LITTELL'S LIVING AGE. From the Westminster Review. scenes of riot and intemperance; so that, whatever A Popular Life of George Fox, the first of the the inclination, the Quaker, in Quaker garb, dare Quakers. By JOSIAH MARSH. London: Gil-not mingle in such company. The husk, as we pin. 1847. have termed it, worn under parental authority, thus becomes a safeguard and protection to the youngTHERE is no subject perpetually before our eyes a protection even against inclination; for we are not more imperfectly understood than Quakerism. There to suppose the youth of any sect devoid of the taste is a prevalent idea, amounting perhaps to a knowl- for amusement which is a characteristic of that peedge, that Quakers are a sect addicted to broad-riod of our existence. In after years, the man has brimmed hats, collarless coats, a peculiar phraseol- often to look back with gratitude on the protecting ogy, silent meetings, and the acquisition of money; power of that garb, and those peculiarities, which propensities which rarely engender any better feeling he felt irksome as a youth; and seeing the service than contempt for the man who is too well bred they rendered to himself, he inculcates their observto express it in the same way cherishes the same ance on his successors, indeed, enforces it, so long as feeling as the boy who hoots after the drab-garbed parental authority endures. Thus, however much Quaker in the street. Nineteen twentieths of our we may be inclined to dislike or censure these pecountrymen believe a Quaker to be infinitely in- culiarities, we shall find it difficult to deny their ferior to themselves to the brutal, he is an ob- utility; and we shall also find that a portion of our ject of abuse; to the rude, of ridicule; to the feeling of contempt arose from an insufficiency of supercilious, of contempt; to the kind-hearted, of our own information. We are ever too ready to pity; but all agree in looking down upon him as smile at what we do not understand; and, in from some very decided elevation. It is difficult to our journey through life, we often feel the smile dissipate feelings which flatter our self-esteem, and of scorn dissipated by an enlarged power of comprewhatever places another permanently below us hension, and succeeded by respect, and perhaps certainly administers to that quality; we are pleased even by admiration. While on the subject of dress, to have an opportunity of despising, and often abso- we may further remark that the Quaker garb is lutely plume ourselves on despising, courteously professedly a mere retention of the usual costume and religiously, kindly and conscientiously. of that period when Quakers were first associated as a body, and a refusal to comply with the everchanging vagaries of fashion. So much for the husk. We wish to place it in its true light, and to remove those erroneous impressions which result from mistaking it for the kernel. : We are willing to believe that this relative position between the Quaker and the man of the world arises entirely from the fact already adduced, that Quakerism is imperfectly understood: we see the husk, we taste it and find it unpalatable, bitter, chaffy but so also is the husk of the cocoa-nut, and of fifty other fruits. Now we have no more right to judge the Quaker than the cocoa-nut by its exterior alone; it is not only unfair to the object but unjust towards ourselves. Let us, however, pause for a moment over the husk itself, the quaintness, oddity, perhaps ugliness, of the costume, the mode of address, &c.; it should be distinctly understood, that these peculiarities are not of themselves considered in the light of good deeds, but often serve as a protection against evil deeds. The true Quaker has a decided objection to amalgamate with that world whose fashions and excesses he has conscientiously renounced, and these peculiarities act as a universally accepted apology for his not mingling in scenes in which others can perceive no harm; races, hunting, theatres, balls, concerts, cards, drinking-occupations held to be almost necessary to people of the world, and, to use the most circumspect phraseology, tolerated by their religious instructors-are forbidden to the Quaker; from his youth upwards he is taught to avoid them. Abstinence from these indulgences is inculcated with the first lessons of religion; and intellect has no sooner dawned than his moral education begins. This abstinence from occupations common in the world has become so notorious, that the Quaker garb is a sufficient apology for non-indulgence. It would be out of place at all public amusements; in all VOL. XV. 1 CLXXVII. LIVING AGE. Quakerism may be said to date its existence from the preaching of Fox; prior to this some Quaker doctrines had been vaguely promulged, but, under the majestic and energetic mind of Fox, they received form and character; they became distinct and intelligible; so that to him alone must be attributed the establishment of the sect. It will be recollected by all who are conversant with the history of the Reformation, that the participators in that great movement aimed at a far more extensive subversion of the ceremonies of the Romish church than they had the power to achieve; thus we find the more eminent of these reformers inveighing bitterly against certain observances, which, as they said, "plainly savor of popery.' Among such objectionable observances are enumerated, "figured music and organs, the forms of sponsors, the use of the cross in baptism, kneeling at the sacrament, sprinkling of infants, bowing at the name of Jesus," &c. But Queen Elizabeth whose memory as a protestant reformer is so highly cherished by the Episcopalian church, insisted on the reintroduction of these observances, and took care that they should be rigidly enforced. The act of conformity was passed in 1554, and by this all the Romish ceremonies which the queen or her advisers were pleased to continue, became law, in opposition to the principles and entire spirit of the Reformation. This of course induced violent discontent; and very many of the true reformers refused to comply, and formed small associations on principles opposed to one or other of the prescribed forms. Hence arose those numerous bodies of dissenters, which, in the time of Charles I., had become so powerful; and which, however they might differ on other points, were unanimously agreed in denying the divine right of bishops, and thus rendered themselves obnoxious to ecclesiastical authorities. But, amidst all the distaste for certain forms and ceremonies, no sect ventured to proscribe them all; it was left for George Fox to found a religion on the New Testament alone; to dispense with all priestcraft and priesthood, with all forms and observances and ceremonies, and to declare that worship was a spiritual act between man and his Maker, a tribute to be offered independently of human assistance, and unaccompanied by any human inventions. Our author informs us that sand minor powers that have succeeded, all had their ceremonies performed by priests; all looked on the priest as a being whose offices were essential to the safety of the soul. George Fox alone, of all the world, repudiated priesthood and priestcraft, and dared to deny the right of a human mediator between God and man. He acknowledged but one mediator; one whose services were not to be doled out in pittances apportioned to the coin returned. It therefore is not remarkable that the priesthood of whatever denomination should rise as one man against the Quaker, and denounce him from the pulpit as an atheist and a traitor; an enemy alike to religion and to law. Such was the case; and when we remember how vast, how subtle, how ramified, how extended is that power and influence he attacked, we cannot wonder that the Quaker was hunted from place to place like a beast, was torn from his home and family, was thrown into the "No reformer, prior to George Fox, had alto- most filthy dungeons, was flogged, maimed, cripgether rejected ceremonies in the performance of pled, and murdered, merely on a false charge of public worship, or the observance of any religious irreligion and disaffection, originating entirely in rite upon admittance into a community of member- the vengeance of a priesthood whose offices he deship. But he, regarding worship alone in the light clined, and with whose emoluments the spread of of a spiritual act, between the heart of man and his such opinions must of necessity interfere. The liMaker, instituted a worship of silent waiting, and cense for marriage, the marriage form, the churchmore particularly called upon his followers to rely ing of women, the sprinkling of infants, the adminupon that measure of divine light or grace which it istration of the sacrament, the ceremony of confirhas pleased God to place in the hearts of all men mation, the funeral service, the consecration of for their edification, guidance, and right under-churches and churchyards, all forms of prayer, standing of his revealed law, provided they are written sermons; all were of no avail: churches willing to submit to its silent teachings. He con- themselves were superfluous, and the sacredness of sidered that it is only by the free operation of this divine principle that the heart becomes sanctified, and that, by it alone, men can become spiritually baptized into the church of Christ, or can become spiritual partakers of the body and blood of our Saviour. Which inward and spiritual participation is the only true essential of these ceremonies, as practised by most of the Christian churches. Neither had any one, before this, called the attention of mankind so particularly to the marked distinction between the old law of Moses and the new law of the gospel; pointing out that the former, with its ceremonies and ordinances, was expressly given to the Jews; and to them only; and, as St. Paul says, is to be looked upon by us as a schoolmaster to prepare us for the better and more spiritual dispensation, which ended the old law,* and in whose glad tidings the whole Gentile world are made participators as well as the Jews. Nor had any one before endeavored to establish a system of public worship of a nature so entirely spiritual, allowing of no prescribed act, either of prayer or of exhortation. His object was to lead people back to the primitive simplicity and purity of the gospel precepts, to which the superstitious ceremonies of the Romish church were so glaringly opposed; to call them off from all dependence upon outward ceremonies, to that inward and spiritual religion by which alone they can know Christ to be their God and their Saviour; and to convince them that the mere knowledge and belief of what Christ had done and suffered for them when personally upon earth, was not of itself sufficient to obtain this, without a further knowledge, through the Holy Spirit, of his righteous government in their hearts."-p. 10. Since Christianity was first preached by the immediate followers of Christ, no such doctrine as this had ever been broached. Peter, Mahomet, Luther, Wycliffe, Calvin, Wesley, and the thou *Gal. iii. 24, 25. any edifice declared a fable. This was atheism and treason in the eyes of the clergy, and of all over whom their influence extended. The boldness with which Fox preached these doctrines is shown in his own "Journal," but there are other authentic sources of information, which bear ample testimony to the courage he displayed. "When I heard the bell toll to call the people together in the steeple-house, it struck at my life, for it was like a market bell to gather people together, that the priest might set forth his wares for sale. Oh! the vast sums of money that are got by the trade they make of selling the Scriptures, and by their preaching, from the highest bishop to the lowest priest! What one trade in the world is comparable to it? Notwithstanding the Scriptures were given forth freely, Christ commanded his ministers to preach freely, and the prophets and apostles denounced judgment against all covetous hirelings and diviners for money. But in this free spirit of the Lord Jesus was I sent forth to declare the word of life and reconciliation freely, that all might come to Christ, who gives freely, and renews us into the image of God, which man and woman were in before they fell.”—p. 46. Here we are presented with the origin of the Quaker tenet against a paid clergy of any description; and from the doctrines of their founder the Quakers conceive themselves called upon to protest openly against such a ministration of the gospel, as being contrary to the special injunctions of Christ, and the practices of the apostles and early Christian church. Hence, they refuse to pay all tithes or church demands, patiently submitting to the legal penalties attached to such refusals, and to the rapecity of their enemies, who, in the early periods of the society, carried their plunder to so great an excess as not only to involve many in total ruin, but also to subject them to long and cruel imprisonments, which, in many cases of particular hardship, termi |