FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER.

"TAKE FAST HOLD OF INSTRUCTION; LET HER NOT GO; KEEP HER; FOR SHE IS THY LIFE.”

PHILADELPHIA, TWELFTH MONTH 22, 1883.

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these testimonies and these blessings to their | and cast down our altars. The works which children unimpaired.

Such is the present position of the Society of Friends. We justly feel that we are the inheritors of noble testimonies and of countless Divine blessings. That the children of our Household of Faith may have grace to apprehend and carry on the work of their faithful fathers is the aspiration of the Church. Can it be that the youth do not respond to the loving anxiety of their elder friends that they may unite with these to conserve truth in its simplicity, to maintain soul liberty, to hold fast their confidence in the eternal verity that the Most High speaks immediately to the human soul and leads it into the right ways and unto the ends of true blessedness and peace? We cannot for a moment admit this, believing as we do that among Friends never at any time was there a more noble and earnest spirit of true progress, nor a greater zeal for the advancement of truth and righteousness in the earth. Our Religious Society stands for all right progress, being founded on the principle liberty of individual thought and faithfulness to individual conviction. The spiritual equality of the sexes is fully acknowledged; intellectual culture is as freely offered to women as to men; we find ourselves to-day standing in the fore front of the advocates of greater purity of life, more far-reaching benevolence to our fellow-creatures, and a more full acknowledgement of the Divine Wisdom than ever before.

engaged our faithful predecessors are not exactly the same with those which to-day demand the best efforts of the sincere hearted.

Certainly, the light of true science will not antagonize any religious truth, and there can never be a reasonable question as to the order of precedence between science and religion. We must trust in the sufficiency of pure truth, and cast aside, without hesitation, all exposed fallacies.

"What is true and just and honest,
What is lovely, what is pure-
All of praise that hath admonisht,
All of virtue, shall endure.'

A dull conservatism which prefers to rest in the traditions of the past rather than to seek the heavenly light of to-day, which feeds only upon the manna of bygone times, is not the salt which can preserve the Church, being at war with every generous impulse and every holy aspiration. Let us cast it firmly aside if it veils from us the warm hearts of our youth.

ennial vigor and zeal, for the young life So may we hope for the blessing of perwill circle the old, even as the young olive plants environ the stem from which they derived life, environing, upholding, protecting, embracing it. And, as in the days of old, the voice of assurance and consolation may be known.

"The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion, and thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel." S. R.

For Friends' Intelligencer.

PETER.

There will occur times of less fullness of Divine Favor, and periods in which, as of old, we may hear the cry, "The fathers, where are they; and the prophets, do they As our thoughts turn backward to the live forever?' But if we stand on the im- times when the New Testament history was mutable foundations of spiritual truth, and enacted, and we try to realize that the charawait with faith the "consolation of Israel," acters whom we have read of from childhood will the children of this people be inclined were living men, we find no one of those to leave the house of their fathers for other whom Jesus called to follow him who stands resting-places, and refuse to comfort and sus-out in a clearer or more human light than tain the patient, devoted fathers and mothers of the Church?

The quiet ways and means of the vanished generations may not seem to the ranks now reaching the ascendent quite the best conceivable. Very well. It is theirs to amend and improve, for no infallibility has ever been claimed for the discipline and order of the Society of Friends. Instead of forsaking the banner which has so long been borne into battle, with the falseness and hollowness of spurious Christianity, let young and zealous hands advance it still further along the lines of light.

The darling sins of our age and time are not yet purged away, and if these are not duly combatted they may desolate our homes

Peter. From the day when he left his fishing nets at the invitation of one whom he must have recognized as superior to all other teachers, to the time when Jesus was crucified he was ever the ardent, impulsive disciple. Some few sentences in the Gospels which relate to him put him in complete sympathy with erring, struggling human nature, and from his defeats as well as from his triumphs we may gather courage when our advance towards holiness seems to us to be very slow. Peter had a strong nature which did not submit passively to the rule of his higher life; he had seasons of spiritual insight and he had too, seasons of spiritual darkness, but his Master who possessed the fulness of light did not cast him off when his sight was clouded;

To

because, in the religion which Jesus taught, | vancement and happiness of the human being he did not expect that a man should conquer is the Lord's work, but amid all the duties of all his natural enemies the moment he had life the memory of the transfiguration abides set his face zion ward. How patiently this and common life is never again so common blessed teacher instructs him when he would after it has been seen in its true light. know what material profit was to be theirs those who feel that they err and fall very far who had forsaken all and followed him! short of what they desire to be, there is enAnd to this impulsive disciple how tender is couragement in the thought that one of the the rebuke "O thou of little faith, wherefore disciples who was with the purest and wisest didst thou doubt." Teacher also had his shortcomings but in the end received the fulness of spiritual life. The precious wheat was growing in the shadow of the cloud as well as in the sun, and his Father and ours wills that the husk too shall grow unto its appointed time; therefore we need not condemn the frailties of the human nor call it "common or unclean" if we feel that within the perishing there is being perfected that which is eternal. W. H. Philadelphia, Twelfth mo, 1883.

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When Peter saw the real spiritual character of Jesus and confessed "Thou art the Christ it would seem like an advanced point in his experience, but as the narrative of his short comings shows it was but as the first tender blade which was destined to grow until it reached perfection on that great and notable day of Pentecost when he was filled with the Holy Ghost.

One almost wonders how Peter could deny his Master after the years of constant companionship with him; hearing daily his preaching, his parables with their exposition, his convincing arguments with learned Jews, his touching appeals, to the weary, and his promises to the heavy hearted. That denial came from the fearful, doubting natural man which was true to the instinct of self-preservation so firmly planted there by his Creator; but when the spiritual man took possession he was bold to declare his faith, prisons had then no terrors for him and rulers could not force him to silence. Now he spake "as the Spirit gave him utterance" and thus the life which is hidden finds expression and a living ministry reaches the hearers so that every man hears in his own tongue, and the bread which has been blessed is broken and all are filled.

K

SUNDAY IN LONDON.

To-day is Sunday. The street is perfectly quiet; and not only do I think this stillness very pleasant, but the whole tenor of the London Sunday appears to me perfectly explained by its necessity. Whereas, hitherto, the prejudiced and stupid accounts of travelers and authors have made me consider it ridiculous and incredible. Sunday is as indispensable as fallow time is to the fields, winter to the vegetation, night to day. Sunday is kept not only because a law commands it; but that law is here, more than anywhere else, the evident expression of the general wish, the urgent want. If London people lived one year without Sunday, they would all and each turn mad or imbecile; and the more straining, fatiguing, and thoroughly exciting the life of all classes of population is during the six week days, the more strictly will the great mass keep Sunday without any compulsion.-Abraham Mendelssohn.

SILENT TIMES.

It seems strange to us sometimes that it is possible to hear again and again the words of life and yet to feel that we do not live, to know that the bread from Heaven has been broken, and that we are not fed, to go through with forms which never reach the spiritual life or cause an upspringing of the tiny seed of the kingdom; but if, like Peter, we follow the Master faithfully according to our ability, In one of our larger colleges for girls a though we may misunderstand him at times special feature of the daily life of the houseor even deny him, we shall in the fulness of hold is the morning and evening "silent time receive the outpouring of the Spirit. time." At the opening and closing of the We may have, as Peter had, our times of up- day there is a brief period, marked by the lifting, when the Christ whom we are follow-strokes of the bell, in which all the house is ing is transfigured before us and we realize quiet. Every pupil is in her room. There how transcendently beautiful is the spiritual is no conversation. No step is heard in the life. But when we desire to dwell on the corridors. The whole great house is as quiet mountain top the Master will lead us gently as if all its five hundred inmates were sleepdown to the common level again. These ing. There is no positively prescribed way seasons of exaltation must be short, man of spending these silent minutes in the rooms, whom God appoints to do a man's work must but it is understood that all whose hearts so be about his Father's business, for every kind incline them shall devote the time to devoof work which promotes the substantial ad- tional reading, meditation, and prayer.

At

least, the design in establishing this period of temptation, unshaken in trials, full of good quiet as part of the daily life of the school, fruits, perennial and unfading in its leaf, is to give opportunity for such devotional there must be a close walk with God in exercises, and by its solemn hush to suggest secret. to all the fitness, the helpfulness, and the need, of such periods of communion with God. The bell that calls for silence also calls to thought and prayer, and even the most indifferent must be affected by its continual

recurrence.

We all need to get into the course of our lives many quiet hours, when we shall sit alone with Christ, in personal communion with him, listening to his voice, and renewing our wasted strength from his fulness. Busy men need such periods, for their days of toil, care, and struggle, tend to wear out the fibre of their spiritual life and exhaust their inner strength. Earnest women need such silent times, for there are many things in their daily household and social life to exhaust their supplies of grace. The care of their children, the very routine of their home-life, the thousand little things that try their patience, vex their spirits, and tend to break their calm; the influences of much of their social life, with its manifold temptations to artificialness, insincerity, formality, unreality, or, on the other hand, to frivolity, idleness, vanity, and

Every true Christian life needs its daily "silent times," when all shall be still, when the busy activities of other hours shall cease, and when the heart, in holy hush, shall commune with God. One of the greatest needs of Christian life to-day is the revival of devotion. Ours is not an age of prayer so much as of work. The tendency is to action rather than to worship; to busy toil rather than to quiet sitting at the Saviour's feet to commune with him. The keynote of our present Christian life is consecration, which is understood to mean devotion to active service. On every hand we are incited to work. Our worldiness-amid all these distracting, zeal is stirred by every inspiring incentive. The calls to duty come to us from a thousand earnest voices.

And this is well. There is little fear that we shall ever grow too earnest in working for our Master, or that our enthusiasm in his service shall ever become too intense.

"What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil:
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines,
And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil.
God did anoint thee with his ordorous oil
To wrestle, not to reign."

Devotion is not all. Peter wished to stay on the mount of transfiguration, and go back no more to the cold, stricken world below; but no, at the mountain's base human suffering and sorrow waited for the coming of the Healer, and the Master and his disciples must leave the rapture of heavenly communion and hasten down to serve. It is always So. While you enjoy the blessedness of fellowship with God in the closet, there come in at your closed door, and break upon your ears, the cries of human need and sorrow.

Hark, hark! a voice amid the quiet intense!
It is thy duty waiting thee without:
Open thy door straightway and get thee hence;
Go forth into the tumult and the shout;
Work, love, with workers, lovers, all about.
Then, weary, go thou back with failing breath,

And in thy chamber make thy prayer and moan." The way to spiritual health lies in the paths of consecrated service. Yet the other side is just as true. Before there can be a strong, vigorous, healthy tree, able to bear much fruit, to stand the storm, to endure the heat and cold, there must be a well-planted and well-nourished root; and before there can be a strong, noble, enduring Christian life in the presence of the world, safe in

dissipating, secularizing influences, every earnest woman needs to get at least one quiet hour in her life, every day, when, like Mary, she can wait at the feet of Jesus and have her own soul calmed and fed.

Preachers, teachers, Christian workers, all need the same. How can any of you stand in the Lord's house to speak his words to the people, unless you have first waited at his feet to get your message? How can any of you teach the children the truths of life, if you have not yourself been freshly taught of God? How can any of you bear heavenly gifts to needy souls if you have not been at the Lord's treasure-house to get those gifts?

Dr. Austin Phelps, in speaking of the danger of incessant Christian activity, without a corresponding secret life with God, says: "The very obvious peril is that the vitality of holiness may be exhausted by inward decay, through the want of an increase of its devotional spirit, proportioned to the expansion of its active forces. Individual experience may become shallow for the want of meditative habits and much communion with God. Activity can never sustain itself. Withdraw the vital force which animates and propels it, and it falls like a dead arm. We cannot then too keenly feel, each one for himself, that a still and secret life with God must energize all holy duty, as vigor in every fibre of the body must come from the strong, calm, faithful beat of the heart."

A Christian man of intense business enterprise and.activity was laid aside by sickness. He who never would intermit his labors was compelled to come to a dead halt. His restless limbs were stretched motionless on the