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Let it be always borne in mind, that Quakerism was not a protest against, or a revulsion from, the Church of England, but from Calvinism. The steeple-houses, against which George Fox testified, were not served by Henry Mores, Cudworths, or Norrises: not even by dogmatist High-Churchmen, but by Calvinist ministers, who had ejected them.
He contrived to pick up every rare old volume connected with the history of his sect. He had a wonderful fondness and reverence for many of those books. They seemed to stand to him in the place of old religious friends, who had parted from his side in the journey of life. There, at least, he found Quakerism that had not degenerated; that breathed the same spirit as of yore.
As to music, even that of simplest melody, it has come to the Hill, but it "knows not Joseph." An elderly son of Quakerism said: "You will find no Quaker or son of the Quakers who can sing; if you do find one who can sing a little, it will be a limited talent, and you will unfailingly discover that he is partly descended from the world's people."
But he could never relinquish the hope that the primitive character of Quakerism would be restored, and that the Society would again hold up the standard of righteousness to the nations, as it had in days gone by. Nearly every man, who forms strong religious attachments in early life, cherishes similar anticipations for his sect, whose glory declines, in the natural order of things.
It is no doubt that to this treatment by those in authority was due the gradual waning of her interest in Quakerism, although she is far from acknowledging it. One obstacle in the way of her success as a preacher was her manner of speaking.
An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as Monachism, of the hermit Antony; the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called "the height of Rome"; and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons. Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet.
It would also do away the imputation of it in the public mind. For it is impossible in this case, that the word Quakerism should not become synonimous with charity, as it ought to be, if Quakerism be a more than ordinary profession of the Christian religion. Now these methods are not chimerical, but practicable.
That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon whose somewhat martial figure the Quaker coat seemed a little out of place, was Lindley Coates, known in all eastern Pennsylvania as a stern enemy of slavery; that slight, eager man, intensely alive in every feature and gesture, was Thomas Shipley, who for thirty years had been the protector of the free colored people of Philadelphia, and whose name was whispered reverently in the slave cabins of Maryland as the friend of the black man, one of a class peculiar to old Quakerism, who in doing what they felt to be duty, and walking as the Light within guided them, knew no fear and shrank from no sacrifice.
Or if a man believed in visible manifestations of spiritual influences, he would more probably become a Methodist than a Quaker; and the time was not yet come when to be a Methodist was to cease to be a Churchman. In one respect, however, Quakerism possessed a safeguard to emotional excitement which in Methodism was wanting.
It need not be said that the poorer members bear the rich in mind. Every person resident on the Hill has come to partake in this sense of the community, this practice of new Quakerism. No one is out of sight and yet there is no dream of equality behind this communal sense. It is as far from a communistic, as from a charitable state of mind.
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