected west of the present building,
this time of hewed logs and shingle roof in the year
1808. This structure was afterwards enlarged by the
addition of wings at each end to accommodate the
Quarterly Meeting which was opened here in the
Sixth mo., 181 2, to be known as West Branch Quar-
terly Meeting and held here and at White Water, Ind.,
alternately. The brick building now standing was
erected in 1818. The meetings in those days were
largely attended not only by the membership but by
other settlers residing near. But distance and bad
roads and comfortable means of travel did not count
much in those days. The women often riding horse-
back not only in the attendance of their own meet-
ings but journeys of long distance were often under-
taken.
The request for a Monthly Meeting was granted by
Red Stone Quarterly Meeting in Pennsylvania and
was opened here First mo. 17, 1807, by a committee
from Miami Monthly Meeting whose names were
there : Asher Brown, David Pugh, John Townsend and
Samuel Spray. The stated bounds of this grant was
to include all Friends living west of the Miami river
except the settlement on Elk creek. This included a
wide scope of country.
Jeremiah Mote was chosen clerk of the Monthly
Meeting. By referring to the minutes of these early
days, it will be seen how rapidly the emigration was
being pushed as the new arrivals came, bringing their
certificates of membership, and frequent requests for
membership are also recorded.
The membership at West Branch was not greatly
affected by what is known as the Hicksite Separation
of 1828, a few names were dropped from the records,
but a much larger number was lost from the mem-
bership later because it had been made a dishonorable
offense for marriages to be performed contrary to the
discipline. This was afterwards seen to be a mistake
and the discipline on this point was changed.
Soon after the sad experiences of 1828 it was discov-
ered that there existed a great scarcity of Bibles in
59
the families, a lack which the church hastened to rem-
edy through its committees. This lack may have been
a fruitful source of the ignorance of the Bible teaching
concerning the divinity of our dear Redeemer. This
was soon followed by the establishment of First-day
Schools for teaching the Bible. Mention is also made
of the establishment of a Monthly Meeting Library of
Friends' Books and a duly appointed Librarian to have
them in charge.
Additions to these were frequently made and it is
stated that a few copies of Barclay's Apology were
placed in public libraries. A library existed in later
years, especially suited to young people, containing a
stock of books of more recent publication. The rec-
ords tell that the establishment of schools early claimed
attention, the first being taught by Wm. Neal in Dr.
Mote's shop ; afterward one part of the meeting house
was used for that purpose. Later a brick building sit-
uated three-quarters of a mile northwest of West
Branch Meeting house was for many years the place
provided by the Monthly Meeting, and the school held
there continued to be under the care of committees
of the same Monthly Meeting. And while it is not
stated just when the house was built, it must have
been at an early date in the history of West Branch,
even before the use of friction matches were generally
known for one little fellow seeing his teacher use one
of these in building a fire burnt his fingers in trying
to see whether it was real fire.
After the establishment of the Friends' Boarding
School at Richmond, Ind., the teachers were generally
procured from those who had been students there. (But
some of blessed memory before that time were Hannah
D. Purdue and Eunice Macy). Later we recall the
names of Daniel and Hezekiah Clark, Jonathan Dick-
erson, Robert Styles. Aquella Binford, Abigal Clark,
Esther Jones, Henrietta Beobles, Samuel Handley and
James Otis Beale. William B. Morgan began his car-
eer as an educator at this place, being only 18 years
old. This last is still held in grateful remembrance
by many who were his pupils then. One young man
was heard saying, "I never had a brother of my own,
but I could not have loved a brother better than I did
William B. Morgan," and he said to one in later years
who had been his punil then, "Oh, T was not fit to
teach them," hut his friends never thought that way.
The advantages for an education offered here were
60
sought by others besides those residing near for stu-
dents from a distance were often found in attendance.
This school drew from no public fund for its support,
but the fathers went down in their pockets to pay the
tuition of their children. And in this building of one
room, 18x24 feet, not only were the common branches
taught, but those of the high school of today. Many
yet living can recall with pleasure the memories of
those happy days as their thoughts revert to the spot
made almost sacred by a thousand pleasant associa-
tions.
The records of these early days tell frequently of
the attendance of traveling ministers, some of these
coming long distances and invariably with the added
endorsement that their company and gospel labor had
been to their edification. Also the record is made that
the resident ministers were diligent in their calling,
preaching the gospel both near and far. The ministers
of these early days as well as of later years, were then,
Susannah Hollingsworth, John Simpson, Enoch Pear-
son, Win. Neall, Abijah Jones and John Jones, and
later Enos Pray, Elizabeth Bryan, Juliann McCool,
Thomas Jay, Smith Gregg, Margaret Gregg, Sarah
Compton and Joseph and Enos Pemberton. Memories
of these days call to mind how these fathers and moth-
ers, in the church, so faithful in their attendance at
meeting, sat in their accustomed places, their counte-
nances betokening their reverent waiting upon God and
holding communion with Him who is invisible, even
when no words were expressed.
Oh, the solemnity of those meetings either with or
without vocal ministry ! Near the close of these rev-
erent periods, some one, whose duty it was, would be
heard expressing the desire not to break the solemnity
overspreading the meeting, but would suggest that the
time was at hand to attend to the business interests
of the church.
Who will undertake to measure the influence for
eood exacted by the establishment of West Branch
Church and its multiplied activities, not only upon the
neople living during all these years but may we not
hope upon succeeding generations?
MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS.
By Wm. A. Jones, West Milton, Ohio.
We have heard the story of pre-historic West
Branch ; how men with heroic spirit left the homes
of their nativity and braved the dangers incident to
travel at that time, to found homes in the then un-
broken wilderness of the west. In that story we are
told of the laying- of the foundation and the prepara-
tion of material for the building of West Branch
Monthly Meeting.
In the story of the first fifty years we are told of
the rapid development of the country, the evolution of
West Branch Monthly Meeting from the small band
that assembled in a crude log cabin a hundred years
ago to the strong, vigorous meeting it was at the end
of fifty years. We have had the story of the dawn,
the sun rise and the bright light of midday. My story
must be of the afternoon, the evening and the sunset.
I will state here that what I say will refer mostly
to West Branch particular meeting ; the place to which
I was first carried in my mother's arms in the meet-
ing house two miles south of here on the ground
where the first monthly meeting was held a hundred
years ago.
Memories of fifty years take me back to when I was
a very small child. My first recollection of West
Branch Meeting seems like a dream. How old I was
I can not tell, but it was when I sat upon my moth-
er's lap. As memory reaches back to that remote per-
iod it seems like a century has intervened.
If I were gifted with the skill of an artist and could
place upon canvass a picture of West Branch Meeting
as it was stamped upon my memory fifty years ago,
it would be as follows :
At the head of the meeting sat David Mote, one of
the leading men of the meeting at that time. On the
women's side Mary Brown sat at the head while
clustered close around her were Rebecca Haskett, Mary
Jay, Elizabeth Thayer, Mariam Mote and Rebecca
Jenks. On the second seat facing sat a row of old
men. T can not name them all but can mention Denny
Tav, Andy Sinks. Solomon Yount and Noah Hoover.
T know but little about these men, but as they appear
to me after a long separation I would judge that they
62
were men of sterling integrity. There is one of them
that I feel I can not pass without making more spe-
cial mention, that of Denny Jay. I shall never forget
his kindly face and hearty shake of the hand he gave
the boys at the close of meeting. We will now pass
to another period.
The row of old men have disappeared and their
places are filled with another class. The impressions
of a child will give way to those of a boy twelve years
of age, an age when a boy is not inclined to look upon
the serious side of life, but rather upon the pleasure
side as being best adapted to his nature.
Were I to draw> a picture of West Branch Meeting
now it would be quite different from what it was
ten years ago. The coloring would be of different
tints.
The perspective would present a different view. This
view is taken from the sunny period of memories of
fifty years. The meetings at this time were perhaps
at its strongest period. Large congregations met there
every Sabbath, some of them coming several miles. I
will not attempt to give a lengthy account of the per-
sonnel of the meeting, but -will only mention some of
those with whom I was best acquainted.
I will first mention Thomas Jay, who after the death
of David Mote, sat head of the meeting. He was a
man of remarkable physical and spiritual energy, and
was possessed with a spirit of devotion which made
him a power in directing the affairs of the meeting.
His sermons while not composed of flights of oratory,
or polished with fine touches of rhetoric, were given
with power and bore evidence that they came direct
from the heart.
I will next mention L. S. and Charity Mote. Smith
Mote, as he was usually called, was a unique char-
acter in the meeting. No one was closer identified
with the meeting through out a long life, than he. He
possessed a wonderful fund of knowledge of local
church history and at the age of 86 years his mem-
ory of early events was not impaired. He outlived all
his old associates.
Another man who added great strength to the meet-
ing was Smith Gregg, who with a large family came
into the limits of the meeting about forty years ago.
He was a minister of ability and was one of the noble
men of his day. He had a large family when he
came here, but before he died, he saw all" but one of
63
them pass to the silent beyond ; most of them before
they reached the age of twenty. The remaining one
has died since. He was a man of sorrow and ac-
quainted with grief ; but he bore it in meek submis-
sion, never wavering from the path of duty.
Time forbids that I should any more than mention
the names of others. They were Samuel and Anna
Jones, Linus and Hannah Mote, Henry and Rachel
Compton, Aaron and Matilda Macy, Enoch and Lydia
Ann Jones, Thomas and Louvena Haskett, Riley and
Charlott Davis, Pharos and Dalitha Ann Compton,
Benjamin and Dorcas Pearson, David and Mary
Coate, David and Eunice Jones, Eunice Kendall, Deb-
orah Mote, Sarah Jay, Nancy Pearson, Rhoda Pear-
son and many others with whom I was not so well ac-
quainted.
I feel that I can not dismiss from further notice
these boyhood friends without giving expression to the
high regard in which they are held by one who at
that time they were forming the character for future
life. Though their lips have long been silent they
are speaking today in audible tones in the lives of
those with whom they came in contact during the for-
mative period of their lives. I feel that I scarcely
do them justice when I say that they were true to
themselves, their country and their God.
I have described the meeting as it was forty years
ago.
I will now attempt to trace the history of its de-
cline and show some of the causes leading to it. To
one not acquainted with its history it will seem strange
that a meeting possessing all the elements of strength
should so soon be stricken with disease, decay and
death. The disintegrating forces began their work
just prior to, and during the Civil War. I might
'mention here that several of the young men of the
meeting enlisted in the army, which was a violation of
the discipline and made them liable to disownment, but
the committee appointed to deal with them brought
in a magnanimous report and they were allowed to
retain their membership. The wisdom of this act has
never been questioned for they not only made valiant
soldiers in fighting for their country, but after the
close of the war some- of them became active mem-
bers of the meeting and one of them has been a val-
ued and able minister in the Monthly Meeting ever
since.
64
The opening up of the settlement of the great wes-
tern country caused many families to seek homes in
that then almost unknown country previous to the
war. After the close of the war, and the soldiers
returned home, the reaction that is always sure to fol-
low a great crisis was upon the country and how to
meet it was a problem the people were confronted with
at that time. The business of the country had been
running at a tremendous high tension and now the
time for slowing down had come. Everything had
to be adjusted to meet new' conditions. The number
of laborers was increasing with a constantly decreas-
ing demand for labor. Fortunately for the country at
that time, the building of the Union Pacific railroad
had opened for settlement, in the great west and
northwest, a vast empire and the tide of emigration
started in that direction and assumed such propor-
tions that it looked for awhile as though some sec-
tions of the east would almost be depopulated.
The Friends from West Branch Monthly Meeting
were among the first to get caught in this tide and
they were swept into Kansas, Iowa and nearly all of
the western states until I question whether you can
find a quarterly meeting west of the Mississippi river
that does not have in it some one from West Branch
Monthly Meeting. This exodus continued for several
years, not so much among the older as the younger
people, until there was scarcely a family not repre-
sented in other states. This was especially noticeable
among the young men. Most of them being raised
upon the farm, seeing the great opportunity to secure
cheap homes in this new country, followed the ex-
ample of their ancestors and went to establish a new
civilization among the savages of the wild west.
Other young men to whom farm life had ceased to
be attractive left home to engage in other pursuits.
In a few years West Branch Meeting was mostly
composed of elderly people. From some of the large
families the young people were nearly all gone. The
Jays, the Hasketts, the Motes and the Davises, and
those whose parents had largely directed the affairs
of the meeting were all gone. Though the meeting
remained full of life and apparentlv of strength, it
needed no prophet to portray the future. Its ranks
were being rapidly depleted with no one to fill the
vacancy.
I have given one of the principal causes for the de-
65
dine of the meeting. There were other causes though
of a different character which proved equally disas-
trous. There was quite a body of Friends living a few-
miles northwest who desired a more convenient place
to attend meeting. In 1866 they made application to
have a new meeting set up, which request was granted
by the Monthly Meeting, and Center Meeting was es-
tablished and a meeting house was erected about two
miles northwest of Milton. This took away about half
of the membership from the parent meeting. The
Monthly Meeting was held alternately between the
two places. Shorn of half of its membership the meet-
ing continued with unabated interest, but death was
making rapid inroads upon its aged members.
The Quarterly Meetings which had always been held
here and were occasions for remarkable gatherings
began to shift to other places. The prestige that West
Branch Meeting had always held of being the center
of Friends influence throughout southwestern Ohio
was giving way and it was plainly written that it was
only a very short time until it would have to yield its
prominent position to another. The glory of the past
could not check its rapid decline and the future con-
tained no star of hope.
The Quarterly Meetings were always looked for-
ward to with great interest, as it was usually visited
by ministers of distinction. Among those of my earli-
est recollection were David Tatum, Eli Newlen, Isaac
Jay, Jehu Jessup, Daniel Hill, Sarah Ann Linton and
a few years later Robert and John Henry Douglas,
Calvin Pritchard, Jane Jones, Ascenith Clark and
others. These meetings were times of considerable
spiritual uplift and the social features connected with
them I fear are lost to the present generation. As be-
fore stated West Branch was now beginning to lose its
Quarterly Meeting, as it was held at Van Wert a part
of the time.
I have but one other cause to narrate, and my story
is ended. It is said that it is the last pound added that
causes the mighty cable to break ; it is also the last
blood taken from the body that causes death. The
' final and fatal blow to West Branch Meeting is about
to be given.
It had withstood the exodus which took from it its
young life, it had survived the separation of its mem-
bership into two distinct bodies, it had heroically re-
sisted the storms of adversity, but like the giant oak
66
who has been swayed by the tempests for centuries,
yields at last and falls to the ground.
The story is brief. A meeting was established at
West Milton ; a Monthly Meeting house was built
there ; the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings were tak-
en there; Thomas Jay moved to Milton; Smith Gregg
also attended there as well as many others. West
Branch Meeting was left without ministers and with
but very few members. The last picture to be drawn
is both heroic and pathetic. Heroic from the stand-
point of the great effort that was made by a very small
number to keep up the meeting and pathetic from their
sad faces and almost broken hearts when they saw that
their efforts were in vain.
I can not write these last lines without being touched
with a feeling of sadness. Though not one of the ac-
tors in these last scenes I was so closely connected with
them that they made a deep impression upon my mind.
The meeting was now reduced to but four persons who
made any effort to keep up the meeting. They were
Smith and Charity Mote, David and Samuel Jones.
It was the place they had attended meeting from
childhood and to them it had become a sacred shrine.
It was so closely connected with their whole life's his-
tory that it had become a part of them. It is not
strange that they would cling to it as they would to
life. Every Sabbath during the summer they could
be seen wending their way to the old church, some-
times all four of them, sometimes three and occasion-
ally only two, but no matter as to the number, they
never failed to have meeting and I have frequently
heard them speak of what a good meeting they had.
The meetings continued during the summer months
and into the cool days of autumn. No provision was
made for warming the house, and the end must soon
come.
One cool, gray Sabbath day in late October when
the trees were casting off their mantle of green and
death had placed its seal upon all vegetable life, David
Jones wended his way to the old meeting house as had
been his custom for seventy-five years. When he ar-
rived there no hand was there to greet him and no
heart to cheer him. He entered the meeting house
alone and within its dark, damp walls he sat for awhile
in silence. He arose and with a sad heart departed.
The wick had burned to the socket, the light went out.
West Branch particular meeting has passed into his-
67
torv. The old meeting house stands as a solemn re-
minder of wliat was onee a power for good with no
Nehemiah to return and rebuild its wall or an Ezra
to replenish its treasury, but like a dead planet it has
entered upon its long rest.
West Branch Monthly Meeting still exists, full of
life and full of hope and today we celebrate its hun-
dredth anniversary. Our forefathers had burdens to
bear that we do not, yet we are not without responsi-
bilities. Must we attempt to duplicate the dead past
or must we accept the higher ideals as God is reveal-
ing them in this the Twentieth Century? If we follow
the message as God is revealing it, ever keeping in
view the divine Christ, West Branch Monthly Meeting
at the end of another century will have achieved great-
er things than in the past
7 P. M. REMINISCENCES OF WEST BRANCH.
Robert W 7 . Douglas, Versailles, Ohio.
Impromptu — No paper.
I think we all felt our hearts touched this afternoon
when our dear friend, William A. Jones, so beauti-
fully alluded to old West Branch particular meeting,
and in his paper gave us an account of its death and
burial.
1 was just thinking that while we not only believed
in the death and burial, we also believed in a Resur-
rection, and I thought since he preached on the Death
and Burial of old West Branch that if I was to preach
tonight, it would be on the Resurrection of West
Branch Monthly and Quarterly Meeting, and that it
would still live and its usefulness grow as the years
went by.
My reminiscences of, and associations with, West
Branch Monthly and Quarterly Meeting, go back a
great many years. I came here some time before the
war and I had very pleasant associations with the mem-
bers of West Branch Quarterly Meeting in those early
days.
They did not have the automobile at the church
door at that time, as we have today. They did not
have the steam railway nor the interurban line. We
either had to go to meeting on horse back or walk.
When I came up here at that time, I came to visit Wil-
liam Jay, a beloved minister of the Gospel. He and
68
I were very close friends and conducted a series of
meetings together. We went to Pleasant Hill, Cov-
ington and several other points together. I always
thought his wife could make the best cherry pie I ever
ate in all my life. We held meetings together at old
Sugar Grove meeting house, but now that church has
been torn down and a new one erected in the village
of Frederick. I cannot very well talk about reminis-
cences of West Branch and some of the early history
of the Friends' church in Ohio without talking some-
what of myself, but I do not wish to do it in any sel-
fish way. I am seventy-three years old and at that
age am considered a "back number." I am one of the
"Has Beens." Do you know that I am one of the old-
est recognized pastors of the Friends' church? I am
the first minister that ever performed a marriage cere-
mony in the Friends' church. The old way was to
marry in meeting, a beautiful ceremony that prevailed
in those times.
We had moved to Wilmington, the County Seat of
Clinton County, Ohio, where I started in to be a min-
ister in the Society of Friends, devoting all my time
to church work. It was the first church amongst
Friends that had a regular pastor. Well, I got along
pretty well, the Friends all stood by me, and we would
have great crowds come to attend our meetings. We
had the services in Clinton Hall to start with, but I
thought it would wear out in a few weeks, but the
meeting continued to grow and the hall was crowded
every Sabbath. There was a flourishing Methodist
meeting there when we organized and the pastor of
that church afterwards became one of my warm per-
sonal friends, and I filled his pulpit for him at differ-
ent times. As the Friends grew and prospered, a little
rivalry developed between the two congregations and
in talking with this minister one day upon the street,
he laughingly twitted me with the fact that I was no
preacher, for said he, "If you were, you could per-
form the marriage ceremony." He also said that the
Society of Friends was not a church at all, etc.
Well, the result of the bantering was, that I told
him if he would go with me down to the Probate*
Court, I would prove to him that I was a preacher and
that the Society of Friends was a church and that I
would get a license to perform the marriage ceremony
the same as any other church or minister. When we
arrived at the Court House, and went before the Judge,
69
I told him I was a minister of the Society of Friends
and that I wanted permission to solemnize marriages
in the State of Ohio, and the Probate Judge said : "Mr.
Douglas, I have no hesitancy in saying that you are a
minister of the Gospel, and I will gladly give you per-
mission to solemnize marriages in the State of Ohio,
the same as other ministers in other churches."
That was the first license ever granted to a minister
amongst Friends to solemnize marriages, and at that
time it was considered quite an innovation in the
Friends' church. There are too many scenes and
stories that come trooping through my mind, to be
spoken of at this time. I shall continue to preach the
blessed Gospel as long as I live and hope at the close
of life that I can truly say, that I have kept the faith
and fought a good fight.
THE QUAKERISM OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY.
Elbert Russell, Professor oe Biblical Instruction,
Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.
On an occasion such as this it would be most pleas-
ant to give one's self up to eulogy of the past. But it
is an interest in the future that brings me to take part
in this program. As an oarsman looks backward at
the shore he is leaving in order to shape his course
as he rows away from it, so we shall consider the
Quakerism of the Nineteenth Century, not to praise or
to blame it, but to secure from its experiences guid-
ance for the present and future.
Whether studying from books the history of the past
century of Quakerism in this country, or listening to
reminiscences of it as on this occasion, one is im-
pressed first of all by the moral heroism and rugged-
ness of the early pioneers. We feel this heroism as we
see them moving from the Carolinas to escape the
blight of slavery, coming to this land amid perils of
savages and wild beasts, hewing out homes in the wild-
erness and denying themselves the comforts of life in
order to build up churches and establish schools for
themselves and their children. These pioneers were
most conscientious in all matters of life, carrying their
religion, at whatever cost, into their daily living, main-
taining in their strange customs a living testimony to
ft)
its spirituality and democracy, interested everywhere in
human welfare and philanthropy. They were kind
and self-sacrificing, not only toward their neighbors,
but their hearts beat in sympathy for the suffering in
the world at large, and the slave and the Indian were
objects of their philanthropy. Their moral heroism
shows itself in the sacrifices they made to keep up their
meetings and to establish schools even while their own
homes were not yet provided with the ordinary com-
forts of life. The stories told by our grandfathers,
of the long rides to meeting through the woods on
horseback, with the wife behind, and a child in front,
help us realize what it cost these pioneers in time and
hardship to maintain such meetings as the one founded
here at West Branch. We admire at the same time
their rugged independence and self-sufficiency. Their
moral heroism was not that of impractical dreamers,
nor their philanthropy the result of weakly sentimental-
ism.
Their own hands were able to provide the necessi-
ties of life, and in their religious work and worship
they were self-supporting.
As we follow the career of these Quaker pioneers,
we find that their religion comes by and by into "peril
of change." A conscientious people are always in dan-
ger of missing the essential point in the midst of a
changing life ; of clinging to forms that have lost their
meaning. The peculiarities of speech and dress and
manner which these pioneers brought with them into
the wilderness had once been testimonies to the equal-
ity of men and the spirituality of worship, but the
changes which a half century in the new country
brought, steadily robbed them of their significance. Yet
these changes came so gradually that a large propor-
tion of the Friends did not realize their extent and
consequences. To maintain the ancient testimonies
and to keep up their religious meetings and their
schools, had cost them much in the way of sacrifice,
but as the forests were felled, the roads opened and the
fields brought under cultivation, ease and comfort
took the place of the hardships of the pioneer life. The
lo£ cabins gave wav to frame houses, the homespun to
fabrics from the looms. Roads were lengthened and
railways built. Commerce brought in the comforts
and even the luxuries of the older civilization of the
East. As the toil and hardship of pioneer life were
succeeded by comfort and wealth, as neighborhoods
71
grew in size and the means of travel were increased,
it no longer involved so great sacrifices to maintain the
religious services and education. It no longer cost
so much in time and effort and money to attend meet-
ing, to transport and support ministers and to carry
on the schools. The wider world was soon to call for
new sacrifices from the church for church extension,
for missions and philanthropy and pastoral care, but
these had not yet come.
In spite of all the efforts to hold fast the ancient or-
der we are conscious here today that somewhere in the
course of the Nineteenth Century, a great change came
over the spirit and the form of Quakerism. It is not
*ny purpose here either to praise or blame those who
brought about that change, but no one who would un-
derstand Quakerism at the beginning of the Twen-
tieth Century can afford to ignore the causes and ex-
tent of the change in the middle of the Nineteenth. The
change began in the reaction from Hicksism. Stirred
by the Hicksite separation among Friends in America,
certain English Friends, among whom Joseph John
Gurney and Hannah Backhouse were perhaps the most
prominent, came to this country in order to establish
the Friends more thoroughly in the knowledge of the
Scriptures. The earlier Friends had been afraid to
attempt to either teach or read the Scriptures publicly
for fear of interfering with the Spirit's work. The
consequent ignorance of the Bible had paved the way
for Hicksism and Elias Hicks' depreciation of the Bible
stirred Friends to a renewed sense of its value. Joseph
John Gurney had been influenced by the "Low Church"
school of theology in England, and introduced among
Friends in this country a greater regard for the ex-
ternal authority of Scripture. Now this new attitude
towards the Scriptures, while of incalculable value to
the Society, resulting as it did in Bible schools and in
the use of the Scriptures in preaching and public wor-
ship, was nevertheless, the camel's nose in the tent of
Nineteenth Century Quakerism, which resulted ulti-
mately in the bringing in of the whole beast of external
influences. One cannot compare our present attitude
with that of the early Nineteenth Century without real-
izing how thorough a revolution we have undergone.
The early Quakerism was strict as to externals but
very careful not to dictate to the individual in matters
of the Spirit, whereas the Quakerism at the end of the
Nineteenth Century had become indifferent as to ex-
72
ternals, but dogmatic in matters of faith and worship.
When we come to study the sources of these changes,
we find that practically all of them came from outside
the Society. They were always regarded as importa-
tions into the Society by the elders, who uniformly op-
posed these changes when they first appeared. Aside
from the new evangelical influence in Gurney, the in-
fluences which changed the Society came mostly from
the Methodists. The relation of the Wesleyan move-
ment to the history of the Society of Friends is a most
interesting one. John Wesley and George Fox had
very much in common in their methods of proclaiming:
the Gospel and in their ideas of personal salvation. It
is often asserted that if George Fox and his fellow
workers had been alive in the middle of the Eighteenth
Century, they would have done the work which Wesley
did. But in the century that intervened between Fox
and Wesley, the Friends had turned their attention to
perfecting their organization, healing the wounds of
persecution and preserving their testimonies. When
the revival of religious interest which permeated all
classes of the English people about the middle of the
Eighteenth Century, touched the Friends, instead of
inclining them to renew the evangelistic work of Fox,
and to attempt again to gather another harvest from
the English people, their renewed religious zeal took
the form of building up and enforcing the discipline,
and so the new generation of men, who had been pre-
pared by the discipline of history for a more spiritual
and vital religion, was reached by John Wesley and
gathered and organized into the Methodist Church.
The evidences of the Methodist influence in effecting
the change in Nineteenth Century Quakerism are easily
found. Here I may only mention some which have
come under my own observation. In the first place
the Methodists exercised a profound influence upon
our theology. This is to be seen in the gradual sup-
planting of our Quaker standards of doctrine. The
old works ceased to be used in our instruction. We
became very much afraid of the doctrine of the In-
ner Light, and the change from the older Quaker
theology was so great in certain quarters that today
Barclay and Penn are emphatically said to have been
unsound. That it was the Methodist theologv which
supplanted this older Quaker system of doctrine is
seen from the fact that some of our leading- evangel-
ists in this movement were born Methodists. (See
73
Reminiscences of- Nathan and Esther Frame, pp. 38,
39, 52.) A couple of years ago, I was reading an ar-
ticle in "The American Journal of Theology," on re-
cent changes in Methodist theology. As I read, I had
a strange feeling that I was in some way familiar with
the authors mentioned as standard Methodist writers
on theology. The feeling puzzled me because I did
not think I had ever read Methodist theological writ-
ings. All at once the suspicion flashed into my mind
as to the real facts in the case. Laying aside the
magazine, I walked around to the shelves in the Earl-
ham Library where were kept the works on systematic
theology, which Dr. Dougan Clark had placed in the
library as reference works, and there they were, the
books which were cited in the article as works of stand-
ard Methodist writers. Fields' Handbook of The-
ology was once used as a text-book at Earlham. It
will be remembered that a few years ago, the "Soul
Winner," in an effort to -prolong its life, fused with the
"Life Line," a paper edited by a Methodist, and the
two were published together for a little while. Turn-
ing from theology to methods of religious work and
worship, we find the same Methodist influence. The
mourner's bench was borrowed directly, and the feel-
ing that so many of the first evangelists expressed, —
that it was impossible to have a good evangelistic
meeting without singing, is due to the same ideal of
evangelistic work. (See Reminiscences of Nathan and
Esther Frame, pp. 38, 39, 52.) We find along with
this, a movement towards water baptism. The dis-
tinction which has been quite commonly heard in the
last quarter of the Nineteenth Century between Quaker-
ism and the gospel is due to the fact that the modern
preaching and methods of work and worship are felt
to be something different from the original Quakerism
which they supplanted. To the older Friends, Quaker-
ism was the gospel, and none of them would ever have
said as our present day preachers occasionally do,
that he "cared more for the gospel than for Quaker-
ism." It was only when those outside influences
brought in a method of studying and practising the
gospel different from Quakerism that the distinction
was made. We find likewise that the Methodist in-
fluence is shown in the tendency towards a "one-man"
pastoral system. That some sort of pastoral care
would be needed after the great revival was quite evi-
dent, but it is just as evident that the particular shape
74
towards which our pastoral system tended was fur-
nished by the example of the Episcopal system of the
Methodists.
While the predominant influence in the changes
which Nineteenth Century Quakerism underwent came
from the Methodists, other evangelical influences have
certainly entered in. This is especially true of the
literature which we have read. The literature which
has fed the thought and shaped the religious ideals of
our Society for a generation has been almost wholly
of non-Quaker origin. The sermons of Moody, Tal-
mage and Spurgeon, Matthew Henry's Commentary
and C. H. M.'s "Notes on the Pentateuch" constituted
the staple diet for many of our ministers. Until quite
recently our Sunday School "helps" were prepared by
men who were not Friends. The publishers for the
United Brethren, the Protestant Methodists and the
Quakers joined together and one set of "helps" was
prepared for all. The only difference between the
Friends' Quarterly and that used by the other denom-
inations lay in the covers and in the fact that when-
ever there was a lesson on the ordinances, something
else was substituted for it in the copy which bore the
name Friends' Quarterly. Another result of these
foreign influences was the tendency towards a definite
creed as a basis of fellowship. The early Friends
made a great struggle to free themselves from bondage
to a creed and to win the right of a free conscience and
free belief, but during the last half of the Nineteenth
Century there was a steady movement towards making
adherence to a definite body of doctrine a condition
of good standing in the Society of Friends. English
Friends travelling in America are especially struck by
this tendency among us. You will remember that the
chief objection to the uniform discipline in the west-
ern Yearly Meetings was that its statement of doctrine
was not full and rigid enough, and that most of the
Yearly Meetings only adopted the discipline with the
understanding that the Richmond Declaration of Faith
and George Fox's Letter to the Governor of Barbadoes
were to be included and printed with it. Along with
these changes in thought and methods, there was a
great revival of life and power and a very great
growth in numbers. The end of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury thus left us free from bondage to the traditions
of the past in an attitude to receive all that seems to
us good from every Christian source, and with a large
75
membership who are in a position where we may legiti-
mately try to Quakerize them if we decide that Quak-
erism is still worth while.
I have shown at considerable length the outside in-
fluences which produced the great changes in the lat-
ter half of the Nineteenth Century. The tendency of
these changes was to obliterate all those traits which
had constituted distinguishing peculiarities of Friends.
If these changes had gone on unchecked, the logical
result would have been that we would have become
simply a small denomination practising a rather color-
less type of evangelical Christianity. But the old
Quaker principles were still among us, represented by
our ancient literature and by the conservative spirit of
our older members, ready to influence us if ever again
we turned to the study of our past and tried to correct
our practice by it. The close of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury witnessed a very decided reaction towards the es-
sential principles of Quakerism. This reaction was al-
most contemporary with the great shift of population
in this country from the country to the cities. In the
last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, the cities of
our country underwent a very rapid growth, until to-
day they contain half the population of our country and
thoroughly dominate our life. Now the Quakerism of
the early Nineteenth Century was rural, and Quak-
erism remained so practically through the century.
Friends do not seem to have had the faculty of build-
ing their meeting houses where cities were going to
grow up, and in the shift of population to the cities,
the Society of Friends lost a whole generation. The
changes that had come over the Society had brought
in a spirit of interdenominationalism and our younger
members did not feel that there was any essential dif-
ference between Quakerism and the other simple evan-
gelical churches, so that when they moved into the
cities where there was no Friends' meeting, they did
not feel that it was worth while to undertake the sacri-
fices necessary to establish and carry on a struggling,
small Friends' meeting when they could go to large
and influential Methodist or Presbyterian or Baptist
churches, which were already there. But at the close
of the century there was a revival of the study of the
history and literature thai is distinctive of Quakerism,
and the immediate result of this influence of our past
was to put a check- to the tendency to accept without
modification the general form of protestantism about
76
us. A careful study of the Quinquennial Conferences,
which were the forerunners of the Five Years' Meet-
ing, shows that each of them was characterized by a
reaction from some extreme tendency away from
Quakerism. The principal question at the Richmond
Cdnference in 1887 was whether Friends should adopt
the practice of the ordinances or not, and the Declara-
tion of Faith which the Conference adopted reaffirmed
our ancient position against them. The tendency
towards a monarchical ministry brought that question
to an issue in the Indianapolis Conference of 1892, and
the decision of the Conference was a reaffirmation of
our former position in favor of congregational free-
dom in worship, and a form of pastoral care which
did not bestow governing powers on the minister. In
1897, the most important question was whether we
should have one type of Quakerism and preserve the
organic unity of the Society, or whether each Yearly
Meeting should go on its way developing an individu-
ality of faith and practice of its own. The decision of
the Conference was in favor of unity, and the adop-
tion of the uniform discipline and establishment of the
Five Years' Meeting was the result. The first Five
Years' Meeting, in 1902, was mainly concerned with
the organization of its departments of work and the
determination of their powers and duties, but the ques-
tion of freedom of thought and of our attitude towards
theological systems came prominently before the meet-
ing, and while there was no definite action taken, the
refusal of the meeting to commit itself to any definite
doctrinal standard, put a check upon the tendency to-
wards a creedal basis of fellowship.
We have passed in review the striking characteristics
of the Quakerism of the Nineteenth Century. It was
a century of progress for us. In spite of exceptions
here and there, we have been willing to learn and to
grow. Throughout the century, the Society has been
composed mainly of men and women of great earnest-
ness. The Society has escaped the perils of dead
forms and binding traditions, and has demonstrated
that it is able to go on and keep pace with the progress
of life. It was a great work for it to cast off its
grave-clothes, to build new churches, and to convert
and gather in multitudes of men and women. If in the
Twentienth Century we are able to show the same
spirit of sacrifice for that which we hold to be true
and right, if we show the same earnestness in seeking
77
for that which is best, if we continue to have adapta-
bility to changing conditions and capacity for growth
in numbers and power, and if at the same time we
can profit by our past mistakes, there is a future for
our Society greater than has been its past.
SEVENTH DAY, 9 30 A. \J.
BRANCHES THAT HAVE SPRUNG FROM
WEST BRANCH.
By Eli Jay, Richmond, Ind.
The "Branches that have sprung from West Branch"
are understood to be the meetings of various kinds
that, directly or indirectly, have been derived from it.
As the only boundaries limiting its territory were the
Big Miami on the east and the Ohio River on the
south, it would appear that all the Friends' meetings
that have been established north and west of- these
rivers, to the Pacific Ocean, would make up the
branches to be inquired about. It will be best in con-
sidering these, to enumerate them in the larger groups
of Quarterly Meetings, so that our attention shall not
be confused by the multitude of small meetings estab-
lished in the last hundred years.
In 1809 Whitewater Monthly Meeting in Wayne
County, Indiana, about 40 miles west, and in 181 1 Mill
Creek, four miles east, were set off from West Branch
and established by Miami Quarterly Meeting, Warren
County, Ohio. This Quarterly Meeting had been tak-
en from Redstone Quarterly Meeting in Pennsylvania
and with its approval established by Baltimore Yearly
Meeting, and opened at Waynesville, Ohio, Fifth Mo.
12th, 1809. It was composed of four Monthly Meet-
ings, Miami, 1803, West Branch, 1807, Centre, 1807,
and Fairfield, 1807.
1. Sixth Mo. 13, 18 1 2, West Branch Quarterly
Meeting set off from Miami Quarterly Meeting and
established by Baltimore Yearly Meeting, was opened,
to be held alternately at West Branch and Whitewater,
composed of four Monthly Meetings, West Branch,
1807, Whitewater, 1809, Elk, 1809, and Mill Creek,
i8ti. West Branch Quarterly Meeting is now com-
posed of two Monthly Meetings and has a member-
ship of 553.
78
2. Whitewater Quarterly Meeting set off from
West Branch and established by it, and Ohio Yearly
Meeting, was opened at Richmond, Indiana, First Mo.
4, 1817. It was composed of two Monthly Meetings,
Whitewater, 1809, and New Garden, set off from
Whitewater and established by it, and West Branch
Quarterly Meeting and opened in 181 5. Since its
opening Whitewater Quarterly Meeting has taken part
in establishing fifteen Monthly Meetings, and five
Quarterly Meetings. Ten of these Monthly Meetings
were taken in establishing the five Quarterly Meetings,
one was attached to another Quarterly Meeting, and
two small ones in Florida have been laid down, leav-
ing four, its present number with a membership of
1600.
3. In 1818 Blue River Quarterly Meeting, set off
from West Branch, and established by it and Ohio
Yearly Meeting, was opened composed of two Monthly
Meetings, Lick Creek in Orange County, Indiana, set
off from Whitewater in 1813, and Blue River in Wash-
ington County, Indiana, set off from Lick Creek in
181 5 and each established by West Branch Quarterly
Meeting.
(The following Quarterly Meetings were established
by Indiana Yearly Meeting with the approval of the
Quarterly Meeting from which it was taken. The
date following the name of the meeting is the year of
its opening.)
4. New Garden Quarterly Meeting, set off from
Whitewater, composed of two Monthly Meetings, New
Garden, 181 5, and Cherry Grove, 1821, was opened in
the northern part of Wayne County, Indiana, First
Mo., 1823, now composed of three Monthly Meetings
and has a membership of 862.
5. Westfield Quarterly Meeting for Friends in
Preble County, Ohio, and Union County, Indiana, com-
posed of three Monthly Meetings, two of them. Elk,
1809, and Westfield, 1821, from West Branch Quar-
terly Meeting, and one Silver Creek, 1817, since 1834
called Salem, from Whitewater Quarterly Meeting,
was opened in Third Mo., 1825. It is now composed
of two Monthly Meetings, Elk and Salem, and has a
membership of 295.
6. White Lick Quarterly Meeting, set off from Blue
River, was opened in Second Mo., 183 1, composed of
four Monthly Meetings. White Lick, 18^4, and Fair-
field, 1827, both in Hendricks County, Indiana, Bloom-
79
ingdale, 1828, in Parke County, and Vermilion, 1827,
in Vermilion County, Indiana.
7. Bloomingxlale Quarterly, set off from White
Lick, was opened in Second Mo., 1836, in Parke Coun-
ty, composed of three Monthly Meetings, Vermilion,
1827, Bloomingdale, 1828, and Sugar River, 183 1.
8. Spiceland Quarterly Meeting for Friends in
Henry and Rush Counties, set off from Whitewater,
composed of three Monthly Meetings, Duck Creek,
1826. Spiceland, 1833, and Walnut Ridge, in Rush
County, 1836, was opened at Spiceland in Third Mo.,
1840, to be held alternately at Spiceland and Walnut
Ridge. Now four Monthly Meetings, membership
2307.
9. Northern, now Fairmount Quarterly Meeting,
Grant County, Indiana, set off from New Garden, was
opened Third Mo., 1841, composed of two Monthly
Meetings, Mississmawa, 1833, and Back Creek, 1838.
It now has five Monthly Meetings and a membership
of 2220.
10. Salem Quarterly Meeting, Henry County,
Iowa, set off from Bloomingdale, Indiana, was opened
in Fifth Mo., 1848, composed of two Monthly Meet-
ings, Salem, 1839, and Pleasant Plain, 1843, both in
Henry County, Iowa.
11. Union Quarterly Meeting, Hamilton County,
Indiana, set off from White Lick, was opened in Sec-
ond Mo., 1849, composed of two Monthly Meetings,
Westfield, 1836, and Richland, 1841.
12. Concord, now' Thornton Quarterly Meeting,
set off from Bloomingdale and Fairmount, was opened
Fifth Mo., 18.S2, composed of four Monthly Meetings,
Sugar River, 1831, Sugar Plain, 1841, Greenfield. 1844,
and Honey Creek, 1847.
13. Pleasant Plain Quarterly Meeting, Henry
Countv, Iowa, set off from Salem, was opened in Fifth
Mo.. 18^4, composed of four Monthly Meetings, Pleas-
ant Plain, 1843, Richland, 185 1, Spring Creek, 1851,
and Three Rivers, 1852.
14. Red Cedar, now West Branch Quarterly, Red
Cedar Countv. Towa, set off from Salem, was opened
Fifth Mo., tR^R, composed nf three Monthly Meetings,
Tied Cedar, 1853, Winniskirk, 1855, and Blooming-
ton, i8tf>.
15. Western Plain, now Bangor Quarterly Meet-
ing. Marshall County. Towa. set off from Ple^sanl
Plain, was opened Sixth Mo., 1858, composed of two
80
Monthly Meetings, Western Plain, 1855, and West-
land, 1856.
16. South River, now Ack worth Quarterly Meet-
ing, Warren and Clinton Counties, Iowa, set off from
Pleasant Plain, was opened Third Mo., i860, composed
of two Monthly Meetings, Bear River and Three
Rivers.
17. Kansas, now Springdale Quarterly Meeting in
northeastern Kansas, set off from Whitewater, Ind.,
and Ackworth, Iowa, was opened Third Mo., 1862,
composed of three Monthly Meetings, Kansas, i860,
Spring Grove, i860, and Cottonwood, 1861.
18. Wabash Quarterly Meeting, Wabash and Am-
boy, Indiana, set off from Fairmount, was opened
Third Mo., 1865, composed of three Monthly Meet-
ings, Wabash, 1857, Amboy, 1853, and Birch Lake,
Michigan, 1841, now has four Monthly Meetings and a
membership of 971.
19. Walnut Ridge Quarterly Meeting, Rush Coun-
ty, Indiana, set off from Spiceland, was opened Second
Mo., 1867, composed of two Monthly Meetings, Wal-
nut Ridge, 1836, and Carthage, 1866. It now has five
Monthly Meetings and a membership of 1617.
20. Cottonwood Quarterly Meeting, Cottonwood
County, Kansas, set off from Springdale, was opened
Third Mo., 1868, composed of two Monthly Meetings,
Cottonwood, 1861, and Toledo, 1867.
21. Spring River Quarterly Meeting, in southwest-
ern Missouri and southeastern Kansas, set off from
Springdale, was opened Sixth Mo., 1869, with two
Monthly Meetings, Spring River, 1867, in Kansas and
Union, 1868, near Carthage, Missouri.
22. Hesper Quarterly Meeting, in Douglas and
Johnson Counties, Kansas, set off from Springdale,
was opened in Third Mo., 1870, composed of two
Monthly Meetings, Spring Grove, i860, and Spring-
field, 1864.
23. Marion Quarterly Meeting, Marion, Indiana,
set off from Fairmount, was opened in Third Mo.,
1872, composed of two Monthly Meetings, Mississ-
mawa, 1833, and Deer Creek, 1869. It now has six
Monthly Meetings and a membership of 1607.
24. Winchester Quarterly Meeting, Winchester,
Indiana, set off from New Garden, was opened in
Seventh Mo., 1874, composed of three Monthly Meet-
ings, Cherry Grove, 182 1, White River, 1824, and Pop-
81
Iar Run, 18 — . It now has eight Monthly Meetings
and a membership of 4323.
25. Yandalia Quarterly Meeting, Cass County,
Michigan, set off from Wabash, was opened in Second
Mo., 1887. It now has five Monthly Meetings and a
membership of 259.
26. Dublin Quarterly Meeting, in the western part
of Wayne and eastern part of Henry Counties, set off
from Whitewater, was opened in Second Mo., 1888,
composed of three Monthly Meetings, Dublin, former-
ly Milford, 1823, Springfield, 1820, and Hopewell,
1841. It still has the same, with a membership of
1 183.
27. Van Wert Quarterly Meeting, Van Wert, Ohio,
set off from West Branch, was opened in Fifth Mo.,
1889, composed of three Monthly Meetings, Van Wert,
1875, Middle Point, 1881, and "Friends Chapel, 1885.
It now has two Monthly Meetings and a membership
of 804.
28. Long Lake, now Traverse City Quarterly
Meeting, set off from Yandalia, was opened at Tra-
verse City, Michigan, First Mo., 1892, composed of
three Monthly Meetings, Long Lake, 1881, Pleasant
Grove, 1886, and Manton, 1890. It now has five
Monthly Meetings with a membership of 468.
29. Eastern Quarterly Meeting, held alternately at
Cincinnati and Selma, Ohio, set off from Miami, was
opened in Second Mo., 1892, composed of two Monthly
Meetings, Cincinnati, 181 5, and Greenplain, Selma,
Ohio, 1821, still has the same Monthly Meetings with
a membership of 296.
30. Puget Sound Quarterly Meeting, Seattle,
Washington, set off from Winchester, Indiana, and
Newberg, Oregon, was opened in Ninth Mo., 1907,
composed of three Monthly Meetings, Seattle, Tacoma
and Everett and a membership of 290.
Yearly Meetings derived, in part, from West Branch
Monthly Meeting :
1. Indiana Yearly Meeting set off from Ohio Year-
ly Meeting, was opened at Richmond, Indiana, the
8th of Tenth Mo., 1821, composed of five Quarterly
Meetings, Miami, 1809; West Branch. 1812; Fairfield,
1815; Whitewater, 1817, and Blue River, 1818. In
addition to these five Quarterly Meetings, Indiana
Yearly Meeting has established twenty-eight Quarterly
Meetings (28) making in all thirty-three. Of these
five were taken to constitute Western Yearly Meeting
6
82
ill 1858, five to constitute Iowa Yearly Meeting in
1863, four to constitute Kansas Yearly Meeting in
1872, and three to constitute Wilmington Yearly Meet-
ing in 1892, leaving sixteen, the present number of
Quarterly Meetings now constituting Indiana Yearly
Meeting with 19,626 members in sixty-four monthly
meetings and one hundred thirty-nine particular meet-
ings.
2. Western Yearly Meeting set off from Indiana
Yearly Meeting was opened at Plainfield, Indiana, in
Ninth Mo., 1858, composed of five Quarterly Meet-
ings, Blue River, 1818, White Lick, 183 1, Blooming-
dale, 1836, Union, 1849, an< ^ Thorntown, 1852. It
now has sixteen Quarterly Meetings and 15,709 mem-
bers.
3. Iowa Yearly Meeting, set off from Indiana
Yearly Meeting, was opened at Oskaloosa, Iowa, Ninth
Mo., 10th, 1863, composed of five Quarterly Meetings,
Salem, 1848, Pleasant Plain, 1854. It now has twen-
ty Quarterly Meetings and 11,090 members.
4. Kansas Yearly Meeting set off from Indiana
Yearly Meeting, was opened at Lawrence, Kansas, in
Tenth Mo., 1872, composed of four Quarterly Meet-
ings, Springdale, 1862, Cottonwood, 1868, Spring Riv-
er, 1869, and Hesper, 1870, and about 2,500 members.
It now has fifteen Quarterly Meetings and 11,249
members.
5. Oregon Yearly Meeting, set off from Iowa Year-
ly Meeting, was opened in 1893 at Newberg, Oregon,
with two Quarterly Meetings, Newberg and Salem. It
now has three Quarterly Meetings, Newberg with six
Monthly Meetings, Salem with five and Boise Valley,
Idaho, established last year, with four. This Yearly
Meeting has 1890 members.
6. California Yearly Meeting, set off from Iowa
Yearly Meeting, was opened at Whittier, California,
1895, with two Quarterly Meetings, Pasadena and
Whittier. It now has three Quarterly Meetings, Pasa-
dena with 948 members, Whittier with 1270 and Berke-
ley with 396 and in Alaska, 1100, making 3714 mem-
bers.
A very important branch of work, the educational,
carried on at West Branch in the early day deserves
a brief notice. Schools and academies suited to the
wants of the new meetings established, received en-
couragement from the zeal and success of educational
work done at West Branch. And schools and the
83
caii^c of education have prospered and increased till
now there are numerous academies of high standing,
and line, well established colleges in the six Yearly
Meetings west of the great Miami River. There is
Earlham College, Richmond, Ind., for Indiana and
western Yearly Meetings ; Penn College, Oskaloosa,
Iowa, for Iowa Yearly .Meeting; Friends University,
Wichita, Kansas, for Kansas Yearly Meeting; Pacific
College, Newberg, ( )regon, for Oregon Yearly Meet-
ing, and Whittier College, Whittier, California, for
California Yearly Meeting. And even the Friends of
the new Yearly Meeting to be, in Nebraska, alreadv
have their Central City College, at Central City, Neb
The foregoing furnishes an outline of the develop-
ment and expansion, that has taken place in the So-
ciety of Friends, west of the Great Miama River, in
the one hundred years that have passed since the open-
ing of West Branch Monthly Meeting. There is no
one of the Yearly Meetings established west of us,
and but few r , if any, of the near three score Quarterly
Meetings composing them, but have in them members
descended from some who have been identified with
West Branch Monthly Meeting in its early days. And
thiis the influence of this meeting has been a factor,
small though it be, in the various branches springing
from it, in bringing about what has been accomplished.
Let us thank our Heavenly Father for His favors and
blessings in the past and seek a continuation of them
by ourselves becoming willing and glad co-laborers
with Him in His great work in the world.
POEM.
A RECORD ACCEPTABLE
Allen C. McDonald, Dayton, Ohio.
God knoweth the hearts of the children of men,
Each thought is recorded by the Divine pen ;
Church Pharisaism, irreligion and strife
Will all be revealed in the great Book of Life.
'Tis not they who boast of their own righteousness,
Or broadest phylacteries seek to possess,
The choicest of mansions shall be given above,
Indeed should they e'er reach that haven of Love.
But those meek and lowly, the true and the pure,
The trials of life who with patience endure.
In spirit and truth who have worshipped their Lord
Shall wear the bright crown of glorious reward.
84
When Gabriel shall trump at the last great day,
And peoples of earth to God's throne wend their way —
The sifting shall come 'twixt the dark and the light —
The goats to the left and the sheep to the right.
O, where shall the sect and the schism then be found,
And creeds of religion that much did abound —
Denominations so-called, with diverse views,
That charity for others oft did abuse?
Will the church fall short 'mid division and class,
Or through the pearly gates be granted free pass?
If entrance be given, what the order and place
Of religious sects in the region of grace?
Will some be assigned near the throne of the King,
Where close at His feet they may joyously sing,
Whilst others will be sent to more distant parts
That poor records show in reaching human hearts?
Those organizations that follow strict form,
Whose pews are well filled both in winter and storm,
Whose service throughout, both in speaking and prayer,
Is taken from rituals — they will be where?
Will the Great Ruler as He looks down the line
Judge sects by the spiritual lights that may shine?
Will doctrine and creed, ceremony and rite
Have weight in rewarding the children of light?
If such be the case, where the Quakers who quake
With fear at the wrath that will sure overtake
The sinner unsaved — ay, Society of Friends —
What will their state be when the Judgment descends?
What were their beliefs and their record for good,
In battle for Right on what ground have they stood?
O, Judge of the world, pray a moment take heed
Before Thou these Friends givst their measure of meed.
In times of religious crises among men,
When formalism ev'rywhere prevailed, 'twas then
The Society of Friends, through one George Fox,
Was brought into being, with views orthodox.
Its founder believed this new Society
By manner of life of its members should be
Distinguished from all other sects of mankind,
Devoted to good, but to wickedness blind.
In plainness of language as well as of dress
They counted simplicity for righteousness;
Display of all kinds they carefully eschewed,
As well as behavior unseemly or rude.
In doctrine religious — if doctrine they had—
They held quite aloof from innovation and fad ;
Followed the teachings of the low Nazarene,
And trusted their lives to the Power Unseen.
85
In meetings for worship, their hearts were attuned
To list to the Spirit, with whom they communed
In silent devotion, till the still, small voice
Led to outward prayer or in praise to rejoice.
All ordinances in a spiritu'l sense
They viewed with conviction sincere and intense, —
Baptism. Lord's Supper, ev'ry one ; — age and youth
All strove God to worship in spirit and truth.
Contention and discord they taught to abhor,
And strongly condemned all occasion for war;
They preached peace on earth and good will to all men, —
The Golden Rule standard, — again and again.
Ill speaking of others, deceit, words profane,
And use of strong drinks were denounced with disdain;
To help the distressed was one of their commands,
And rescue the heathen in far distant lands.
In fear of the Lord, in submission of heart,
A righteous influence they sought to impart;
Possessed all the graces of true Christian love,
And justly walked before their Father above.
Their great Church structure, firmly built on the Rock,
'Gainst tempests of evil withstood shock and knock;
In size, strength and beauty, the passing of time
Its grandeur increased to proportions sublime.
Such was the record announced of the Friends —
Like unto a blessing whose goodness ne'er ends ; —
A record of service, of accomplishment ;
The world has been bettered — glorious event!
"Well done, faithful servants," spake the Judge on the Throne;
"You've fought a good fight, true faith you have shown ;
My laws as laid down in the Scriptures you've kept,
The forces of sin from your pathway you've swept,"
"Go forth and enjoy blissful mansions of rest;
Your record entitles that you have the best.
No part of my kingdom from you I'll withhold —
I'll place you over fine palaces of gold."
So they who believed in the spiritual birth,
And served God in spirit and truth on the earth;
Whose lives were devoted to cause of the Right
Were most rewarded in the Kingdom of Light.
But 'tis not alone to the Friends to receive
The richest reward, but all who believe —
All sects of religion, whate'er be the name,
That save lost mankind shall reward have the same.
And let us remember not in group or throng
We'll pass to the portals of seraphic song;
But each must be judged by his works here below,
And thus will determine' his weal or his woe,
86
And though our names may on the church book appear,
Church membership only will not suffice here ;
Those who serve the Christ — in His footsteps have trod —
Alone shall be crowned at the right hand of God.
FRIENDS' AND WOMEN'S MINISTRY.
By Daisy Barr, Fairmount, Indiana.
In studying this- subject, I find that the Ministry
and Worship of Friends are so closely united, that
we can hardly consider one without considering both.
The great , difference between our ministry and other
denominations is largely based upon the difference in
our form of worship.
On Worship.
As the Lord Jesus declared, "Without Me ye can
do nothing," the Society of Friends holds the doctrine,
that man can do nothing that tends to the Glory of God
and his own salvation, without the immediate assist-
ance of the Spirit of Christ ; and that this aid is es-
pecially necessary in the performance of the highest
act of which he is capable, even the worship of the Al-
mighty. This worship must be in spirit and in truth;
an intercourse between the soul and its great Creator,
which is not dependent upon or necessarily connected
with anything which one man can do for another.
It is the practice therefore of the Society to sit down
in solemn silence to worship God ; that each one may
be engaged to gather inward the gift of divine grace,
in order to experience ability reverently to wait upon
the Father of Spirits, and to offer unto Him through
Christ Jesus, our holy Mediator, a sacrifice well pleas-
ing in His sight, whether it be in silent mental adora-
tion, the secret breathing of the soul unto Him, the pub-
lic ministrv of the gospel, or vocal prayer or thanks-
giving. These that are thus gathered, are the true
worshippers, "Who worships God in the Spirit, rejoice
in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."
"Of the Ministry of the Gospel."
In relation to the ministry of the Gospel, the Society
of Friends hold that the authority and qualification for
this important work are the special gift of Christ Jesus,
the great head of the church, bestowed upon both men
and women, without distinction of rank, talent, or
learning. This gift must be received immediately from
87
Him, through the revelation of his Spirit in the heart ;
agreeably to the declaration of the Apostle; "He gave
some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangel-
ists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the body of Christ." "To another the
word of knowledge, by the same spirit ; to another faith,
to another the gifts of healing, to another the work-
ing of miracles, to another prophecy, to another dis-
cerning of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues,
to another the interpretation of tongues, but all these
worketh that one and the self-same spirit, dividing to
every man severally as he will."
"If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of
God ; if any man minister, let him do it as of the
ability which God giveth ; that God in all things may
be glorified through Jesus Christ."
View the command of our Saviour, "Freely ye have
received, freely give," as of lasting obligation upon all
his ministers, the Society of Friends has, from the
first, steadfastly maintained the doctrine that the Gos-
pel is to be preached without money and without price,
and has borne a constant and faithful testimony,
through much suffering, against a man-made hireling
ministry, which derives its qualification and authority
from human learning and ordination ; which does not
recognize a direct divine call to this solemn work, or
acknowledge its dependence, for the performance of it,
upon the renewed motions and assistance of the Holy
Spirit.
Friends have a free ministry in many distinct ways.
First : It's exercise is not based on any outward attain-
ment, nor is it given to us by the cloak of our fathers
falling on us.
This being true, it has restrained us from the use
of any ceremonies. For the man, who through grace
is become truly spiritual, hath no need of ceremonies
or outward means to depend upon, but finds himself to
rely on the inward divine grace, and to depend upon
God alone, walking continually in reverential watchful-
ness before him, and so keeping- to the immediate
teachings of Christ in his heart, he approaches with
boldness to the throne of grace, and with a full as-
surance of faith, arises to declare the counsel of God.
Tt is usual among early Friends when they meet
together in their religious assemblies, to spend some
time in a devout silence and retiredness of mind, in-
88
wardly praying with pure breathings to God, which
they generally call waiting upon the Lord ; and if un-
der this spiritual exercise any one feels himself stirred
up of God to speak something by way of doctrine or
exhortation, he doth so, and sometimes more than one,
but orderly, one after another. And that this was
usual in the primitive apostolical church, appears from
what Paul saith, "If anything be revealed to another
that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace : for ye may
all prophesy one by one," and what prophesying signi-
fied! under the new covenant, the apostle himself ex-
plains with these words, he that prophesieth, edifieth
the church." Yet let none think this liberty of speak-
ing to be so unlimited, that everybody that can say
something, may freely do so in the congregation : for
he that will speak there, must also by all means be of
a good, and honest, and holy life, and sound in doc-
trine ; and if in process of time he finds in himself a
concern from the Lord to travel in the ministry, and
desires a certificate of his soundness in doctrine and or-
derly life, he may have it from the congregation where
he resides.
Fox, Barkley and many others have written on this
subject in a large measure. Let us refer to Barkley —
"For, while the pure learning of the spirit of truth is
despised and neglected, and made ineffectual, man's
fallen earthly wisdom is upheld ; and so in that he la-
bours and works with the scriptures, being out of the
life and spirit which those that wrote them were in,
by which only they are rightly understood, and made
use of. And so he that is to be a minister, must learn
this art or trade of merchandizing with the scriptures,
and be that which the apostle would not be, to wit, a
trader with them, 2 Cor. ii. 17. That he may acquire
a knack from a verse of scripture, by adding his own
barren notions and conceptions to it, and his uncer-
tain conjectures, and what he hath stolen out of books ;
for which end he must have of necessity a good many
bv him, and may each Sabbath day, as they call it, or
oftener, make a discourse for an hour long ; and this is
called the preaching of the word : whereas the gift,
grace, and Spirit of God, to teach, open, and instruct
and to preach a word in season, is neglected ; and so
man's arts and parts, and knowledge, and wisdom,
which is from below, are set up and established in the
temple of God, yea, and above the little seed ; which
in efifect is Antichrist, working in the mystery. And
89
so the devil may be as good and able a minister as the
best of them ; for he has better skill in languages, and
more logic, philosophy and school-divinity, than any of
them ; and knows in the notion better than they all,
and can talk more eloquently than all those preachers.
"The one essential qualification for the Gospel Min-
istry is 'Baptism of the Spirit,' second, 'Our ministry
is open to all.' In considering the church of worship
and true ministry, it is very easy to see how the way
has been open for women."
The question has often been put to Friends from
the day of Fox, (who wrote the interesting letter on
this subject to the Duke of Holstein, setting forth the
scriptural reason for "women's ministry").
Up to this day, the question has been asked, "Can
Friends give Scriptural reason for women's ministry ?"
Shall we look into the Scripture to answer this ques-
tion ?
Aaron's sister sang the songs of Moses and led the
women.
We mention also Hannah and Huldah, also Deborah,
who was a judge and Isaiah's wife, who was a proph-
etess.
These are of the old Testarnent. Among the early
ministers of the Gospel's dispensation was the four
daughters of Philip, who both prophesied and
preached. Priscilla, the wife of Aquilla, of whom all
the churches gave thanks, and to whom the Apostle
Paul called his helper and fellow-laborer in Christ.
Upon other occasions, Paul spoke of the women
who labored with him in the Gospel. We also have
the account in history on the great day of Pentecost,
when the spirit was poured out upon the people so
abundantlv, that there were women there. The Word
says that they were all filled with the HOLY GHOST,
and spake as the spirit gave them utterance. That
also for the remarkable prophesy of Joel, who says,
"Tn the last day, I will pour out my spirit upon all
flesh, the daughters as well as the sons, and the hand-
maiden as well as the servant shall receive the heaven-
ly Gift and prophecy."
I now quote from John Gurnev, upon that often re-
markable passage from Paul's epistle to the Corin-
thians "Let your women keep silent in church." "Now,
on the comparison of these injunctions with the oth-
er passages of Scripture already cited, and especially
with the prophecy of Joel, and the history of its fulfil-
90
ment, the interpreter of the sacred volume appears to
be driven into one of two decisions ; the first, that the
apostles and prophets, whose works must be ultimately
traced to the same divine author, have contradicted one
another; and this on a point of considerable practical
importance; the second, that the public speaking of
women, so positively forbidden by Paul, was not that
description of speaking which was prompted by the im-
mediate impulses of the Holy Spirit."
When we stop to consider the influence of women
ministers in our church we stand amazed at our sis-
ter denominations, who through their heathen preju-
dice have shorn themselves of this great blessing. That
the apostolic church made the ministry free to both
male and female is clear to our minds without the least
doubt.
In spite of the often asked question by outsiders,
why Jesus did not choose a woman for one of the
twelve, also why the record of their labors was not
given in full as those of Peter, John. Philip and Paul.
In the first instant, we must remember the peculiar
hardships involved in their mode of living, the in-
delicacy in which it would have involved a woman,
these are sufficient reasons. In the second objection,
when we remember that more than one-half of the
apostles named are not mentioned after the day of
Pentecost, yet we do not doubt that they were diligent-
ly employed in preaching and spreading the Gospel.
We must also remember that woman was the last to
leave the cross, and the first to the tomb ; the first to
bear the good news of the resurrection. "Go to my
brother," said the Lord, "and tell them that I ascend
unto my father and unto your father."
This first resurrection sermon was said to have as-
tonished the apostles. The women were sent directly
by Christ Jesus himself. The sensitive, love and ten-
der nature of women especially fits them to become
ministers of the Gospel of Jesus.
When we go back to the early history of the Friends,
we cannot help but look with admiration upon the holy
women who wonderfully gave their lives to the spread-
ing of the Quaker message.
We look with interest upon the life of Mary Dyer,
and those who did the early work in prison reform and
family visiting, among them was Elizabeth Fry, of
England. Sibyl Jones visited Ireland, Norway, Ger-
9!
many, Switzerland, Syria and Palestine in the love of
the Gospel.
(The remainder of this address was not submitted
for publication.)
THE FRIENDS AND PEACE.
By Cyrus W. Hodgin, Professor of History, Earl-
ham College, Richmond, Indiana.
The first peace society was the Christian Church.
The fundamental provision of its constitution was pro-
vided in the command "Thou shalt not kill." The
coming of the founder of that society was foretold
by Isaiah, and the splendid results of its working were
set forth by the same prophet, and the advent of the
Prince of Peace was heralded by the angels in their
ecstatic song of ''Peace on Earth and Good Will to
Men."
The calling together of the twelve original disciples
of the Prince of Peace, constituted the first organiza-
tion of the first peace society on earth. The Head of
this society, not only taught his followers the princi-
ples of love and justice, but He illustrated in His life
the power of these principles in practice, and when one
of the twelve drew a sword in defense of the Master,
he was rebuked, and told to put up his sword, "for
all they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword."
After the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension,
the little peace society tarried at Jerusalem for the
enduement of pentecostal power, and then started out
for the conquest of the mighty Roman Empire.
Through three centuries of bitter persecution at the
hands of the great military power of Rome, the Chris-
tian peace society grew and grew, continually sacrific-
ing the lives of its members, but never taking life
in return. Perhaps 80,000 Christians had fallen in
their peaceful war of conquest, when in 313 Constan-
tine issued his famous edict of toleration, and a little
later Christianity was proclaimed the religion of the
Empire, and the patronage which had previously been
accorded to the old pagan faith was now extended to
the Christian form of worship. Love had conquered
force.
Constantine not only forbade further persecution
of the Christians, but he permitted the Christian socie-
92
ties the legal right to receive gifts and legacies. "And
he himself enriched the church with donations of
money and grants of land. This marks the begin-
ning of the great possessions of the church, and with
these the entrance into it of a worldly spirit. From
this moment can be traced the decay of its primitive
simplicity, and a decline from its early high moral
standard." It was now that the Roman army began
to be composed in part of Christian soldiers. The
bishops, in particular, out of gratitude for imperial
favors, did all they could for the support of the Em-
pire, and recommended young men to enlist in the
army of the Emperor.
The church now forgot that it had been appointed
by its founder to go out without sword or scrip to
make the kingdoms of this world his kingdoms ; it
forgot its opposition to war, and from the Fifth Cen-
tury until the rise of the Society of Friends, there
was no longer any peace society in the world.
During the Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Cen-
turies the church became the leader in one of the
greatest series of wars in the world's history — the Cru-
sades. The church now taught that the highest ser-
vice of God was the destruction of his enemies, in-
cluding Mohammedans and Heretics.
The rise of Protestantism produced no improve-
ment, for Protestants and Catholics waged, for thirty
years, one of the bloodiest wars whereof history bears
record. It is true that from time to time some voice
was raised against the awful inconsistency of Christ's
family engaging in deadly strife. Louis, IX., of
France, protested against the settlement of internation-
al troubles by war, and offered his services as arbi-
trator, but he was as a voice crying in the wilderness.
John Colet and Sir Thomas More, of England, and
Desiderius Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the Ref-
ormation period, all by voice and pen strove to in-
fluence the sovereigns of their time to cease bloody
strife, both for the honor of the church and for the
welfare of their subjects; but their protests fell on
deaf ears. Hugo Grotins, of Holland, wrote a work
on International Law, in which he insisted that the
"Golden Rule" should govern the intercourse of na-
tions with each other, but he w^as far in advance of
his age.
It is the irony of history that the attempt at transi-
tion from brute force to modern diplomacy was made
93
through the falsehood, strategy, and treachery of the
policy of Louis XL, of France, and Machiavelli, of
Italy. While these methods sonic times averted wars,
they were no satisfactory permanent substitute for it,
and wars went on.
It was during the reign of Charles f, of England,
that George Fox arose and gathered about him a little
band of men and women who held to the faith of the
primitive Christians regarding war. Charles I. as-
serted that the king ruled of divine right; that the
king could do no wrong ; that the will of the king
was law, and that it was the duty of the people to sub-
mit in all things to the king's will as law.
The Puritans under Cromwell, and the Quakers un-
der Fox, both resisted the tyranny of the king, the
former with a carnal sword ; the latter with the sword
of the Spirit. The Puritans slew the soldiers of the
king, and finally the king himself. They took control
of the government, and while they had been fighting,
ostensibly for religious and political liberty, they were
little less tyrannous than the king.
The method of the Friends was to protest against
the tyranny, boldly proclaiming a gospel that showed
the iniquity of both royal and Puritan methods. They
suffered continually fines, imprisonment and stripes,
but never resisted by brute force. The Puritan meth-
od failed utterly ; the Stuart line of kings was re-
stored, and persecution went on. The Quakers con-
tinued to preach a gospel of love, continued to pro-
test and continued to suffer for their testimony, until
the people, the magistrates and the crown became
ashamed of the persecution of non-resistant persons,
who were claiming political and religious liberty, not
for themselves alone, but for all people alike. A de-
cree abolishing religious persecution was issued, and
the Quakers, without destroying a life, won for them-
selves and for their belligerent Puritan brethren, who
had failed to secure it by force, the inestimable boon
of religious freedom.
William Penn was one of those suffering Friends
who had won this great victory by peaceful protest and
suffering. It was his belief that a government could
be established and maintained upon the principles of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Having received a grant
of a splendid tract of land from the King in payment
of a debt owed by the sovereign to Penn's father, he
undertook what he was pleased to call his "Holy Ex-
94
periment." The result was the development in Penn-
sylvania of the most prosperous of the English colonies
in America. Penn brought with him no troops, he
built no forts. He tried to establish absolute justice
for all men irrespective of race, color, or religion, and
for seventy years, or as long as the Friends controlled
the government of Pennsylvania it had no Indian
wars, no oppressive trade monopolies, and was a dem-
onstration of the practicability of the Quaker idea of
government. After a time others than Friends ob-
tained control, and Pennsylvania lost its distinction for
peace and honesty.
While William Penn was founding his "Holy Ex-
periment," Europe was in the throes of one of the
bloodiest wars of the Seventeenth Century. Louis
XIV. was on the throne of France. His ambition
knew no bounds. He strove to add the Valley of the
Rhine to his domains by force of arms without the
least shadow of right, and from 1789 to 1797 Western
Europe was embroiled in bloody strife.
It was in the midst of this period, in 1793, that
William Penn published his plan for "the present and
future peace of Europe." This was one of the most
profound statements of the Quaker idea of the benefits
of peace, and of the proper method of securing them
that has ever been made. He first discusses the bene-
fits of peace, — safety of possessions, growth of indus-
try, freedom of trade, absence of the anxieties of war,
investments are made for profit and pleasure, charity
and hospitality are promoted as wealth increases ; he
next recounts the evils of war, — withdrawal of capital
from productive industry, the poor turn soldiers or
thieves, or starve ; no building, no manufactory, little
hospitality or charity ; but what peace gave war
devours.
He next asserts that the means of peace is justice,
not armies and navies and war. Justice is a means of
peace between magistrates and the people, between one
man and another, and between different countries.
"Peace is maintained by justice, which is a fruit of
government, as government is from society, and
societv from consent."
Thirdly, he says government is an expedient against
confusion, a restraint upon all disorder. Government
is the means of justice, as justice is of peace.
Fourthly, having shown the desirableness of peace,
its security through justice, and justice through gov-
95
ernment, he next urges that the princes of Europe
would, from love of peace and order, agree to meet,
by their deputies, yearly, or mice in two or three years
at farthest, in a hod) to be styled the Imperial Diet or
Parliament, or State of Europe, before which assembly
should be brought all differences depending between
one sovereign and another, he is assured that thus the
harassed inhabitants of Europe would quietly obtain
the so much desired and needed peace.
Penn then discusses the causes of international dif-
ferences and the motives to violate peace, the grounds
on which those differences may arise, the organization
of the proposed international Diet or Parliament, the
order of business in its sessions, and the rules and
regulations for conducting the business.
He then skilfully sets up and overthrows the various
objections that he is sure will be urged against his
plan.
First, that the strongest and richest nation will not
agree to it. To this he replies that the strongest is not
stronger than all the rest, and for that reason the
others should promote the proposition and hold the
strongest in check. Again, he supposes the objection,
that if the strongest and richest should agree, there
would be the danger of corruption of the assembly
through the riches. To this he replies that "if men of
sense and honor and substance are chosen (as repre-
sentatives of the other States) they will either scorn
the baseness, or have wherewith to pay for the knav-
ery ( ?)." At least they may so watch each other as
to be checks one upon another ; and that in all great
matters before finally coming to a final settlement, they
should be obliged to refer back to their own home
governments for final instructions.
The next great objection is that it will, by removing
the necessity for fighting, produce effeminacy in the
men. There can be no danger of effeminacy, he says,
because each nation can introduce as temperate or as
severe a discipline in the education of youth as it
pleases. Tt can instruct them in the conquest of them-
selves and of nature; in the practice of mechanics, and
of natural philosophy, which would make them men,
and not either women or lions. They could be trained
to be useful to themselves and to others, and how to
save and help, not injure or destroy. Further, he says,
the youth should be instructed in the knowledge of
government in general, of that of their own country
96
in particular, and be fitted for service in the govern-
ment of the great international state under contempla-
tion.
The objection that the members of the army will
be out of employment, and must either become thieves
or starve, he meets by saying that we shall need more
merchants and farmers, and "ingenious naturalists,"
which, put into modern phrase, might mean practical
biologists, chemists, geologists, electricians and engi-
neers. And these will be produced, he says, if the
governments are sufficiently solicitous of the education
of their youth, "which, next to the present and imme-
diate happiness of any country, ought of all things to
be the care and skill of the government ; for such as
the youth of any country is bred, such is the next
generation, and the government in good or bad
hands."
The last objection mentioned is that by entering
into the proposed union, the sovereign states would
cease to be sovereign. To this he replies that it is not
proposed to interfere with their sovereignty at home ;
their power over their own people and the revenues is
not to be in the least diminished. It may be that the
"war establishment" may be reduced or put to better
use. "None of them have any sovereignty over one
another, and if this be called a lessening of their power,
it must be only because the great fish can no longer
eat up the little ones, and that each sovereignty is
equally defended from injuries, and disabled from
committing them." "When it pleases God to chastise
us severely for our sins, it is with the rod of war that,
for the most part, he whips us : and experience tells us
that none leaves deeper marks behind it."
Lastly, he discusses the real benefits that would flow
from the adoption of his proposal. They may be sum-
marized as follows :
i. It would prevent the inhuman and unchristian
process of spilling so much blood.
2. It would relieve Christianity in the eyes of
heathen and infidels, of the opprobrium and scandal of
its unfaithfulness to the peaceable teaching of its
founder.
3. It would save money that could be devoted to
the promotion of education, charity, and industrial
progress.
4. It would relieve towns, cities and countries from
the danger of being laid waste by the rage of war.
&7
5. It would make travel and traffic easy and secure..
6. It would promote the security of Christendom
against the inroads of the Turks. (In Penn's time this
was a danger that we, in our day, cannot appreciate.)
7. It would beget and promote friendship between
princes and states, and lead them to emulate one
another in deeds of civility, kindness, goodness ; and
in the propagation of learning the arts and human
laws and customs.
8. It would enable princes to choose wives for them-
selves, such as they love, and not by proxy merely to.
gratify political interest ; a motive that is ignoble, and
often results in wars, feuds and desolations "because of
unkindness between princes and their wives, and it has
produced unnatural divisions among their children and
ruin to their families, if not loss of their countries
by it."
It is one of the glories of Quakerism, that while at
the time Penn's proposal received scant attention,
thoughtful statesmen have been gradually coming up
to the high plane of the Quaker conception of inter-
national relations. The Hague Conferences and The
Hague Court have followed closely, thus far, the plans
outlined by Penn.
The calling of The Hague Conference by the Czar of
Russia recalls the fact that a long line of Quaker
influences has been at work upon the Czars, and there
is little doubt that the convictions that led Nicholas II.
to send out his rescript, have grown out of a series of
religious visits made by "ministering Friends" to the
royal palace of Russia.
The earliest of these was probably William Allen,
who, as early as 1797, was in Russia, and later was a
companion of Stephen Grellet in a religious visit to
Alexander I. (1818-1820). Daniel Wheeler resided
near St. Petersburg from 181 7- 1832 in the reigns of
Alexander I. and Nicholas I. He was Superintendent
of Agriculture for the Czars, and had many religious
opportunities with these sovereigns.
Stephen Grellet laid before the Czar the great good
that would come to the nations if the method of arbi-
tration should be substituted for war in the settlement
of disputes. The Czar was much impressed, and a
number of things in his life show that the influence
was not lost.
In 1824 Thomas Shillito also visited the Czar.
In 1854, during the Crimean war, a committee of
7
93
English Friends, consisting of Joseph Sturge, Robert
Charleton and Henry Pease, visited Nicholas I., urging
the end of the strife. Meanwhile John Bright, in the
British Parliament, was striking some sterling Quaker
blows against the unwisdom of the English participa-
tion in the unholy war.
In 1878, Barnabas C. Hobbs, of Indiana Yearly
Meeting, under the leading of the Spirit, made a visit
to St. Petersburg to lay before Alexander II. a memo-
rial praying for exemption from military duty of all
Russian subjects who have conscientious scruples
against war ; and urging upon the Czar the adoption of
arbitration as a substitute for war.
The present Czar, Nicholas II., came to the throne
in 1894, and on his marriage, in 1895, London Yearly
Meeting of Friends sent a committee to congratulate
him. It has been said that Nicholas had a Quaker
nurse to watch his steps in his childhood. It would be
difficult to suppose that the long line of Quaker influ-
ences in the royal palace of the Czars had no effect in
leading to the call for The Hague Conference in 1898.
This is certainly true, that since the rise of the
Society of Friends it has pushed to the front the
doctrine of peace and arbitration in the face of oppo-
sition and luke-warmness, until to-day the attention of
the world is so firmly fixed upon it, that there is little
likelihood that it will not sooner or later be accepted
by the nations of the world as the happy refuge from
the burdens and the barbarities of war.
But the victory is not yet won, and Friends must not
relax effort until the last battleflag is furled.
2 P. M.
PERMANENT ELEMENTS OF QUAKERISM.
J. Edwin Jay, Professor of Biblical Instruction,
Guilford College, North Carolina.
My Friends: I perceive that you, with me, share
peculiar sentiments, as we revolve here the reminis-
cences of early days. We have no battlefield to hedge
with evergreen or bedeck with memorials of fallen
braves ; but we stand upon ground where heroes lived,
their immortal testimonies wrought deep into our lives,
prompting the impulses of our own breasts, and stir-
ring us to-day with peculiar emotions of patriotism,
loyalty and faith.
They are sleeping, the pioneers ; many of them in
99
unmarked graves. It was their wish. But their spirits
live again. The vision of a noble people, with life's
works well done, passes like a host before our imagina-
tions. But we are not of their throng, the noble dead.
We are the living, and the message we bear is not to
those the honored past, — except to pay them tribute ;
but to the living, to mortal men and women who are
yet in the midst of life's unfinished battles.
When one takes a broader look out upon the vast,
arena of the historic past, he sees that where imperial
cities once stood, there now remain but ruins of crum-
bled bricks and drifted sands. He sees where temples
stood, where deities were worshipped, and where proud
man boasted of his achievements and carved their
records in books of hardened clay and stone. One can
hardly behold any more ominous sign than the spec^
tacle of ruined empires, of buried cities, vanished popu-
lations, extinct civilizations. Yet, such is the record.
In the centers where civilization first came forward,
flowered, and bore the fruits of human thought and
affection, and attained to remarkable grandeur, we
search now with pick and spade for the message they
left us. We read, as it were, across milleniums to
learn the story of ashes and heaps of clay. Are these
empires dead ? They have passed away ; but even in
the morning of history, man's heart must have throb-
bed with longing, yearning interests ; with instincts and
impulses ; with pain and fear and exultation and up-
ward striving ; with joy of triumph and fortitude of
suffering. His cities and his works of art are gone to
ashes : it is the tale of all ancient history. But are
there no contributions out of all this life that was
lived? Shall we look in vain to the past to find no
sinews of strength to serve us in the present? Not so.
The life that was lived in ancient Babylonia mjlleninms
ago, and along the Nile in the equal distant past, and
in the later but still ancient centers of the world's early
striving after civilized manners, is indispensably linked
to the present, tied to us with chains of human Sym-
pathy and interest that grow stronger as the centuries
roll on. There are elements of permanency in all
organized life, but these are not always so apparent to
the actors themselves while they live. Kings sought
to immortalize their pride and fame by printing their
records and names on pillars and slabs and friezes
within the massive temples of their gods. But these
were not permanent. The elements that endure could
100
not be carved in letters of stone ; they can never be but
vaguely symbolized in written speech. The speech of
that which is vital and permanent has a language of
the heart and mind, and there only in the fullest tones
can it be spoken.
Where, then, is permanency to be looked for?
Certainly not in the external, whether of forms
of thought or of forms of matter. Laws and
concepts vary with the progressive history of man, so
that the forms of philosophy and dogma pass inevit-
ably, with time, beyond their vital years. They serve
but for a while. Still it must be remembered that truth
of any age must have embodiment, but the body
changes, grows old, and like the ancient tablets and
friezes on the walls of temples it wears out and falls
to decay. Resurrection is the rule of all life. The
majestic oak that stands a monument of centuries is
not permanent. But the seed-principle of the acorn is
permanent. While acorns last and there is soil to
receive them oaks will spring up and grow. But if
acorns are no more, oaks will fail with the passing of
the years, and the memory of their great dignity as
kings of the forest will be written in the merest lines
of nature's tracing of an extinct tree. It is very true :
institutions, sects, however great, must perpetuate
themselves in the seed-principle that reproduces
through new forms and growths expressive of its
kind, ever and anon bearing new fruit and passing on
its history through the seed and not the bulk. To
make the application to Quakerism, is it not pertinent
here? We must not expend ourselves on casuistry of
dress and speech, or any Quakerized specialties that
have no longer a vital meaning. We must sift thor-
oughly for the genuine and the real. We must reach
earnestly and steadfastly after that which appears to
us the permanent and the needful.
But I would guard myself and you from one proud
error. Quakerism in itself, or as a name, has no in-
herent permanency. Quakerism is no magic term ; we
cannot conjure with it. There is no constitutional
permanency in our name or in our affiliation as Quak-
ers, except in one respect. And it is this : wherein
Quakerism has been or shall be the expression and the
application of what is permanent in Christianity itself,
in that and that alone is its claim for an inherent
strength and a pledge for the future. Our aim, there-
101
fore, is not to hold up some definitely conceived tenets,
placards of belief, over and across which appears the
words, "Private Property — Quakerism." But our aim
shall be to try to find the permanent in Christianity
itself and recognize there the points of Quaker contact
and assimilation. To do this is to find those elements
to which is due our permanency as an institution down
to this hour, and to find that upon which rests the con-
tinuity of our future.
Now I suppose there is no more prominent distinc-
tion of Quakerism than its claim to be a religion of
spirit; of inward illumination in respect to faith and
conduct. A popular conception of a Quaker is sure to
be some way involved in the general notion that he
takes to himself a motto to act "as the Spirit moves."
The tribute may not be always in honor, it may not
always be true. For in these days we must confess
Quakerism does not seem to be soundly unified on any
of the great distinctive doctrines. Yet we shall surely
find in these loosely floated ideas of ancient belief,
such as "the moving of the Spirit," "the Hand of the
Lord," "the Light," and many others, that we have in
them the defining terms of a great and permanent
element of religion. The verbiage may be open to
misconstruction, but the actualities of experience which
is sought to be described remain to us the choicest
gems of all the sifted facts of our religious history.
We can be glad to have the distinction to hold up this
practical adaptation of the divine and the human
elements of religion. The rationality and the potency
of this doctrine are not half portrayed, though it was
the day-star hope of Fox, the fitted lock and key of
Gurney, the mystic lamp of Woolman, the guide and
friend of Stephen Grellet.
That the Quaker had some experience in his soul
which he regarded as a contact with Divinity, none
will deny. Whether or not the Quaker was deceived
and only believed that certain impulses of his own
spirit were divinely originated, when in fact they were
only the unknown psychic phenomena of his own soul,
some may readily claim. But if I may modestly claim
for myself, speaking of this doctrine, any faint draught
from this artesian stream of Quaker life, I will choose
no newer phrase than the one already so long chosen,
viz., "The Leading of the Spirit": This we say enfolds
the Quaker idea of a many sided and practical doctrine
of genuine religion. But how shall we analyze it in
102
the light of modern thinking and modern theology?
To be able to do this would certainly be a contribution
to a larger world than Quakerism itself. It would en-
rich the common Christianity of all.
^Probably the best conception that defines God's rela-
tion to the world is one in which the ideas of imma-
nence and transcendance are united in one idea of
God's paternal omnipotence and omnipresence. The
world as an organism is used of God to express His
divine purpose toward fulfilment and realization of a
heavenly order, known in Biblical terms as the King-
dom. To this end that particular relation in which we
see God's power and influence extended to every crea-
ture in a co-operating way is what, in theological par-
lance, we may call immanence.
Let us hold the thought that seems both scientific
and Christian, that God as the author and creator of
all is inseparably related to all in a genuine co-oper-
ating power, which is the cause of all growth toward
perfection, beauty and fulfilment.
But this conception of immanence alone is inade-
quate. God is related to His world in another im-
portant way. The thought that God is independent
and greater than His universe ; that all His creation,
as the product of His infinite thought and purpose,
must also be pliant and obedient to His will. This is
what we may include in the term transcendence. The
world is not a mere machine running impersonally ac-
cording to laws of ultimate fixture, but it is a world con-
sistently working out an infinite purpose for good. It
is a world of organized life and beauty in which all the
laws of matter and spirit are but the expressions of His
intelligent will. Mercy and sympathy are not sacrificed
therefore to a rigid system of natural law, but the feel-
ings of the heart of God may cause Him to intervene
or preclude any apparent natural order wherever His
higher feelings may prompt the need of special divine
help. He would not be Father if He would not or
could not do this. We have therefore a conception
of God's character which seems nearest to that of
Jesus, in which God as Father unites in Himself the
nower both transcendent and immanent. Now, if these
ideas be a correct view, we come again to see another
great permanent foundation in which Quakerism has
intrenched itself in the doctrine of the inward leading
of the Spirit. If we narrow our thoughts now from
the consideration of life in its wide extent of all nature
103
to the restricted study of man, we find the remarkable
distinction here to reside in the fact that with man we
have an individual heightened above all other creatures
by the possession of personality. Personality implies
the possession of spiritual powers, such as are capable
of apprehending and receiving or of imbuing and im-
parting faculties or functions which are perfectly
normal to two or more personalities in fellowship.
The very highest conception of communion is dis-
cerned in this very real possibility of fellowship be-
tween personalities. To what extent the process of
regeneration is related to this fact of communion and
fellowship, it is not needful to propose, but as "the
wind bloweth where it listeth and we cannot tell
whether it cometh or goeth," somehow when we come
into contact with the divine, there is more or less a
spontaneous experience of fellowship, communion and
inward change of affections ; our whole soul feels a new
dynamic power. Some such experience as this Jesus
made the very requisite of entrance to His kingdom.
Communion, fellowship, contact with the divine per-
sonality are expressive words though they come hard
when we would desire to point out the absolute realities
of religion.
Now, the Quaker thinks that he has some such real
contact with God, in which there comes to him the
good meat and the good drink by reason of the great
divine personal influence which he receives unto him-
self and to which he can also impart the deepest yearn-
ings of his own heart. He can be comforted and also
inspired to fortitude. To him thus claiming to sup
with God in the real heavenly wine, all priestly types
and symbols and empty memorials seem vain and
meaningless indeed. He cannot engage in them. How
I love the Quaker idea of religion, that rises to the
highest enjoyments of personality in communion with
the infinite divine personality of a Heavenly Father.
Was this not Christ's teaching? How He besought
the world to come to this fellowship. The Quaker has
made a good advance. Let him keep oh, let him lead
all the way out of the sham of ritual and symbol and
call the world to the higher principles of realities in
communion and worship.
We have seen in the concept of personality the very
conditions meet to fulfil the ideas insisted on by Christ.
In personality lies the power of choice, the necessary
adjunct of will and freedom. Tn the use of choice,
104
man, from the most primitive records, has failed or
missed. Weakened and scarred by many a fall he has
wandered and tangled himself in meshes of sin and
error till, helpless and lost, he knows full well the
awful reality of that proverb, "A redeemer or I
perish I"
Man is evidently so entangled in a wilderness of
sin and so preoccupied with notions of his own that he
may be truly called lost, hopelessly lost, and dead, hope-
lessly dead: Lost, till a Shepherd find him and carry
him back to the fold ; dead, till the Christ speak to him
and regenerate his soul with a new- knowledge, a new-
feeling, a new power, a new love. Believing that God
does this is only to say again that God is immanent with
the human spirit and is ever transcendent also with
infinite power and goodness to co-operate in every turn
and movement toward the fulfilment of the highest
and best capacities of men. In some such intimacy
as this has not man a right to expect salvation from
his God, his Master, and his Father?
The Quaker believes he has found some such favor
as this with God. He has made a lofty claim indeed,
but he has brought God great honor, for it is the
longing of the Father's heart to commune with and
save all His sons and daughters. Standing at the door
He knocks ! knocks ! knocks ! And when the door
opens, what a joyful guest He is ! O, that we Quakers
might learn to use our hearts again, to trust legitimate
feeling, as we trust our eyes, weigh with reason as we
would measure with our hands, try with our powers of
judgment and conscience every risen impulse as we
would scrutinize a stranger at our door. Walking
thus with an open heart and an open mind we could
never fail to know God's help and to be able to do
beyond our human strength. This is essentially the
Christian doctrine of comfort. Comfort implies co-
operation. God personally in touch with man in the
co-operating and reciprocal sense in which the human
character is built up as a real divine creation is that
Comforter which all may find, and, I may say, is the
only true and blessed Comforter there is to be found.
Give us a return to the essentials of Quakerism, to
the Rock of Christianity, to this permanent and noble
doctrine of the Spirit, so beautifully illustrated and so
valiantly tested in the conflict of early Quakerism with
the externalism, priest-craft and apostate Protestant-
ism that warred the early Quakers to their graves.
1J05
Noblest and divinest of human dogmas is this doctrine
of "the leading of the Spirit" if seen in its rationality
and its triteness.
"Awake, awake, put on thy strength,"
cried the Hebrew prophet to his deaf hearers and
heedless brethren,
"Awake, as in the days of old,
The generations of ancient times," he cried.
And well might some Quaker prophet exclaim :
Awake, awake, put on thy strength,
O Quakerism !
Awake as in the days of old,
The generations of ancient times.
One might feel willing at this point to desist from
further disquisition on Quakerism, for, indeed, while
this element, the practical doctrine of the Spirit, is
maintained, Quakerism will survive. But there are
other elements ; we shall find our religion going deep
into the subsoil of human needs. We love to find it
so solidly founded upon the Rock of Truth.
In our quest for a Quaker foothold we shall search
not so much among the philosophies as among the
simple records of Christ, that we may see if possible,
what is most accordantly Christian ; that is, what is in
accord with the example and teachings of Christ, to-
gether with legitimate deductions from the interpreta-
tions of the Apostles, and the experience of the church
in history. Using these sources, I am happy again to
believe that Quakerism is in close accord with the best
conclusion of Christianity. I will assume, however,
the axiom that the simplest is often the truest, the
neediest is often the best. This is certainly applicable
to Christianity. If I should undertake to give just
the truest possible definition of Jesus' religion, and
give it in a few words, it would be in this, that it is
the answer to the genuine feelings of need in human
souls. The most inherent needs must have their
answers in ways most real and satisfactory. The soul
that is crazed with hunger cannot be saved with the
gift of a Bible, its need is bread. The soul that is
pining for a sympathetic word cannot be saved by a
dinner or a garment, its need is a friend. A soul that
is burdened with guilt cannot be saved by a vision of
Sehenna, its need is Christ's word of reconciliation
and love. And so on, Christianity really refuses to be
bound down to a philosophy, it seeks to find its way
106
into all the streams of human drifting and draw in
liKe a great net all to a sifting test of a visitorial call
to be better. Quakerism stoutly refuses 'to view man
and the world as operated upon any mechanical and
predestinarian principle. It sees running through all
the creative work that the design is based upon intel-
ligent moral purpose. We see God displaying benefi-
cent purpose in all His world. Opportunity for the
full development and display of the inherent and manly
powers lie spread out before us all. Let us appropri-
ate, expand, unfold, see, grow. We can put forth our
best, and then it will be no inconsistent thing for God
to do miraculous things where He is actuated by a
motive to help or save. A miracle may be the unusual
thing, but it can never be the impossible or unlikely.
It will be the expected in a system where crises speak
as Providences, where history is a background for the
divine revelation, and where destiny is to be thought
of as the ends of moral purpose. Moral purpose and
opportunity attended by co-ordinate means of judg-
ment are notes which Quakerism see spread in all the
manifold designs of the world we live in. Upon these
bases we find too that divine sympathy is a most pre-
cious Christian reality.
Quakerism, while it may be seen, has never upheld
predestinarian views, neither has it held to a soft-
hearted universalism in which judgment is weakened
by mercy. We cherish a reverent fear of God. We
believe that the appeals of God in living inward con-
sciousness coincide with extended opportunity in out-
ward steps of life. We always maintain a sober belief
in a moral order of all things, and therefore hold not
to any over-reliance on divine mercy, nor do we dis-
trust the feelings of our hearts that in all pursuit there
is a loving, co-operating Hand of Providence. The
weakest impulse is not to be spurned, God watches it.
The Quaker, if he understands himself, has always
looked for God to be ready and near wherever he is
called upon to act or speak. The Quaker view sees
God in such paternal light that the poorest, nakedest,
meanest soul that ever pauses to lift its sullied face
upward toward heaven finds — startled at His goodness
— that God is watching ; watching to catch the faint
turn of the eye or discern the weakest longing to be
better, and to such a one speak in tones inimically
sweet and full of solicitude, "My child" ! God never
forsakes a man till in utter repudiation the man ceases
107
to respond to any order of the universe that includes
solicitude or call.
Quakerism implies in its members that they are
Friends of God. This in turn implies that as Friends
they are capable of discerning and feeling His will.
The Quaker method therefore of "uniting" in judg-
ment upon the various concerns of its meetings implies
a high and eloquent testimony to spirituality. We are
not always equal to this high ideal, but when we are,
we stand in the higher realms of power and usefulness.
When the "Hand of the Lord"' is laid upon any one
His Hand does not hastily depart or His Spirit flit
away in transient mood. But deeper and deeper still
will the thing settle upon the minds and hearts till
with full wrought conviction one can rise up with
authority in God's messages. But while conviction is
fallen upon one, not infrequently the same is felt by
another. But let us now pass on to still another which
we may class among the permanent elements. We
shall find it in this : That the highest types of human
life and conduct arise when man recognizes and owns
his indefeasible rights of sonship to God, his Creator.
It may be thought that this assigns too great value to
man's worth and deserts. It may be thought that this
opens too broad a view of God's paternal love to in-
clude all men in the list of sonship. But it does not
seem so in the attitude of Christ.
He refused to see in any a condition beyond the
yearning love of God. He viewed in all men some-
tiring of eternal destiny, and therefore worth the
supreme efforts of saving care. He refused to see in
any one, however sunken, a moral evil which his gospel
could not cure, if received. He insisted that # all should
recognize in God the purest motives of paternal love
and in fellowmen something of an undeniable broth-
erhood. We owe to all the obligation that belongs to
the conception of brotherhood and common Father-
hood. The first principle, therefore, in leading men
everywhere to respect one another in their just rights
is to lead them to recognize, as did Christ, their high-
born possibilities, their undeniable responsibilities to
a Heavenly Father.
This is a note for our modern Quakerism to sound
wider and louder. Our older Quaker theology, while
cautious on this point, nevertheless yields itself easily
to it. In the broad catholicity of the "Universal
Light," and in the charitable view taken of the heathen
by our early theologians, we have the evident percep-
108
tions of this great truth. But the lowering clouds of
Augustinianism soon darkened the day of early Quak-
erism into twilight and obscurity.
Augustinianism is too great an antithesis to the
Gospel of hope and encouragement to suffer this view
to be spoken of freely in an age so polemic and con-
flicting as that which superseded the Reformation
period down to the close first early stages of Quaker-
ism. But Christ can now be refused no longer. He
has been obscured and deflected for centuries by the
gloss of spurious dogmas that have obliterated many
of the loveliest lines of the Gospel. It stands for us
now 1 to mellow down some of the rough pathway that
has been cast up by the older theology for men to walk
on. Their feet are bleeding and men have mutinied.
The panic of the camp is not over with yet. But we
Quakers ought not to be panic-stricken. We should
hastily step forward and reveal our God whom others
have longed and looked for. It is ours to do a great
mission. Men will repent if we cease to ignore their
worth, but reveal to them the indignity of their sin and
the responsibility of their sonship.
Quakerism has practiced this Gospel better than she
has preached it. This Gospel of love is welcome,
though it has been much suppressed for lo ! these cen-
turies. Jesus lifted the burden, but men immediately
crucified him ! The church kept her silence ! Mean-
while the awful ignorance enveloped the perishing
multitudes. Then their blood cried out from the
abysmal depths in an ominous prayer for relief. God
is a God whom importunity moves to compassion. The
fear and suffering of the human heart has caused God
to break through the crusted dogmas and mailed rituals
of ancient creeds and commission a new apostolate.
He commissions us to go forth as messengers of the
better Gospel. The impulse of hope long suppressed
becomes again the born day-star of joy and triumph
to humanity. God is understood better than ever ten
day as viewing us in the tender feelings of Fatherhood.
But I ask, will Quakerism embrace this message?
Will we feel the true motions of the Eternal Spirit
and arise with the kinder light, the wider, more glad-
some news? I feel that we will, we must; that a
new generation of apostles will again go forth — fear-
less, devoted, martyr-spirited. Will you? Will I?
But what if we fail ! What if we will not read these
sure lines of the Gospel for this God's hour?
ro9
Well, then, if such failure is coming, let some wild
cataclysm of history terminate our vagrant course!
Let us not survive to failure ! Let not our noble an-
cestors, worthy to find in us still nobler sons, — let not
their fair names, in a critical hour like this, be tar-
nished in history by our stupidity and fall ! But we
will, not betray them. We will prove ourselves Quakers
of their stock and kin. We will be heroes, leaders,
martyrs, too, — all for Christ's sake. We will be Quak-
ers ; all the world shall know. We will plant the ensign
on foreign fields ; among enlightened people and dark-
ened heathen. We will press the trumpet of love and
good will and peace to every trembling breast of
humanity, and say, God's child, arise! Everlasting
habitations are thine by the Father's will. Prove thy
claim. Do not perish !
If you will indulge me a little farther, I will speak
of yet another before I close.
Quakerism has stood for holiness. The Qauker has
taken to himself the command of God, "Be ye holy,
for I am holy." The Quaker also sees in God that
the central element of His divine character is goodness.
Upon this principle God directs his own action, and
upon the similar standard he calls upon men to act.
God is able to recreate the hearts of men in divine life
so that they can enter into the goodness that really
separates them from what is base to what is truly
sacred in the role of everyday affairs. Holiness is
simple goodness expressed in words and deeds.
With this conception of holiness we can easily elimi-
nate much that passes under that label as being unreal
to the Quaker idea. To him holiness was his daily
walk. It was his daily speech, his dress and address ;
his worship, his every mien and performance. By his
practice of the co-operation of God in soul experience
he strove to keep his heart right and good. The im-
pulses of his soul were the dynamics of his deeds.
Thus he met the problem of sin by the positive prin-
ciple of holiness, as Whittier says :
The Quaker of olden time ! —
How calm and firm and true.
Unspotted by its wrong and crime.
He walked the dark earth through.
The lust of power, the love of gain.
The thousand hires of sin
Around him, had no power to stain
The purity within.
JIG
As I speak these words of Whittier on "The Quaker
of Olden Time,'' the vision conies back again of the
pioneers of a hundred years ago. But we must not
hold that vision long. The past is closed up behind
us. The present, the great present, opens right before
us. And, now, we who remain, the remnant of Old
West Branch, standing at the milestone of a hundred
years, let us think for a moment what that means. A
solemn praise rises from our hearts, and reverence
comes not amiss when we remember how these pio-
neers suffered in toil and sacrifice for a home here
among the primeval forests of early days. Here they
planted by the side of their cornfields the meeting-
house and the cemetery — the one a resting place for
the soul, the other a resting place for the body. But
deeper still than the thoughts of self must have been
the hope and faith they cherished for their posterity.
As we look around us today we see all this God-
favored community. Shall not our hearts be bowed
in honest solicitude, God helping, we will live out and
express, as did our Fathers of old, that holiness of
character which will insure the future of a hundred
more years of Quakerism to remain here and broaden,
and be a blessing to the people that shall live here and
shall come and go among these same fields and groves
and towns of old West Branch.
But as in memory today we engage in hallowed
speech and sit with idealized thought concerning the
characters that are gone, I want us now to recall that
the past, in very fact, was peopled with living men,
real men and women, who felt and strove, and wished,
and played at the drawstrings of life just as mortals
now who live upon the earth. They had their heart
closets, just as we. The halo that rises like a celestial
diadem above their heads, we can now behold, not
because their lot was blessed beyond our own, but
because we see that amid life's way, though rugged be
the journey, impulses of good which rise up in loyal
hearts may always find their counterpart in noble
deeds and kindness, in devout worship, in genuine
holiness of character. And, my Friends, what these
have done, we can do! Impulses to do good have not
ceased with the passing of these generations. But
these same impulses are ours. Let us act. A good
impulse born in the heart and struggling for incarna-
tion in some deed of kindness ought to be a vision to
in
the soul nobler than the "sign of Constantine," and
should acclaim with divinity tones,
"By this sign conquer!"
THE QUAKERISM OF THE FUTURE.
By Elbert Russell.
It is always dangerous to attempt the role of prophet
about the near future. Events are likely to rise up and
prove one a false prophet. Conscious of this danger,
I shall attempt the safer task of showing what will be
the natural result of conditions and forces now ex-
isting.
In my address on the Quakerism of the Nineteenth
Century, I called attention to the great growth of the
cities and to the shifting of population from the coun-
try to the city which characterized the last decades of
the Nineteenth Century. It is evident that if Friends
are to become a power in this country during the
Twentieth Century, they must take possession of the
cities. The dominating forces of the future are those
which radiate from the cities. This is true even of
the forces that mould the life of the rural districts.
Through the telephone and the newspaper, by the rural
mail delivery and the interurban cars, the forces of
both good and evil move out from the city to control
the thought, the standards of life and the religion of
the nation.
If the Quakerism of the future is to minister to the
life of the people, it must not only move to the cities
and adjust its ways to the conditions of city life, but it
must make the changes that are demanded to adjust
itself to the new r conditions of modern life and thought.
The fact that Quakerism has preserved its existence
while undergoing all the changes, not only of the Nine-
teenth Century, but of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth,
shows that it is not a hard and fast system. It is
essentially a matter of life and spirit. It consists pn-
marilv of right personal relations between man and
God. and between man and man. The new conditions
of the Twentieth Century demand new methods of
stating the gospel, new means of bringing it home to
men and of applying it to modern life. The Quakerism
of the future must have, not a new gospel, but a new
embodiment of it suited to the new world to which it
must endeavor to bring the gospel.
A study of the changes that have come silently with
r 12
the growth in civilization, the conquest of the wilder-
ness and the building of our cities, will indicate in what
directions these changes must be made. In the first
place, under the conditions of modern city life, we
rind that the old fears are gone. The terrors of our
pioneer fathers, who founded meetings like West
Branch, were the dangers of the wilderness, the In-
dian, the wild beast, the pestilence and the forces of
nature, such as the storm and flood and lightning.
Men met these dangers with a feeling of helplessness
or struggled against them in great uncertainty. But
through the inventions and co-operation of modern
society there has come a sense of mastery over the
world unknown to former generations. The Indian,
panther, wolf, and pestilence have vanished. We no
longer fear small-pox, cholera and yellow-fever as our
fathers did. Our steamships make their schedule
against the storm. We dike rivers to confine the flood
or else predict their overflow' in time to escape its
danger. Our philanthropy sustains cities stricken by
the earthquake while they rebuild so as to defy a future
quaking. Man no longer feels that he is a worm of
the dust, but rather feels as a strong man, armed,
looking for new worlds to conquer. As a consequence
of these changes the old appeal to fear has lost its
power. Examine the liturgies that express the sense
of need, the fears and the prayers of men of past cen-
turies, and one finds there expressions of fear, a sense
of abject helplessness and petitions for deliverance
from dangers, all of which are strange to the modern
mind. The appeals which touch the modern man are
not such appeals to his helplessness and native fears as
stirred men to strange outbursts in the old revivals,
but are calls to courageous warfare against sin and
demands for the consecration of himself at his highest
efficiency to the work of God.
A second change which makes necessary a different
method in our religious teaching is the idea of the
reign of law. The great achievements of modern life
have been secured by the discovery of the laws of
nature which enable men to predict and control the
forces and powers of the natural world. The enter-
prises of which the Nineteenth Century boasts depend
for their successful achievement on the unfailing relia-
bility of nature. Caprice and accident and mystery
are the things that are feared. The things which are
mysterious, just because they are incalculable and
therefore uncontrollable, mar man's work and render
his success uncertain. Consequently man sees today
the highest benevolence in forces that are calculable
and regular. The electrician dreads rather than rever-
ences the lightning and the short circuit. As a result
of this, the religion of the future will find its evidence
of God rather m His regular providence than in the
supernatural or miraculous, it will be in the regular
the world that man will find the highest proof
I the supreme test and evidence of divinity
found in fixed and reliable character rather
mere power or mystery.
changes in political ideals which a
of democracy has produced in the American
the source of authority in religious thinking
hanged. Democracy has taught us that authority
government rests not on the arbitrary will of a
sovereign, but on the sense of justice and right in the
hearts of the people, and just as the age of arbitrary
and external authority in politics has passed away, so
also it has ceased to be the power it once was in the
realms of thought and of religion. in the future
with a fast increasing number of men, the convincing
power of truth and isness is to be the only
acknowledged authori . [Tie generation that is just
now going to influence the work of the world has
beerj trained in the schools to seek for proof by experi-
ment. It will inevitably carry the same attitude of
mind into every sphere of life. Prooi by experiment
will be the ultimate authority in science, conviction of
right in government, and the evidence of living expe-
rience the final authority in religion. As a result of
e changes, it will lie more effective to represent Gor^,
not as an absolute sovereign, but as a Father, seeking
to lead his children and to reveal himself to them. The
ton* of the one who most successfully leads the coming
age in religion will not be dogmatic. It will claim no
authority but that which proceeds from the demonstra-
tion of .individual and collective spiritual experience.
Its message will be. not "Believe because I say so of
be damned," but, "Come and
Another characteristic of the future which must
affect the presentation of our message is the distinction
which men make to-day between the spiritual and the
material. Time, place and external appearances belong
to the world of matter. Faith, hope, love! reverence
and conscience are tilings of the spirit. The things
8
114
that belong particularly to the spiritual life are more
-clearly seen to be not matters of place and time and
outward form. The changes that have gradually been
brought about in our conceptions of the universe since
the days of Copernicus and Gallileo have rendered the
old naive religious geography impossible to-day. As
the telescope has been turned upon the heavens and
our sense of the vastness of space so greatly increased,
as we realize that the daily rotation of the earth has
robbed up and down of any possible meaning for the
universe as a whole, we find it no longer possible to
locate God and Heaven in a given place, bearing a
definite relation to the world, and this vanishing of
geographical location in religion has turned our atten-
tion inward to spiritual things, has given us a new
sense that the essence of religion consists of those
things that are spiritual and eternal, not by pilgrim-
ages to sacred spots nor by waiting for holy seasons,
but by the true spirit of worship in all places and by
a spirit of brotherly love at all times must men seek
God.
A review of the changes which have come about in
the century's development since our fathers founded
this church shows us that life has become increasingly
social. Our fathers lived largely alone. Their rela-
tions were far more to material facts and forces than
to human individuals. Life tended to become self-
centered, and each individual family had largely to
supply its own needs, and to settle its own problems.
The great increase in the means of communication
and in the population of our cities has brought about a
condition in which no man lives to himself, and each is
dependent, not only in the realm of thought and gov-
ernment, but also in the small details of daily living
upon his fellows and his neighbors. It follows from
this that religion must more and more concern itself
with social morality, that less and less can the religious
message be merely one of individual salvation, but
must be more and more a statement of social duties
and an ideal of co-operation and brotherhood. Its
regal words to this generation must be character and
service.
Changes such as those I have sketched show that
the gospel, if it is to take hold upon the world of the
future, must be stated in modern terms. This means
not merely that we must use English instead of medi-
aeval Latin, not merely that we must use Twentieth
115
Century American English instead of the English of
Shakespeare and King James, but that we must ex-
press tlie essence of the gospel in modern thought
forms.
In order to do this effectively we must drop from
our speculative theology all conceptions which are non-
essential to the religion of experience, and which are
contradicted by the modern view of the world. Every
system of theology has within it two elements, the
experimental and the speculative. The experimental
consists of those parts which may be put to the test
of personal experience. Such in our gospel, is the
teachings of the sense of sin, and the peace of forgive-
ness through faith in Christ, of becoming a new char-
acter with Christ-like love for one's fellowmen
through the work of the Spirit of Christ, and of the
immediate and personal communion with the Spirit of
God. On the other hand, the speculative elements are
those which attempt to explain the matters of every-
day experience in terms of some system of thought
which has to do with the past or the future or with
that transcendental region which lies beyond the range
of our present life. The experimental elements of
religion are those which are constant and unchanging,
while the speculative change with men's conceptions
of the forces that work in the world and of the prob-
abilities of the past or future. My contention is that
speculative elements in religion that are oitf of har-
mony with the views of thinking men are apt to be-
come barriers to religious faith and should never be
pushed to the point of being regarded as essential to
the gospel.
The point that I insist on is this, any speculative
theology that is uncongenial to the thought of the
present age will become a handicap to the work of
winning the world. Men will be re] jelled by the dog-
matic assertion of speculative ideas that are incredible
to them and consequently will not exercise that faith
in Christ that would bring them to an experimental
knowledge of the gospel. A man may use the electric
cars who believes that electricity is a fluid just as well
as one who believes it to be a mode of motion. Rut it
would be extremely bad policy for a corporation, anx-
ious to secure patronage' for its line, to insist that no
one could ride upon its cars who did not hold to the
outgrown view that electricity is a fluid. Some of the
outgrown conceptions which it seems to me we should
116
drop from the presentation of Quakerism in the future
are as follows : First, we must make the world under-
stand that we have not to deal with a new God since
Jesus Christ. We often get the impression from our
religious teaching that God before the time of Christ
was for all practical purposes a Being different from
the one whom Jesus has taught us to call Father;
that He displayed a different character, acted from
different motives, laid down different laws of conduct
and required a different sort of worship from the "God
of Our Lord Jesus Christ." Let us make plain that
the explanation of his different representation in the
Old Testament is to be found in the fact that men only
imperfectly understood him, that because of the hard-
ness of their hearts and the blindness of their eyes they
did not see and know perfectly our God, whose will
and character are the same "yesterday, to-day and for-
ever.'' Let us have the courage to confess with prophet
and apostle that the blood of bulls and goats never did
and never could take away sins ; that then as now, it
was the spirit of the offerer that availed in any sacri-
fice ; that the only acceptable sacrifices were those of the
humble and contrite heart. Secondly, we need to make
the world realize that God did not dwell in the Temple
at Jerusalem any more than at any other place in the
world where reverent and earnest hearts turned to-
wards Him ; that no special sanctity attached to either
the Temple in Gerizim or in Jerusalem, but that God
is, and has always been, truly worshipped wherever
men turn to Him, with the true spirit of worship.
Thirdly, God speaks to men today, as always, not in
the outward voice, but through all those spiritual ave-
nues which He has made to afford Himself access to the
human heart ; that it is not in outward vision nor in
abnormal states like trances and dreams that we see
and know God best. It is purity of heart that gives us
vision of God. We find religious truth at its highest
in the normal states of our consciousness. Men today
have the same opportunity to commune with God and
to work with Him that were afforded the saints of old.
Fourthly, in the effort to present a -purely spiritual
gospel, not limited to any outward forms and geo-
graphical locations, we must make clear to the world
that the essential things in heaven and hell are spiritual
states rather than places. The impression that men
often get is that Heaven is a place which confers
eternal bliss upon men by the mere fact of their being
117
in it. It tempts men to waste their lives in sin under
the delusion that if by some means they can elude St.
Peter at the gate, and get inside the heavenly city,
eternal bliss will be their portion. The world must be
helped to understand that man's moral choices bring
bliss or woe by the inevitable action of God's spiritual
laws, that in no plaee can one be happy whose life is
alien to God, full of the unrest of selfishness, the pain
of evil conscience and the spiritual gangrene of sensu-
ality. Fifthly, the Quakerism of the future must teach
a purer monotheism. We must not only say, as others
do, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty," but we
must make men feel that God is the only source of au-
thority with whom we have to deal in the universe.
Consequently, angels or demons or a devil cannot be
spiritual agencies to be reckoned with in our practical
life. If such exist, it must be like the "winds and the
flames of fire," merely as God's instruments, acting
only at His bidding or by His permission.
Monotheism means that God alone is the responsible
author of all the circumstances of our outward life,
that all the forces both of the material and the spiritual
world are under His control, and that for our own
choices and acts we alone are responsible.
The Quakerism of the future must, in the way indi-
cated by these modifications, present a purely spiritual
gospel, which makes religion a matter of the soul's
relation to God and man, finding its power in faith
working through love, and which shall insist that sal-
vation is primarily a matter of character, reaching its
realization when the believer is transformed into the
image of Christ and filled with His Spirit.
For the presentation of such a purely spiritual
gospel, our own best ideals and practices give us a
great advantage. Under the influence of modern con-
ditions, the world is coming around to our spiritual
conceptions of worship and life. This is the testimony
of Professor James, of Harvard. In speaking of
George Fox, he says, "The Quaker religion which he
founded is one which it is impossible to over-praise.
In a day of shams it was a religion of veracity rooted
in spiritual inwardness, and a return to something
more like the original gospel truth than men had ever
known in England. So far as our Christian sects to-
day are evolving into liberality, they are simply re-
verting in essence to the position which Fox and the
early Quakers so long ago assumed." That Professor
118
James is correct as to the drift of modern religious
thinking, a study of the leading religious writings of
the present time will abundantly prove. I desire to
exhibit the evidence of this with some detail. I shall
assume that the original Quaker position is familiar
to you. The first point that is distinctive of Friends'
presentation of the gospel is that the final test of truth
must be sought in the inward spiritual experience. The
early Friends used the Bible as a guide to spiritual
experience, but not as an outward substitute for it.
That such is the position to which the modern religious
writers are coming the following quotations will show :
"The habit of calling the Canon of Sacred Scripture
the Word of God, a term so significant and so unique,
a term employed so specifically in more than one place
to describe the Saviour Himself, is likely to give rise,
and has often given rise to serious misconceptions.
There is no authority for the usage in the Bible itself."
(Horton, The Word of God, p. 109.) "The Bible as
a whole may be spoken of as the Word of God, because
it contains words and messages of God to the human
soul ; but it is not in its whole extent and throughout,
identical with the Word of God." "Christ alone is
the Word of God." "The formal identification of
the Bible in its whole contents with the very Word of
God is neither ancient nor catholic . . . and is in
fact an error of yesterday." "The Bible is amply
sufficient for our instruction in all those truths which
are necessary to salvation ... In everything
which is requisite for man's salvation, the lessons con-
tained in Scripture, with the co-ordinate help of the
Spirit, by whom its writers were moved, to aid us in
our discrimination are an infallible guide to us in
things necessary." (Farrar, Bible: Meaning and Su-
premacy, pp. 142, 146-7, 150.)
"Under the new assumption, the Bible is just what
its contents are found to be by the scrutiny thereof in
the light of literary and historical science and of our
experience of spiritual things. Its authority is that
of a body of ascertained facts. Any statement becomes
credible, not through a belief that it must be true be-
cause it is in the Bible, but either because its origin and
setting make it trustworthy or because the substance of
what it asserts can be tested by us in our daily living."
(Coe, Religion of a Mature Mind, p. 93.) "Modern
historical study of the Bible, therefore, ofTers the Bible
, . . . as the record of God's development among
119
men of a religious life, and therefore as the best stim-
ulus for exciting individuals a corresponding religious
life; as the standard to which the impulses of all re-
ligious life may be brought for testing, to inquire
whether they are on the line of real progress ; and as
the guide to which we may turn whenever we are op-
pressed by the arrogance or tyranny of human think-
ing, to escape into the free places of the soul's liberty
in the presence of the Most High." (Rhees, Religious
Educational Association, 1903, pp. 86, 87.) "The teach-
ing of the book may be summarized as follows. There
is in every man light sufficient to disclose all the truth
that is needed for the purposes of life ; that light is
from God, who dwells in humanity as He is immanent
in the universe ; therefore the source of authority is
to be found within the soul and not in external author-
ity of church or creed or book ; that light, being
divine, must be continuous ; it will never fail ; it will
lead into all truth and show things to come; and it
may be implicitly trusted." "For many years and
for many centuries, men have been taught to look for
the ultimate authority in their thinking and living to
some one or to some writings or to some institution
outside of themselves. The supremacy and sanctity
of the State or the Church, of some sacred book or of
some holy man or of some doctrinal standards, has
been emphasized, while but few have caught glimpses
of the clearer light which shines within the human
soul and still fewer have dared to think of it as evi-
dence of the divine indwelling, or even as the medium
of divine revelation. Almost alone, the Society of
Friends has ventured to assert this truth, and to teach
it as an article of religious faith. It has remained
for the Twentieth Century to give to the Inward Light
the attention it deserves. Formerly it was left to mys-
tics of various schools, and even recently it has been
suspected of being "new theology," and has been re-
garded as a. source of various inoffensive heresies,
when it has not been denounced as an enemy of the
Christian Church." (Bradford, "Inward Light," p.
vii. Preface, and p. 3.)
In regard to the question of the source of authority
in Christian belief, there are three consistent positions
offered to the modern world. The Catholics. Disciples
of Christ and the Quakers occupy these three posi-
tions with logical consistency. The Catholic finds the
fountain of religions truth in the not-to-be-questioned
120
dogmas that the church has received from its past.
The Disciples of Christ find the sole authority for
Christian faith and practice in the Bible itself, espec-
ially the letter of the New Testament. The Quakers
find the ultimate basis for religious belief in the lead-
ing of the Spirit of God in the individual and the
church. In Protestantism, the real issue, when
plainly seen, is between the position of the Disciples of
Christ' and that of the Quakers, is between the bare
acceptance of the statement of Scripture and the in-
ward test and realization of all religious truth. Ex-
ceptions to these statements may be found among the
leaders and often among the membership of these var-
ious denominations, but these two occupy logically
consistent positions and on this point ought logically
to divide the Protestant world between them. The
quotations given above show that in this effort the
Quakers have a tremendous advantage and that the
trend of modern religious thinking is towards their
position, as Professor James asserted. Another posi-
tion of the original Friends was that outward forms
are non-essential to religion, but that the true religion
is a vital, personal relationship to God that expresses
itself in the consistent character and daily acts of men
and women. This position of theirs is being more and
more approved by modern thinkers. The position of
Friends in opposition to war and oaths is more gener-
al today than ever before. This is the testimony of
Professor Schmidt, of Cornel] University : "Jesus . . .
expresses ideas of such far reaching importance, lays
down principles so startling and revolutionary, that,
if they should in the main commend themselves to men
and find embodiment in their social life, a transforma-
tion of human society would be the result. . . .
It was his conviction . . . that men should love
their enemies, do good to those who use them ill, ab-
stain from all retaliation and overcome evil with good.
The adoption of this principle would abolish war. do
away with armies and navies that are a constant men-
ace to the world, send millions of men back to produc-
tive and profitable work and give millions of capital to
useful industry and needed improvements, to educa-
tion, art and science. As yet no denomination except
the little body of Quakers accepts the view of Jesus
in its literal and unqualified statement, but outside the
church there is a growing disposition to regard His at-
titude as both wise and practicable." —"Jesus
121
said, 'Swear not at all.' The nominally Christian
state has never recognized the wisdom of his counsel,
and the church, for its convenience, has furnished a
wholly improhahle interpretation, by which Jesus did
not have in mind any oath that really meant anything,
but only the senseless curse words with which the or-
dinary conversation of some men is too redolent. The
early Christians, the Baptists of the Sixteenth Century
and the Quakers understood him." (Schmidt, "Proph-
et of Nazareth," pp. 364, 368.) The position of
Friends denying any special value to creeds and out-
ward ordinances and set forms of worship finds abun-
dant supporters today. "The vitality of Christian dog-
ma is due to its relation to the unquenchable life of the
spirit. It outlives its own defective logic because it
does not live by that kind of bread alone. It is an out-
ward sign of an inward experience. Generation after
generation, a mighty power has gripped men, and the
system of doctrine is a stammering effort to testify
to it." ( Coe, "Religion of a Mature mind," p. 102).
. . . It is not absolutely certain that Jesus Him-
self actually instituted such a supper and directed His
disciples to eat and drink in remembrance of Him."
(McGiffert, "Apostolic Age," pp. 68-9). "The atti-
tude of Jesus to the popular religious customs and in-
stitutions of His time, to sacred persons, places, days
and acts, to public prayers, almsgiving and fasts, is
calculated to increase the confidence of modern men
in His leadership. He claimed for all men the rights
accorded to a priestly class. He seems to have cared
nothing for the continuation of sacrifices, would make
the temple a house of prayer for all nations and feared
110 evil for the cause of religion from its destruction.
The evangelist who put upon his lips the statement
that the time would come when men would worship
neither in Jerusalem nor on Gerizim, but would wor-
ship in spirit and truth, understood the mind of the
Master. lie maintained that man has a right to deter-
mine what to do on the Sabbath, since the Sabbath was
instituted for man's benefit, lie neglected and criticized
sacred ablutions, lie never ordained either baptism or
eucharist. . . . He was opposed to taxation for
the maintenance of the religious cult, and to the use
of force in the interest of religion. . . . He ap-
pealed directly to the judgment, of men. There is
nothing aboul him that savors of the priest. It is im-
possible to of him as smearing the horns "I
122
the altar with sacred blood, or swinging a golden cen-
ser, or chanting a litany or elevating the host."
(Schmidt, "Prophet of Nazareth," p. 378). "The
teaching of Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, may
be summed up in the sentence. Nothing external to
man is of the essence of religion : no order of ministry,
no form of church service, no rite or ceremony, no
day of observance. It is indeed true that the religious
spirit must always embody itself in some form.
But no particular order of teachers, form of service,
method of rite, or time of observance is of the es-
sence of religion. Faith, hope and love alone are eter-
nal. The language which they use, the method and
instruments which they employ, may be changed from
time to time, that they may be adapted to new con-
ditions of life." ... To sum all up in a single
sentence. In Christ there is neither priest nor sacri-
fice. The priest is a mediator between man and God.
In Christ the way of access to God is open to the hum-
blest, the poorest and the most sinful. The veil of
the Temple is rent. Every man may enter the Holy
of Holies. But there are still prophets, who, knowing
God, interpret Him to his children. Whoever knows
the Father may do this work of interpretation. . . .
There is no special symbol of consecration which is
essential to divine sonship. Neither is immersion any-
thing nor sprinkling anything, but a new creation. Life
is itself the test of all instruments of life. There are
Pedo-Baptists as consecrated to Christ as Baptists :
and there are Friends, who have received no water
baptism of any kind, as consecrated as either. No day
is of the essence of religion. The church has done
wisely to make of Christ's resurrection day a festal
occasion. . . . But the obligation of the Lord's
Day lies not in an ancient code, given by Moses to an
ancient people, but in this : that the observance of such
a dav helps to conserve and promote the fruits of the
Spirit, — love, joy, peace, long suffering, serviceable-
ness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control." (Ab-
bott, "Life and Letters of Paul," pp. 204-5; 209.)
"The most disconcerting fact to the thoughtful min-
ister is not the indifference of the multitude; it is the
increasing neglect of the ordinances of the church by
men of intelligence and character as doctors, lawyers,
artists, writers, scholars, experts in science."
"Among thinking men there is a remarkable return
both toward faith in the unseen and toward rever^
123
ence for Jesus Christ. But this goes with a growing
indifference to religious ordinances." (Adeney, "The
Ordinances of the Church," Biblical World, Novem-
ber, 1906.)
A large number of works that are recognized as ex-
ponents of the latest religious thinking, give modern
statements of what is essentially the Quaker view.
Such are, "Christian Belief Interpreted by Christian
Experience," by President Hall of Union Theological
Seminary ; "The Direct and Fundamental Proofs of
the Christian Religion," by Professor Knox. "The
Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit,"
by Sabatier, of the University of Paris. All these
books ought to have been written by Quakers and might
have been if we had been as ready to express our
conceptions of Christianity in the thought of this age
as was Barclay in that of his time. Whether we be-
lieve that these men are right or not, whether we
think that the world ought to share their views or not,
I feel confident that the preachers and religious teach-
ers and editors of the coming century are going to
accept their views, because these men whom I have
quoted and the men who share them are practically all
of them teachers and editors, and their pupils and read-
ers will follow them in the main, and are bound to
become the leaders of the religious life and thought
of the future. These works are evidence sufficient,
though plenty more could be given, if there were time
or need for it, to show the drift of this present age
away from the forms of worship and thinking of past
generations. We have our opportunity, if we will
adjust the forms of our religion to the needs of the
times, to spread the influence of Quakerism far be-
yond anything that has ever been realized before. We
may be- sure, however, that these men are not going
to turn to Quakerism, even though they may sym-
pathize with its essential positions, if.it is to be identi-
fied with ancient peculiarities or outgrown systems of
thought or crude methods of worship. The men of
the modern world who have come to believe that there
is no virtue in ritual at all. are not going to abandon
an elaborate one, beautified and sanctified In- aee. and
custom, for a Quaker ritual, however simple it be. if
it is to be regarded as essential. We shall not get
men trained to modern parliamentary usage to transact
church business according to our way. But we do
have an opportunity to gather them into meetings to
124
worship and work according to our principles, and to
embody and express these principles in organizations
and forms of worship that seem to their minds best
suited to their needs, that seem to them to be the lead-
ing of God for their present tasks.
Such seem to me the opportunity and the problem
that face the Quakerism of the Twentieth Century.
Let us go forward to meet the responsibilities of the
future with the scrupulous conscientiousness and the
moral heroism with which our fathers faced the wild-
erness. We should consecrate our best talents and
use them to the fullest capacity in the effort to make
Quakerism once more a vital and dominant force in
the world. In my previous address, I sketched the
reaction which, in the closing decade of the Nineteenth
Century, checked the tendency to abandon altogether
our essential Quaker positions and to adopt a mediocre
type of evangelical Protestantism. That reaction is
practically over. We have resisted the tendency to
turn back again to bondage to the "rudiments of the
world," to practise ordinances, and to surrender our
freedom of thought and worship for a hard and fast
creed and a ruling clergy ; and now, having passed
through the period of reconstruction and criticism, as
the second Five Years' Meeting approaches, we find
ourselves face-forward, girded up for the task of
gripping the modern city, if we feel it worth while.
The problem of greatest moment before the Five
Years' Meeting that is just to assemble is the problem
of constructive and statesman-like effort to plant
Christianity as we Quakers understand it, where Paul
planted Christianity in the First Century, in the great
centers of population ; and to enlist in behalf of the
gospel of the Spirit, those men of today whom the old
forms of thought and worship no longer satisfy. We
have to give to this age a gospel of God's grace, of
Christ's salvation, and of man's worth and welfare
which is still needed by modern society. The close
contact of our modern life and the interdependence
of one upon the other for all the needs of life, will
render the state of. society intolerable if the spirit of
Christian brotherhood shall not permeate all and rule
all. We need to teach this age, proud of its material
achievement, of its great cities, big battleships, and
vast manufacturies. that it is better to build great char-
acters than to build tall buildings; that it is better to
acquire Christian virtues than to accumulate stocks
J 25
and bonds, that it is better to minister to the needs
of men than to create a fortune by oppressing the peo-
ple. We need to bring a knowledge of the peace of
God to men engaged in the great economic struggles
of our day, to teach men glutted with outward things
but hungry of soul, where to find spiritual bread, and
to show them by the light of Christian culture, health,
contentment, and joy the vanity of lust and greed.
The Quakerism of the future should teach the world,
full of the knowledge of outward things, to know the
laws and beauties of the spirit, to know, in addition to
the laws and forces of the outward world, the God
who is the author and builder of this universe and
the Father of all.
LETTER FROM ALLEN JAY, WHO WAS UNA-
BLE TO BE PRESENT.
Richmond, Indiana, First Mo. 14, 1908.
Anna M. Pemberton DeCou,
My Dear Friend :
In reply to thy letter requesting me to say some-
thing in memory of old West Branch, I could write
much about my early recollections of the dear old
Friends constituting that Quarterly Meeting. One of
my earliest recollections is sitting in the Quarterly
Meetings listening to the transaction of the business
and of my father sitting at the clerk's table as the
clerk of the meeting. On one occasion the business
lasted so long that it became necessary to bring in
lights so the clerk could see to read and write his min-
utes. This to a boy twelve or thirteen years of age,
who knew he had to ride horseback seven or eight
miles before he could get his dinner, made a lasting
impression. Yet 1 can remember that I took great
interest in the business of the meeting and often found
myself mentally preparing a minute on the subject be-
fore the meeting, to see how it would correspond with
the one that the clerk might finally read on the sub-
ject. While I did this without any reference to the
future, yet I believe it has been a great benefit to
me in helping to decide matters that have come be-
fore meetings for discipline, in this and other Yearly
Meetings, where 1 have been a member; but as I turn
back to those early days, there is one scene that stands
126
out more vividly than any other to me in the history
of old West Branch. It was during the "considera-
tion of the state of Society," a dear Friend arose with
a concern on his mind and for some one who was
present. With his face turned to the far corner of the
house, where I sat with the young people, he entreated
that we should yield our hearts to the tender visita-
tion of God's love; he went on with his loving mes-
sage, pointing us to the Spirit of God, that would lead
us in the way of truth and righteousness. The mes-
senger has long since died, but the message is not
forgotten. Meeting closed, I rode horseback in com-
pany with other young people, but did not enjoy the
laughing and foolishness of the crowd. After sup-
per I went out in the orchard and sat down to pray.
I wanted to kneel down and offer prayer, but my
education was such that I felt that none but those
called to public prayer should kneel down. After
sitting in silence a while, I arose to go to the house.
The burden was so great that I returned and ventured
to kneel down, thereby hoping to find peace ; and now I
felt that I wanted to open my mouth and speak out the
burden of my soul ; here again my training was such
that I was afraid to speak out unless called to the
public ministry. We had been told that we could
pray by thinking as well as speaking. I arose and
started to the house again, but the burden was so great
that I went back and fell on my knees and broke
out in vocal expression, confessing my sins and ask-
ing God to forgive them. Joy came to my soul, sweet
peace filled my heart. After waiting awhile to wipe
away the tears of joy from my eyes, I went into the
house. I tried to hide my feelings, but a mother's
loving heart and watchful eye, saw' that something
had come over her boy. I remember when the time
came to go to bed, she put her hand on my shoulder
and remarked that we had had a good meeting today,
and she hoped I would rest well. Dear mother wanted
to say more, but her failing like others at that time,
was to repress all religious conversation. I have often
wondered what would have been the result, had she
taken me to her embrace and told me. of what the
change was that I had passed through. It might have
saved me days of darkness and doubt in coming years.
In reviewing this blessed experience, I am often im-
pressed with the fact of how little theology there was
mixed in the ministry of those dear saints, compared
127
with the hair-splitting doctrine and controversies we
hear of in some places in our church today ; hut after
three score years watching the results of the minis-
try of that day and comparing it with the dogmatic and
superficial teaching of some of the present day, who
point us to their own experience in spiritual things,
I am ready to say that our fathers' ministry produced
men and women of stability of character and noble
worth, that I fear sometimes is not produced in the
method of the modern revivalist, — men and women
who are the salt of the earth, who walk the earth in
the fear of the Lord, unspotted from the world.
With this testimony to the worth of old West
Branch, I am prepared to say that I believe that many
individuals, meetings and places have felt the effect of
that Quarterly Meeting in this and other lands dur-
ing the last hundred years.
With these pleasant recollections of the past, I am
glad to subscribe myself one of her dear children.
Thv sincere friend,
ALLEN JAY.
FROM M AH ALA (PEARSON) JAY, RICH-
MOND, IND.
My life covers almost eighty years of this centennial
period. By birth I belonged to Union, the most
northern of the three Monthly Meetings that originally
made up West Branch Quarterly Meeting, but at some
time of my life I have had my membership in each of
the other Monthly Meetings, West Branch and Mill
Creek, and I have found their members all really one
people ; one in their flight from the blight of slavery in
the South, and in their struggles to conquer the prime-
val forests and make homes for themselves along the
west branch of the great Miami River ; one in efforts to
establish a community of industrious, moral, God-fear-
ing people, with schools for the education of their
children, and meetings where they worshipped God
and carried on the business of the church in the sim-
ple manner of the early Friends.
As a rule families were large in those days and par-
ents not only attended meetings themselves but brought
their children to meeting twice a week, on First-day
morning, and at Union, on Fourth-day morning. On
looking back the body of the meeting seems young,
many mothers with infants in their arms and large ret-
128
lcules by their sides which held what the babes might
need in two or three hours' absence from home, and
toys or food to keep them quiet in meeting. By the
side of these young mothers might sit one or two chil-
dren a little older than the baby that yet needed par-
ental oversight during the meeting hour ; while on the
other side of the partition the 'father seated the little
boys by him and cared for them from the time they
could leave the mother till they attained the coveted
age when they could be trusted to sit with other chil-
dren. Memory brings up whole benches full of such
children, eight or nine years old and upwards to
young men and women, occupying the back part of the
meeting house. On two raised seats facing the body
of the house sat the ministers and elders and other
older Friends, the men wearing their broad-brimmed
hats and the women looking straight before them
through their tunnel-like silk bonnets, but withal calm
and sweet and venerable to our young eyes. The
younger women often wore bonnets of calico and ging-
ham of their own making and both men and women
were dressed, in part or entirely, in home-spun clothes,
as pioneers must be in those early days.
The meeting house that I remember best, though
in later years it gave place to a brick house, was built
of hewed logs, in two rooms, with a partition three or
four logs high between the rooms. Above these logs
was a movable board partition called the shutters, or-
dinarily drawn apart up and down, opening up between
the rooms, but in business meetings drawn together,
separating them. A large wood stove stood across
this partition line, the logs being cut away just for-
ward of the facing or gallery seats to make room for
it and a door between the two rooms. The door of
the stove opened into the men's side of the house and
they put in the wood and kept up the fires during meet-
ings in the winter. On the flat top of the stove many
bricks and brick-bats were laid and these when heated
the Friends, especially the women, came and carried
to where they sat and warmed their feet upon them,
for the uncarpeted floor with many an open crack was
cold in cold weather. A boarded up lean-to, or porch,
eight feet or so wide was built across the entire south
side of the meeting house, which furnished a needed
room in which wet wraps could be hung during the
meeting and to which a mother could withdraw with a
fretting child, and, on the men's side, it made a place in
129
which stove wood could be stored and kept dry and
the saddles brought into off of the horses on a rainy
day, for there were no horse or carriage sheds there
then. The most of the members rode to meeting on
horseback. Xot more than two or three carriages
were owned by the members in early times.
The meetings were solemn, and often very spiritual,
held much in silence. Here as elsewhere among
Friends the close of the meeting was indicated by the
shaking of hands. The man appointed to time the
meeting offered his hand at the proper time to the man
at his side, then reached across the partition and shook
hands with the woman that sat next to him, and they
each shook hands with the next till this symbol of fel-
lowship passed along the whole upper seat, and along
other seats as feeling or convenience of members
prompted.
Not far from the meeting house stood the school
house built of undressed stone, in which was taught
a summer school for the younger children, while the
older ones assisted their parents at home. Their turn
to go to school came in the winter when the summer
work was done. The school attended the Fourth-day
meeting.
From the ample meeting house grounds a graveyard
was fenced off, in which the departed of the meeting
were laid away, usually with only a rough low stone,
lettered it might be on the spot, to mark their graves.
There, near the entrance gate may still be read upon
these stones the names or the initials of some of the
earliest settlers, as those of Samuel and Rebecca
T]eague, Benjamin and Esther Pearson. Yes ! and
many other of the original names in the meeting, as
Furnas and Jay, Coppock and Miles, Coateand Peirce,
with Elleman, Pemberton, Iddings and others of early
and of later date, for this graveyard enlarged is still
used in the neighborhood, and tombstones or markers
less simple than the early ones now' mark many of its
newer graves, or replace those of earlier times.
On the east side of the West Branch river, locally
known as the Stillwater, lived a good many families
of the Friends composing Union Meeting, though the
larger settlement and the meeting house were on the
west side. The river was unbridged in these earliest
days, and in the time of freshets it sometimes rose too
high for even these daring settlers to ford. Many a
rash act, as it would now seem, was committed in
130
crossing the river and getting to meeting in those days.
One way of caring for the youth in these early days
was by holding "Youths' Meetings," usually appoint-
ing them at request of some visiting minister. These
were often much appreciated by the young people. I
have in mind, as an example of these, one held at
request of Jeremiah Hubbard, a somewhat noted min-
ister of that day among Friends. His tall, erect form,
and his straight, glossy, black hair evidenced the In-
dian descent that he claimed. This meeting was held
in a grove near West Branch Meeting House. Benches
were carried from the meeting house and placed un-
der the fine forest trees, and youth from all the meet-
ings of the Quarterly Meeting, and from the outside
neighborhood, gathered and were seated upon them,
or stood near by when the seats were filled. A few
older people were in front near where the preacher was
to stand. He came forward, drew up his splendid fig-
ure to its full height before us. He looked over his
audience and at the beautiful grove in which they were
seated, then he raised his eyes still higher and surveyed
the heavens from right to left and with a graceful
upward wave of his arm as he looked up into the blue
sky, he began :
"The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky," &c.
and with this beginning from a poem that all school
children of that day knew, he preached the mighty
power, and care and love of God for all, manifested in
the works of nature.
Though thev felt just pride in the historical, kindly
and influential relations of Friends with the Indians
of our country, yet it seemed to manv a wild project,
when it became known in 1837, Moses and Sarah
Pearson, of Union Meeting, were planning to go with
their family into the then far West and re-establish
Friends' work among the Shawnee Indians. These
Indians had had care from Friends while living in
Ohio, before the government had moved them to lands
now included in the state of Kansas, and had asked that
they would come and live again among them and teach
them. The long journey of seven hundred miles was
made bv five weeks' travel .in a wagon. They opened
up a mission home, held meetings, and started a school,
making what would now be called an Industrial Mis-
sion.
After some more than three vears of service, these
131
Friends returned home in safety, satisfied that the
Lord had led them all their way. May we not be-
lieve that this circumstance helped to give a broader
outlook to the staid meeting at home? Certainly it
implanted in the minds of the missionaries' children a
lasting sympathy with the less favored peoples of the
earth.
Whatever the influences that have brought it about
we rejoice to hear of these meetings of our early
home, in the third and fourth generations from their
founders, kindling with interest in missions and bring-
ing in their offerings heartily for this work of the
church for the world.
FROM MARY PIERCE, TROY, OHIO.
My first recollections of old West Branch go back
70 years to the time when father's family went to
Quarterly Meeting with Enoch and Polly Pearson in
a big wagon. In those days of separate business meet-
ings, it was the custom to have a few minutes' inter-
mission for lunch between the sessions. The minis-
ters of those early days were Denny Jay, Jesse Jones
and Daniel Hutchens. After I grew up the young peo-
ple went to Quarterly Meeting on horseback. We ah
wore plain silk bonnets, many of which were made
in Richmond.
