At Cape Ann a number of young Friends | at the present. The marriage was accomwere engaged in boat building, and a meeting plished at a meeting appointed for the purwas requested for them there. It was held on pose. It was the intention of the newlya First day morning, and largely attended, so wedded to attend the Yearly Meeting at Lonthat the other places of worship were almost don, which began a few days later, but the deserted. A Friend's meeting was a new bride's mother was taken very ill, which thing among them, and at the close request obliged her to remain at home. was made by the people for an afternoon meeting, which was granted. Among those who were present on this occasion was a minister, who started up a discussion upon baptism, and behaved very uncivilly, so that some of his own people, who were also there, reproved him for his unchristian conduct. It was far into the night when the meeting ended, but the people were quiet and civil, and a few who stayed awhile after, expressed a wish that they could have more such meetings, one remarking " Religion could never prosper so long as it was made a trade to get bread by." Taking his leave of Friends as he journeyed on, holding meetings among them to satisfaction, and finding much openness, and a desire to hear in those who were of other professions, Samuel reached Westbury in time to attend the Yearly Meeting held there. Some of George Keith's adherents were there, and threatened to have him arrested, but he relates, "I found truth was over them, and they could do no more than show their teeth." Samuel attended the meeting, and at the request of Friends gave some account of his travels in America. When the Meeting was over he went directly home, and for more than a year was very little abroad. He writes, that he "had great comfort and satisfaction with his wife," she being "a true sympathizer with him in all his exercises. Sometimes when he feared "how they would get on in the world," she would encourage him by saying, "if we get little we will spend less, and if we save a little out of our getting, we shall have enough; I am not at all fearful of it, neither would I have thee." So he found her to "be a helpmeet indeed." A concern now presented to him to visit Ireland, of which Samuel acquainted his wife. She freely gave her consent, saying that she had resolved before their marriage that she would never hinder his ministry, if she could possibly avoid it, and hoped the Lord would strengthen her, and make the way easy." He left home in Fifth month 1708. This Bidding farewell to the Friends of Long journey occupied eighteen weeks. He found Island, Samuel continued his journey through" very hard work in many places, and in "the Jerseys," holding meetings, and taking some meetings was "entirely silent." Gilbert leave, with no expectation of returning, and Thompson, "a heavenly-minded and meek reached Philadelphia about the time of the preacher was travelling there at the same Yearly Meeting, which he attended with time, and when they conversed together, good satisfaction." Samuel found that he had experienced the He now turned his face homeward, being same difficulty, and in explanation, he gave accompanied by Ellis Pugh, who purposed to as a reason, "that professors of truth in that visit his relatives in Wales. They took pass-nation were very strict and exact in some age on a vessel whose captain was a Friend, but owing to some delays they did not get off until two months later. Samuel spent the time of waiting visiting Friends and holding meetings in Virginia and the Carolinas. At last the captain was ready, our Friends on board, and the ship afloat to join a fleet which was waiting, down the Chesapeake bay, for a convoy. Many of the vessels had lain in port so long that they were unable to bear the rough sea, and so foundered; others put back for repairs. The one on which Samuel and his friends embarked made a safe, but long, tedious passage, and reached Portsmouth, England, in Tenth month 1706. Samuel had been absent from his native land over four and a half years. He proceeded without delay to the home of his intended wife to fulfil his engagement of marriage according to the good order of the Society, which was much the same then as it is things, and placed much in outward appear- (To be continued.) It is easy to pick holes in other people's work, but far more profitable to do better work ourselves. A WORTHY man thus wrote: "I expect to pass through the world but once. If, therefore, there can be any kindness I can do to any fellow-being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I will not pass this way again.” friend. His work in the ministry began at an early age and continued a heartfelt duty through a long life; his tender counsel being made doubly impressive by the consistent and beautiful example that accompanied it. Our dear friend's faithfulness in the attendance of religious meetings was particularly noteworthy; and one of the strong testimonies he had to bear was the reasonable duty of assembling ourselves together for public worship, and notwithstanding many difficulties in travel were often encountered in the section of country in which our friend resided, these were not allowed to prove obstacles in attending meetings regularly. His travels in the ministry were somewhat extensive, both in the States and in Canada, and the religious and social minglings with Friends on such occasions are remembered by them with deep interest. Sympathy for the sorrowing and bereaved seemed to be an especial province of this devoted servant, and in the homes of this class he was frequently called to mingle. There was a remarkable retention of mental and physical strength at an advanced age, and our beloved friend had made arrangements for attending not only his own yearly meeting, of New York, but the approaching Annual Gathering in Philadelphia, when the final illness came. Without suffering, and with the mind unclouded, the aged pilgrim awaited the Father's call; and a quiet life of devotion and a conscientious discharge of each day's duty was terminated there, to be welcomed, doubtless, by the summons, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." For Friends' Intelligencer. EARLY FRIENDS. Upon reading an account of Early Friends, their sufferings, establishment of meetings, discipline, etc., in a book entitled "London Friends' Meetings," by Wm. Beck and T. Fredrick Ball, I have been so interested that I forward an extract therefrom, for the perusal of our younger Friends especially, as there may be many among them who are not familiar with how much it cost their which we as a Religious Society are enjoying, "forefathers in the Truth" to attain to that with but little thought of what they endured. After untold sufferings patiently borne, and strong in the faith that they would eventually be released therefrom, the time of their valuable legacy-the "freedom to worship deliverance came, and they have left us a God according to the dictates of our own conscience," and liberty to uphold the principles and testimonies transmitted by them without suffering or persecution. of Life, Light and Power which enabled them to stand true to their convictions, and may we be concerned to seek for it, so that we may receive that anointing which will qualify us to preserve the rich inheritance gained by their faithfulness, and also strengthen us to perform the work given us in our day and generation. We have access to the same Eternal Source The part in reference to holding meetings may be read to profit, as too many appear to "assemble themselves together" to hear what may be communicated vocally, losing sight of the declaration, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength," even if not a word is spoken, and unmindful that words are of little avail unless they are given in the H. M. L. power of God. Fifth month 3d, 1883. "At the time of the death of Charles II, fifteen hundred Friends alone, without mentioning the Nonconformists, were in prison, besides the losses of many thousands of others through fines and distress on goods, etc. James II, during his short reign of three years, relieved these sufferings by putting a check on informers and releasing prisoners, etc.... Happily, under William III, Parliament was able to deal with the whole question, and passed an act repealing all former laws, and favored all persons who would take a simple oath of allegiance to the King, as chief Magistrate. "All places for Divine worship, if properly registered, were held with open doors, and received legal protection. For Friends some special arrangements were made to meet their conscientious objections to all swearing; and thus, after so long a struggle, they were suc cessful in maintaining the right to assemble | mind every one your particular duties in themselves together. Seldom, perhaps, since the days of early Christianity, was a cause maintained with more perseverance than Friends exhibited at this time. Denounced as fanatical and blasphemous, when the fierce Puritan was in power; confined in the filthiest of gaols treated as a common felon, outlawed and transported, when the bishops of Charles II had recovered their places; regarded with suspicion by Parliaments for their 'secret cor respondence and great assemblies'; dreaded as possible plotters and insurrectionists by each party as it came in power; branded by all as heretical opponents to Ministry and Majesty, and subjected to the sharp penalties of the law-the Friends, bearing all, enduring, but not relinquishing, kept up their meetings, although fines, cruel mockings and imprisonments were, with little or no intermission, their portion for more than forty years. Through all it was met with patience, and a confidence that the Lord they served would in due time make a way of escape. In hope, they persevered and suffered, yet used all lawful and peaceable means to convince those in power of their innocence. As to themselves, they drew nearer and closer to each other in the hour of mutual trial, encouraged by martyr spirits such as Burrough, coming cheerfully to meet their death in gaol, and cheered by such as Dewsberry, who, though pining as to the body, said, 'In the prison I sang praises, and esteemed the bolts and locks as jewels.' "Stimulated by the self-sacrificing zeal of such men as Fox, Whitehead and others, who counted it joy to spend and be spent in the cause, the band held together and hoped on though long and dark the trial. At last the victory was won, and they were recognized as among the gatherings of Christian people. The Established Church, as well as other sects, came to acknowledge the Quaker had gained his cause-that men could meet together to worship without Liturgies or Rituals, or formally appointed ministers, being refreshed and strengthened by the Divine Presence." Besse says, an indication that in those assemblies they were made partakers of that solid comfort and celestial sweetness which attend the true and evangelical worship, which they valued above all the delights and pleasures of this world, and which enabled them to cheerfully undergo not only banishments, imprisonments and spoiling of goods, but even death. "In 1660 Alexander Parker, one of the earliest and most gifted Gospel laborers, wrote to the meetings: 'And now, dear souls, your meetings and solemn assemblies. Come orderly, in the fear of God. . . . Be not careless, nor wander in body or thought, but sit down and wait upon God singly, as none were present but the Lord. And so all coming in, in the fear of the Lord, sit down in pure stillness. . . . This is a sweet and precious meeting, where all meet with the Lord. Those who are brought to a pure, still waiting upon God in the spirit are come nearer to Him than words are. Here is the true feeding, and this is the end of words and writings, to bring people to the Eternal Living Word. "If any be moved to speak, see that they speak in the power, and when the power is still, be ye still. In such a meeting where the presence and power of God is felt, there is an unwillingness to part asunder; ... and when meeting is ended do not look upon the service of God as ended; but, dear friends, in all companies, at all times and seasons, so walk that ye may be examples of good unto all, and God over all glorified." CONDUCT THE INDEX OF CHARACTER. BY F. L. HOSMER. * Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."-Matt. vii. 17-20. If these words were quite anonymous, they would commend themselves to our common sense as a test of character. They need no great name to give them currency. If we were to meet with them in the scriptures of any of the great ethnic religions, they would have interest for us as the recognition of a practical basis of judgment. They appear reasonable. But as coming from the lips of Jesus they have a special interest for us, in that they stand in such sharp contrast with so much that has been set forth as his teaching and is required in his name to-day. And good as they are in themselves, they become yet more emphatic when we take them in connection with the general discourse in which they occur. Jesus has been commending certain traits of character as enumerated in the beatitudes: humility, the merciful spirit, purity of heart, the peaceable disposition, the love of truth, and the holding fast to rightousness through good report and ill. And then he goes on at more length, and with something of special illustration, to touch the conventional judgments of his time, by which not a few who counted themselves as very religious were striving to keep the letter of the law with none of its spirit in their hearts. He shows that unreasonable anger and the vengeful spirit are the real root whence all outward violence grows. He demands purity in the very desire and thought. Tearing away the cover of casuistry which was wrapt about formal vows, as if multiplied words made natural obligations more binding, he finds the truest reverence for the one holy Name in straightforward simplicity and sincerity. No one can read the pages of the New Testament without feeling, after allowing for all criticisms to which some passages therein are open, the presence of a very high personal morality. It addresses itself to the individual and searches the private heart and life. Its first demand is that a man shall be a moral man; not a morality of mere outward obedience; that is just what it does not demand; but that he shall be moral at heart; that he shall love his neighbor, and reflect that love in all his dealings with him; that personally he shall be pure and humble, not arrogant and vain. Whatever theory of the coming kingdom Jesus may have cherished as an outward form in which his ideal was to embody itself, the condition of entrance therein, as well as the reign thereof, was the cry of the old-time prophets, heard now once more, of simple righteousness. It was through the preparation of the individual heart and life rather than through any clearly defined social scheme, that the kingdom he preached was to come about. of Allah." And so it is. While our theological conceptions and beliefs vary, and each people bears the mark of its ancestral faith, the just and kindly deed is current coin in all lands, and men love to call it by the name dearest to them. It is the same gold which our dividing names do but stamp.- Unity. THEY ARE NOT STRANGERS MAMMA., Not long ago I stood by the death-bed of a little girl. From her birth she had been afraid of death. Every fibre of her body and soul recoiled from the thought of it. "Don't let me die!" she said; "don't let me die, Hold me fast! Oh I can't go." Jenny," I said, "you have two little brothers in the other world, and there are thousands of tender-hearted people over there who will love you and take care of you. But she cried out again, despairingly, "Dont let me go; they are strangers over there!" She was a little country girl, strong-limbed, fleet of foot, tanned in the face; she was raised on the frontier; the fields were her home. In vain we tried to reconcile her to the death that was inevitable. "Hold me fast," she cried, “don't let me go!" But even as she was pleading her little hands relaxed their elinging hold from my waist and lifted themselves eagerly aloft; lifted themselves with such straining effort that they lifted the wasted little body from its reclining position among the pillows. Her face was turned upward, but it was her eyes that told the story. They were filled with the light of Divine recognition. They saw something plainly that we could not see; and they grew brighter and brighter, and her little hand quivered in eagerness to go where strange portals had opened upon her astonished vision. But even in that supreme moment she did not forget to leave a word of comfort for those who would gladly have died in her place: "Mamma," she was saying, "mamma, they are not strangers. I am not afraid." afraid." At every instant the light burned more gloriously in her blue eyes till at last it seemed as if her soul leaped forth upon its radiant waves, and in that moment her trembling form relapsed among its pillows and she was gone.-Helen Williams, in the Chicago Woman's World. Prof. Max Mueller quotes approvingly the familiar passage from St. Augustine that "what is now called the Christian religion has existed among the ancients, and was never absent from the beginning of the race until Christ came in the flesh; from which time the true religion, which existed already, began to be called Christian." It may seem to be unfair in this early father to antedate his own historic faith, and claim for it the virtue and well-doing of all that went before. In a deeper sense, however, the words touch a large and clarifying truth; which in proportion as men see and realize, they drop their trivial disputes, and devote themselves to the building up of the kingdom. For, strictly speaking, there is but one Religion, which in differing degrees and ways all religions have been manifestations of, and steps in its further unfolding. Its true sacrament is to do justly and to love mercy; its Theologians of former ages established a true worship, to walk humbly before God. distinction between what they called natural When the late Bayard Taylor dismissed his and revealed religion, or between God as retwo camel-men to return homeward as he vealed in nature and God as revealed to men was about to push further into the heart of of rare genius and holiness, who were the inAfrica, and having treated them kindly gave spired teachers of their fellow men. Natural a parting present into their hands, he over- religion in this sense belongs to all mankind, heard one of them say to the other: "Our and revealed religion belongs to a chosen pious friend is surely at heart a true follower | race, or to those taught by the chosen race. GOD AND NATURE. Yet in both there have been gradual unfold- | planets and stars and the sun were merely ings or evolutions-revelation coming by suc- formed to minister to it. But astronomy cessive inspirations of law-givers, prophets taught that this earth is only one of the and martyrs, and natural religion unfolding planets, and as much smaller than other as men by their studies acquired a deeper planets as a cherry is smaller than an apple ; understanding of nature. that the sun is a million and a quarter times larger than the earth, and so far off that the mind cannot conceive the distance. Ninetythree millions of miles! The human mind cannot grasp the idea. And yet this vast distance is a mere point when compared with the distances of the nearest of the fixed stars--too small to serve as a convenient yardstick to measure celestial spaces. The human mind stands awestruck at the infinitude of creation—it is lost in the infinity of space. The god of revelation and the god of science are one and the same. It was a folly of past ages to consider them apart. Science is the handmaiden of religion, and has rendered it the greatest service; for while Christians feel no doubt of their own revelation through the patriarchs, Moses, the prophets, and later, through Jesus, the apostles, the martyrs, the fathers and the saints, they equally feel no doubt that the revelations claimed by the followers of Buddha and Mahomet are spurious; that the vast uncounted millions of the East are misled by a false revelation, and send missionaries to them, in order that their souls may be saved. There are thus false revelations as well as true ones, and the Mahometan who lives most purely according to his faith, and dies in defence of it, dies as the fool dieth. The God that modern Christians adore is the same Being whom the children of Israel worshipped; but our conception of Him is far nobler. You may search in vain in the Pentateuch for the Infinities. To the mind of that epoch God was a man of war." He was the God of a tribe. They conceived Him as jealous of other Gods-as delighting in sacrifice and blood offerings. The prophets brought a sweeter_conception-a God of Righteousness-and Jesus brought one sweeter still; He taught us to call Him Our Father. Science, also, as the handmaid of religion, rendered inestimable service in raising our conceptions of God. It has banished many of the debasing superstitions that clouded the pure light. The early conceptions of nature deified the elements. There were princes of darkness and of the powers of the air. There were demons and devils that entered into the bodies of men, and many similar things. The idea that the affairs of earth were man aged by supernatural agencies was deeply rooted. Revelation did not teach these errors, but did not wholly dispel them. It was science that taught the seasons, the recurrence of day and night, are regulated by natural laws, and not decided by combats among the princes and powers of the air. Then came the conception-dim at first, but strengthening with the centuries-that God works through the agency of changeless and eternal laws, and the nature superstitions vanish away like the shades of night before the daybreak. At a later epoch it was believed that this earth was the centre of creation, and that the The undevout astronomer is mad," said the old poet. When we compare the God as thus revealed with God as the early Hebrews conceived Him, should we not be grateful to science? Take the microscope, and the infinitely little is as marvelous as the infinitely great. Exquisite beauty, design, and ceaseless variety in the shells of tiny animals, so small that many millions would not make a cubic inch, and each one of them a life. Life! Life-a thing so wondrous that the smallest of the tiny atomies that the microscope reveals which possess it, has a greater dignity than the whole huge brute mass of the sun. is a revelation of infinite care as far beyond our conception as the distance between Arcturus and Canopus. The heavens declare the glory of God, says the Revelation. Truly, says science, and leads the soul away into the infinities. God marks the fall of a sparrow, says Revelation. Truly, says science; look through this microscope, note the love and care that fashioned each one of these little lives. Here It was once thought that creation was only a few thousand years old. But geology showed that this earth is very many millions of years old; that what are now the continents were once the bottom of the ocean-old continents worn down by the action of frost and rain and washed into the seas, and thus the whole material that forms the earth's crust worked over several times, laid down on the floor of the ocean as stratified rocks, and again uplifted into continents and mountain chains. The length of time implied by this is vast beyond conception. It can no more be expressed in years than the distance to Sirius can be expressed in miles. Our little lives are lost in the infinity of time-lives mere shifting-points joining the eternity of the past with the eternity of the future. One day to Him is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, says Revelation. Does not science aid us to appreciate this mystery? |