The success of the Friends in maintaining their peaceful commonwealth was not unqualified, yet it was greater, no doubt, than we could now confidently hope for in any equal area of the earth's surface. "Notwithstanding all difficulties and imperfections," says President Sharpless, "there was for seventy years an efficient government in Pennsylvania, based largely on Penn's ideas. There were no wars or external troubles. The home affairs were quiet and orderly. Prosperity and contentment reigned, immigrants came in unprecedented numbers, and the public finances were so managed as to encourage trade, and lay no unnecessary burdens. Peace and justice were for two generations found available defenses for a successful State." And when, at last, the endeavor ended, and the Friends yielded to the demand for their retirement, it was not that their plans had failed, in their own field, but that external and hostile forces had overborne them. They had not the support, after 1712, of Penn's energetic and sympathetic mind; they had not, much later than that, a homogeneous population, friendly to Peace; they were beset on all sides by Colonies that regarded war as normal; and they were called on imperatively from London to arm and fight in behalf of the Mother Country's quarrels. No one can say that Pennsylvania might not have maintained the Quaker system, if its own people had been fairly united on the Peace principle, and if the British Crown had been willing to let the experiment proceed. With men like Joseph Growdon, Edward Shippen, David Lloyd, Andrew Hamilton, John Kinsey, and Isaac Norris,—Speakers of the Assembly in the period we are considering,—the Quaker Commonwealth had the service of leaders and organizers inferior to none in the American Colonies. Their capacity was fully equal to the local strain which the maintenance of an orderly government in their own Province put upon them, though it was not equal to the successful conduct of a contest with the other colonies, and with the government at London. "Had William Penn's Indian policy prevailed," says President Sharpless, "there was no need of Pennsylvania's embroilment in the French and Indian wars. The policy of peace is closely interwoven with that of justice. If other powers are exasperated by [our] unfair dealings it will not do to fold one's arms and cry for peace. The experiment, in order to be conclusive, must involve rigid uprightness on the part of the State that objects to war."

The chapter in which President Sharpless analyzes the principles of the Friends' government in Pennsylvania is brief, but he points out clearly these as among its essentials: (1) perfect democracy; (2) perfect religious liberty; (3) perfect justice and fairness in dealing with aborigines and neighbors; (4) the absence of military and naval provision for attack and defense; (5) the abolition of oaths. To these should be added, we think, one or two more. We should suggest, (6) the establishment of virtuous and orderly social conditions; and (7) humane reform in the penal and benevolent functions of the government. Such principles, carried into action, must insure a government of high character, and it was just this that the

Friends aimed at. Their laws were not meant for "buncombe," but for enforcement. Their system, throughout, was intended to secure good order, and to repress evil doers. The Puritan laws relating to conduct, adopted at the first meeting of the Assembly, at Chester, in 1682, were meant to be enforced in good aith. Indeed it was because the Friends earnestly eudeavored to give their principles reality that they encountered so strenuous an opposition. If a socalled Christian commonwealth will profess Peace on one day of the week, and beat its war drums on the other six; will pass laws to repress vice, and yet permit it to flourish; will assume to guard the community's health and morals, and yet will accept the bribes of those who prosper by evil conditions, it will no doubt make many of the judicious grieve, but it will diminish the number of unscrupulous and dangerous enemies. And, this we hardly need remark, is the usual plan. The Friends tried a different and more difficult one.

President Sharpless brings forward some of the most interesting problems that well-intentioned people have to deal with. One of these is the attitude a religious man, Friend, or other, should take concerning civil government. Is it the ideal plan to "renounce the world," and refuse all responsibility for the social system? That was nearly, though not precisely, the rule of Isaac Penington and John Woolman, but it was not at all the rule of William Penn, John Kinsey, and Isaac Norris. In England, in the Seventeenth Century, the system of government was such that the Friends could have had little share in it, even if they had endeavored to take part, while Pennsylvania was practically handed over to their direction. The events which terminated their rule discouraged their assumption of government responsibility. "There was growing up in the Society," says President Sharpless, "a belief which was vastly strengthened by the military experiences of the years between 1740 and 1780, that public life was unfavorable to the quiet Divine communion which called for inwardness, not outwardness, and which was the basic principle of Quakerism. Quakers had always strong mystical tendencies. William Penn represented one type of active militant Quakerism. In George Fox they were happily blended. The ease and prosperity and public responsibilities of Pennsylvania Friends had tended to develop the spirit of outward activity, useful but dangerous to the inner life. Ultimately it brought about the loss to the Society of many aggressive members, and a growing conviction that the place of Friends was not in political but in religious and philanthropic work. In these directions their activities were more and more thorough, and the yearly meeting was strenuously engaged for several years after 1756 in pressing upon the members the desirability of abstaining from civic business."

We must close this notice without reference in detail to other portions of the book. We may quote one more paragraph. It is entirely true, as we have

[1In his character and career, as a whole, they were, but there is a marked difference between the George Fox of his earlier and of his later life. He was more introverted and Quietist in the beginning, and more active and system-making later.-EDS. INTELLIGENCER ]

indeed intimated above, that “no one can appreciate the history of Colonial Pennsylvania who does not understand the spirit, the methods, and the beliefs of the Society of Friends. The failure to grasp these firmly, the dependence upon public records exclusively for the materials of history, has been the cause of serious misjudgments in many otherwise · admirable narratives of the times."

From the Friend, London.

OFFICIAL OR “CORPORATE” ACTION BY THE SOCIETY.

BY JOHN STEPHENSON ROWNTREE. THE place and limitations of corporate action on the part of a religious society is a subject of no little importance, of some difficulty, and one which in various aspects has frequently occupied the minds of Friends.

The early minutes of the "Morning Meeting" contain this very interesting entry :-" At a meeting at James Claypool's the 31st 3rd mo. 1675 [advised] That Friends in all the several Countyes seriously consider together, and be unanimous in giving their voice in Election of Parliament-Men, to approve or not approve therein as in the wisdom of God they see convenient and safe. That such moderate and indifferent men as they are free to give their voices for first be advised to sign to Friends this or the like agreement viz.: (1) To be for a general liberty of conscience for all to worship God according to their perswations. (2) To endeavour to the utmost of his power to remove all oppressive and Popish laws that are for coercion or persecution about Religion." In the Yearly Meeting of 1688 a discussion is said to have taken place upon the attitude Friends should take in view of the approachng election. It was the year of the Orange Revolution, in which George Fox and William Penn took different sides, the former counselling no corporate action in the matter. (Barclay's "Religious So cieties of the Commonwealth," p. 404.) Early in the present century, Henry Tuke, the amiable author of Tuke's Principles " and other works, issued a printed address to Friends advising them to take no part in Parliamentary elections. Not long afterwards the great Yorkshire election came on, in which William Wilberforce was the anti-slavery candidate. The firm in which Henry Tuke was a partner subscribed handsomely to the fund for defraying Wilberforce's expenses, and threw such energy into the fight on his behalf, addressing particularly the Friend freeholders throughout Yorkshire, as materially to assist in the These cases anti-slavery triumph which followed.

illustrate (1) an eminently wise and practical corporate action on behalf of the rights of conscience; (2) a probably correct decision to abstain from corporate political action; and (3) the breaking down of a theoretical determination in view of a great emergency and the pressure of a public duty.

We have approached the consideration of corporate action from the historical side, as apparently more helpful for arriving at a sound judgment than attempt ing to lay down an abstract position, which should

cover all contingencies. There are, however, significant facts and principles available for our guidance, whilst their application to specific cases must be left to the determination of circumstances, under the guidance of Heavenly wisdom. Jesus Christ told His disciples that His mission had been to bear witness to the truth, and that they in turn were to be His witnesses (John 17: 18, etc.). Harmoniously with this teaching, testimony, our testimonies, testimony bearing," have been favorite phrases with Friends; and though their meaning has sometimes been obscured, they are noble words when intelligently apprehended, as related to this Divine thought of bearing witness to the truth. When Friends arose as a people, one of their leading ideas was the spiritual character of the Kingdom of Christ as a kingdom, not of rite and ceremony, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It followed as a natural consequence that their testimony would be to righteousness, as an essential part of Christianity, whether in the relations of men or of nations; and this testimony, however imperfectly it has been borne, has yet been one of the most conspicuous services they have rendered to humanity, and to the cause of Christian truth in the world. Abundant evidence might be adduced in support of this statement, but it will not be necessary in the pages of "The Friend." But if the position is not challenged, what shall we say of the corporate action of seven generations of Friends on behalf of national righteousness? Are we now to condemn the enlightened position taken up in 1675, in respect to religious liberty? Did the Yearly Meeting of 1856 err when it issued its impressive plea on behalf of liberty of conscience, and sent its representatives to present the same to the Governments of Europe? Are the long succession of corporate petitions and memorials against Church rates, and other ecclesiastical impositions, to be regarded as occasions for regret, crowned as they have now been by so large a measure of success? Were our ancestors mistaken when by action of every kind, corporate and individual, they influenced the Legislature to abolish the slave trade and slavery? Shall we now censure the corporate action of Friends in Great Britain and America on behalf of the Red Indian and other aboriginal races? If it be replied that in these instances Friends were unanimous, the answer is that this was not the case. Has not Whittier reminded us how, in the early days of anti-slavery protest,

"as the Clerk ceased reading, there began
A ripple of dissent which downward ran
In widening circles, as from man to man.
Somewhat was said of running before sent,
Of tender fear that some their Guide outwent,
Troublers of Israel"?

We suspect there has been very little corporate action of this Society, through the whole history of its existence, from which there has not been a dissentient minority. That this should be a frequent case appears to be the inevitable result of the constitution of human nature, and the fundamental conditions of all collective action. The present writer has himself too often been in a minority not to recognize the force of the appeal

to the generosity of those who are in the majority." And it may be most freely conceded that in past times, and in some places at the present day, there has been and is a very unwise interference with individual action. It may still be an incumbent duty not to permit other men to judge for us, as hinted by your correspondents, “in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day"; but this is far removed from a policy which would paralyze all united action on behalf of religious liberty in the people's schools, all protest against the iniquitous opium traffic with China, all protest against the injustice of specific wars, and indeed any collective dealing with the moral questions of the day. It would further deprive our Monthly and Quarterly Meetings of that part of their business often felt to be the most interesting and instructive, because it is the most closely related to that which is occupying the minds of those present.

In attending the five Yorkshire

Monthly Meetings in 1896 I was impressed with the ability with which each treated the Armenian distress, and the advantage it was to each in having interests and sympathies awakened in a larger sphere than that of writing and acknowledging certificates of removal, however necessary they may be. I suppose if a meeting is so divided in opinion that it cannot treat these subjects without an interruption of harmony, it must leave them. But is it not a sign of weakness to be deplored?

The "Appeal to the Nation," issued by the Meeting for Sufferings, appears to the present writer a timely and carefully written document, of which there is nothing to be ashamed. Because we plead for peace, we are not shut out from pleading for righteousness. The fruit of righteousness is peace. All wars are bad, but some are worse than others. The lover of peace is not precluded from recognizing that in the American war of secession the Northern Armies were contending for the righteous side. As John Bright said in his Introduction to Dymond's Essays, "It will be time enough perhaps, to discuss that question [the unlawfulness of war under every circumstance] when we have abandoned everything that can be called unjust and unnecessary in the way of war. . . . With wise counsels, great statesmen, large knowledge of affairs combined with Christian principle, there is probably not a single war in which this country has been engaged from the time of William III. that might not have been without difficulty avoided.”

How profoundly true were the Saviour's words to those who would have hushed the children's hosannahs: "I tell you that, if these hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." Journals but slightly connected with organized Christianity, like the New Age," express their astonishment at the silence of the Churches respecting the savage fashion in which the British army has carried out its operations on the Indian frontier, burning villages, destroying millstones, cutting down some thousands of fruit trees, and perpetrating other barbarous acts. The present writer, as he read these criticisms, was thankful to belong to a denomination which has reprobated these acts even if

its protest be little more than as a voice crying in the wilderness.

It is singular how differently the same set of circumstances affect different persons. Whilst reading these counsels to retire from corporate protest against the unrighteousness that abounds in so many parts of the world, the writer's earnest wish has been that Friends would dismiss the prevalent notion that their mission is accomplished, and would rouse themselves to see that they are called upon, as loudly as they have ever been, to stand for national righteousness, and to make a presentation of ethical Christianity of which the human family sorely stands in need. There have been numerous recent indications of a relaxation of moral sensibility respecting public questions, probably resulting, in part at least, from the increased wealth and prosperity of the nation, which suggested the holding of the Conference at the late Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting, as reported in the pages of "The Friend." We trust the great majority of its readers are not losing their interest and sense of duty in these things, but it may not be inappropriate to conclude by quoting the weighty words of warning with which the late John Hodgkin closed a lecture on the growth of religious liberty before the Friends of Birmingham, afterwards published in 1856 :—

To the men of influence among you, to the prosperous men, who are rising in the scale of society, I would address a word of caution. Be on your guard against the bewitching influence of the love of the world and worldly power. How often do we see those who have been of the lowest school in politics in the day of small things become gradually tainted with despotic principles as they emerge from the class to which they originally belonged. The effect of prosperity is in many cases equally conspicuous in warping the religious principles of those who bask in it. How often do we see those who have walked to the conventicle drive to church. The religion of the upper classes, the religion of the State, has peculiar charms for the man of worldly prosperity. . . . Nor are prosperous Quakers by any means exceptions to the course of things which I am now describing. If I cast my eyes around upon many of the leading merchants, manufacturers, and bankers of London and of our chief provincial towns, and upon the landowners of many of the English and Irish counties, I see painful evidence of this truth.... However distinguished the honor of rising from the lower to the middle, and from the middle to the upper classes of society in this mighty empire,

let us all remember that there is a still higher citizenship, a still nobler privilege set before us, which we may forfeit if we prove false to our Christian principles; whilst he who, by his example as well as by his opinions, by his self-denial as well as by his creed, promotes the cause of Christian truth and of liberty of conscience here, may, through the mercy of the King of kings, look forward to being in the world to come a fellow-citizen with the saints, a possessor of the glorious liberty of the children of God, and an inheritor of that Kingdom which never shall have an end.”

THE EARLY MINISTRY OF JESUS. Review of a series of Scripture Lessons, in Sunday-school Times, from Jesus and John the Baptist, to the Beheading of John. By Dr. Cunningham Geikie.

THE homely metaphor by which Jesus illustrated the respective positions in the kingdom of God, of himself and John, enables us, on indisputable authority, to understand his conception of the essential contrast between his standpoint as "the Great Teacher," and that of the Baptist as his herald. To expand his words slightly, John, standing within the ancient dispensation, sought to quicken it into new spiritual life; for, like all systems of ritual and ceremony, the soul had gradually died out of it, leaving only its dead outward form, now a mere worthless idol. But the shriveled atrophy, once divinely alive, was beyond any breathing into it a new soul. Judaism was dead. It had served its end, and was incapable of resurrection. Jerusalem itself, its supreme embodiment, was about to perish. The local, the national, the symbolical and priestly, give place to the universal in worship and creed; the whole earth must be honored as equally sacred and near heaven, and all mankind must be held the objects or divine love,—the fold of the great Shepherd in the heavens being no more Israel alone, but all humanity. The hour had come when the true worshipers should worship the Father in spirit and in truth, and no longer in form and rite, either at Jerusalem or Gerizim, that is, not at all (John 4: 21-23).

John's attempt to create a soul under- the ribs of death was hopeless. It was like pouring new wine into a worn-out, patched, and worthless wine-skin, which could not stand the fermenting energy of the fresh sap, and must needs burst, to its own destruction, and the loss of that which had been trusted to it. Jesus himself, contrary to all this, came with a new dispensation, for which he had provided a new constitution of internal and outward laws. His religion discarded the old wine-skin of Judaism,-its rites and ceremonies, its local worship, its sacrificing priesthood, everything, indeed, distinctly Jewish, as would be seen in the rending of the veil of the holy of holies at his death, and the laying open to all eyes, and thus forever "profaning,"

to the time after the imprisonment of John. It opened, in any full sense, at the first passover after his baptism, when he remained in Judea for some months, till John's arrest (Matt. 4:12; 14: 3-5), leaving it at that note of danger to himself, and going north by way of Samaria, where he met the woman at Jacob's well (John 4:3-42).

Galilee then became his field of labor till the second passover, after which he returned to the north, being virtually driven from Jerusalem by the fury of the Precisians at his violation of their Sabbath laws (John 5:1-47). It was in the summer of this year that the Sermon on the Mount was preached, and the apostles set apart as missionaries to help the growing work of diffusing the teachings of their Master (Matt. 10:2-4; 5 to 8: 1).

Having added to the rage of his adversaries at his indifference to their "commandments of men," the offense of choosing a publican, Matthew or Levi, first as a disciple and then as an apostle, he was more than ever committed to a mortal contest with the ruling powers in the religious world of the day; for the call of a publican was, in their eyes, an outrage on their conventional sense of decency.

The sending out of the Twelve, mostly simple fishermen, was not so strange or contrary to general feeling as it would be now, though their mission was not, like that of similarly humble agents in our day, to the lowlier classes only. In the East, poverty is no bar to efficiency as a religious agent. The dervishes, who are all-powerful with the masses, carry a beggar's bowl, and the Buddhist priest is dressed in the yellow gaberdine of a beggar. Every Jew, moreover, was a potential rabbi; for every member of a people which recognized only one book was, inevitably, well acquainted with it, and could thus give a well-pondered opinion on its meaning in any given case. That the synagogues were open to addresses from all who seemed likely to have anything to say, there being no order of clergy to monopolize its discourses, left the Twelve free to come before their brethren Sabbath after Sabbath, as Paul and his fellow-workers did. Men have, moreover, a much higher sense of self-respect in the East than with us; for I have seen a beggar speaking to a judge in court with as much self-possession as if he had been himself on the bench.

The temptation of Jesus was inevitable, to strengthen his own humanity and test it. To have a high-priest able to sympathize with us in our temptations, and commandng our confidence by his victory over all before which we fall, is a strong consolation, indeed, to poor man, when he flees for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before him in the gospel (Heb. 6: 18).

The ministry of Jesus commenced from his baptism at Jordan, but its full development must be assigned

Look thoughtfully at the present, look forward to the future, look backward at the past,—at the present with firm and holy resolution, at the past with hum

and earnest hope.-Canon Farrar.

GOD never made a Christian strong enough to stand the strain of to-day's duties and all the load of to-morrow's anxieties piled upon the top of them.— T. L. Cuyler.

KNOW that the main foundation of piety is this, to have right opinions and apprehensions of God.Epictetus.

The burden of the message of the epistle of James is the necessity of practical righteousness; the need that the conduct should uphold and illustrate the profession of religion; the truth that religion in its true sense does not exist unless there is this harmony between the profession of faith and the conduct of life. Insisting, as the writer does, upon the acting, working side of religion—the faith shown and proved by the works-it is not strange that he should touch upon the absence of righteousness, or in other words, give a definition of sin.

It may, perhaps, give a slight shock of surprise to find that this outspoken, practical teacher of rightdoing, this believer in the truth that real faith must of necessity show itself in good works, teaches that sin consists not only in the actual and willful transgression of known law (which is its usual definition), but also in the failure to do the right when the right is known. "To him that knoweth to do right, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." To know the duty required of us, and to turn away from the performance of that duty; to see the light shining upon a certain known pathway which our feet should follow, and then to take some other pathway; to hear the call to service, and then to heed it not, this is sin as fully as would be the deliberate breaking of some righteous law, which the soul would shrink from breaking. To see the right, to know the right, and then to turn away from the right,-this is sin, according to James, the brother of Jesus; and doubtless the practical nature of his epistle was due to this conviction more than to any other. To have faith is good, but of what value is a faith that does not work? To know the right is good, but does it really amount to anything, unless it also accomplishes some good. To recognize evil is good, but unless this recognition leads us to combat the known evil, it may result in harm as well as in good.

Is not the present an age when the definition of sin needs to be especially impressed upon us? Now when the physical comforts of life have become so great, when it is so easy to lean back and rest, and when the well-spent lives of others have made this resting possible for so many of us, do we not need to know that simple neglect to do our duty is sin? We may rest assured that the Spirit of Truth will do its part; that the revelations of truth, and the calls to labor will come to each soul. Should we not then heed this lesson, which shows so clearly the danger of indifference, of simply not doing? Not only in the minor duties of life (if, indeed, there can be such a thing as a minor duty), not only in those acts by which we perform personal or social duties, but in the broader sphere of life, in business and in politics, does it also hold good that to see the right, and then to deliberately fail to do the right, is sin. Is business

life becoming more and more questionable, as is so often charged? Has Has politics become in truth a "dirty pool," which self-respecting men shrink from? What will remedy their conditions so quickly as for men to realize that if they know their duty in both these relations, it is to them a sin not to perform that duty. May it not, indeed, be quite as great a sin for such a one to recognize his duty, and then refuse to do it, as for a man of lower nature to see the wrong, "To him that knowand eagerly to do the wrong?

eth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

SCRIPTURE STUDY AT RACE STREET. Conference Class of Race Street First-day School, Philadelphia.

Syllabus for Third month 20, 1898. Subject for consideration Readings from Job. Modern Readers' Bible. Presented by Emma Waln.

Synopsis of Paper :

Note.-The following references by chapter and verse are to the Book of Job in either the Authorized or Revised Versions. Those by Section and Stanza are to "Moulton's Modern Readers' Bible.

1. What solution of the mystery of suffering is suggested in the prologue? I: 10-11. Prologue.

2. What is the doctrine of Job's three friends concerning the Mystery of Suffering?

Eliphaz 47, 8, 9; 15: 20-25, 29-32; 22: 5-12, 21-27. Modern Readers' Bible. Section 3, stanza 3. Section 17, stanza 2. Section 24, stanzas 2, 3, also Section 25, stanza 1. Bildad: 8: 3-7. 18: 5-21. Modern Readers' Bible. Section 19, stanza 3 et seq.

Section 6, stanzas 1, 2. Zophar: 11: 4-6; 14-20. 20: 28-29. 27: 13 et seq. 28: 28. Modern Readers' Bible. Section 11, stanzas 1, 2. Section 21, the close. Section 32, stanza 2 et seq. Section 33, the close.

3. What ground did Job maintain in reply to these accusations?

12: 2-24; 13: 2-23; 19: 25. Section 12-13. Section 14, stanzas I, 2. Section 20, stanza 5.

4. Why had not Elihu spoken before? 32: 4-6. Section 38, stanza I.

5. What is Elihu's solution of the Mystery of Suffering? 33:9-11. 33: 23-30. Section 39. Section 40, stanza 5. 6. Does God prove himself a distant God of judgment, or a sympathetic God of nature? 38, 39, 40. Sections 46, 48, 49.

7. Of what does Job repent? 42: 6.

Section 50, the close.

8. Was belief in a future life prevalent among the ancient Hebrews?

14: 14. 19: 26. 20, stanza 5, lines 3, 4.

Section 15, stanza 9, line 4. Section

9. Can chapter 32: 8, section 38, stanza 2, lines 4-5, be construed as indicating a belief in what Friends called the Inner Light?''

References and aid to study: The principal reference needed is the Book of Job itself, which can be best studied in the form in which it is issued as a part of the "Modern Readers' Bible." A marked difference between the Authorized and Revised Versions in chapter 19: 26, is to be noted. Smith's Bible Dictionary, Encyclopædia Britannica, and Clark's Commentary will be helpful.

TEMPERANCE LESSONS, (FOR CHILDREN.
TOBACCO AND GROWING BOYS.

In studying the effects of tobacco, the difficulty has been to distinguish the true and apparent cause and effect. One man smokes and lives to be ninety years old; another does the same and dies at thirty. We cannot say that tobacco has caused long life in one and short life in the other. There are differences in constitution, food, climate, occupation, etc., the influence of which we cannot exactly measure. These may be called the personal element in the problem. To eliminate this and other accidental elements, a large number of