organization, disuse of the outward ordinances (this point is subject to some slight exception, principally in Ohio), and women’s ministry, they do not differ from English Friends. The yearly meetings of Baltimore and Philadelphia have not adopted the pastoral system; the latter contains a very strong conservative element, and, contrary to the practice of London and the other “orthodox” yearly meetings, it officially regards the meetings of “the smaller body” (see above) as meetings of the Society of Friends. In 1902 the “orthodox” yearly meetings in the United States established a “Five Years’ Meeting,” a representative body meeting once every five years to consider matters affecting the welfare of all, and to further such philanthropic and religious work as may be undertaken in common, e.g. matters concerning foreign missions, temperance and peace, and the welfare of negroes and Indians. Two yearly meetings remain outside the organization, that of Ohio on ultra-evangelical grounds, while that of Philadelphia has not taken the matter into consideration. Canada joined at the first, and having withdrawn, again joined in 1907.
See James Bowden, History of the Society of Friends in America (1850–1854); Allan C. and Richard H. Thomas, The History of Friends in America (4th edition, 1905); Isaac Sharpless, History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania (1898, 1899); R. P. Hallowell, The Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts (1887), and The Pioneer Quakers (1887).
Organization and Discipline.—The duty of watching over one another for good was insisted on by the early Friends, and has been embodied in a system of discipline. Its objects embrace (a) admonition to those who fail in the payment of their just debts, or otherwise walk contrary to the standard of Quaker ethics, and the exclusion of obstinate or gross offenders from the body, and, as incident to this, the hearing of appeals from individuals or meetings considering themselves aggrieved; (b) the care and maintenance of the poor and provision for the Christian education of their children, for which purpose the Society has established boarding schools in different parts of the country; (c) the amicable settlement of “all differences about outward things,” either by the parties in controversy or by the submission of the dispute to arbitration, and the restraint of all proceedings at law between members except by leave; (d) the “recording” of ministers (see above); (e) the cognizance of all steps preceding marriage according to Quaker forms; (f) the registration of births, deaths and marriages and the admission of members; (g) the issuing of certificates or letters of approval granted to ministers travelling away from their homes, or to members removing from one meeting to another; and (h) the management of the property belonging to the Society. The meetings for business further concern themselves with arrangements for spreading the Quaker doctrine, and for carrying out various religious, philanthropic and social activities not necessarily confined to the Society of Friends.
The present organization of the Quaker church is essentially democratic; every person born of Quaker parents is a member, and, together with those who have been admitted on their own request, is entitled to take part in the business assemblies of any meeting of which he or she is a member. The Periodic “meetings.” Society is organized as a series of subordinated meetings which recall to the mind the Presbyterian model. The “Preparative Meeting” usually consists of a single congregation; next in order comes the “Monthly Meeting,” the executive body, usually embracing several Preparative Meetings called together, as its name indicates, monthly (in some cases less often); then the “Quarterly Meeting,” embracing several Monthly Meetings; and lastly the “Yearly Meeting,” embracing the whole of Great Britain (but not Ireland). After several yearly or “general” meetings had been held in different places at irregular intervals as need arose, the first of an uninterrupted series met in 1668. From that date until 1904 it was held in London. In 1905 it met in Leeds, and in 1908 in Birmingham. Its official title is “London Yearly Meeting.” It is the legislative body of Friends in Great Britain. It considers questions of policy, and some of its sittings are conferences for the consideration of reports on religious, philanthropic, educational and social work which is carried on. Its sessions occupy a week in May of each year. Representatives are sent from each inferior to each superior meeting, but they have no precedence over others, and all Friends may attend any meeting and take part in any of which they are members. Formerly the system was double, the men and women meeting separately for their own appointed business. Of late years the meetings have been, for the most part, held jointly, with equal liberty for all men and women to state their opinions, and to serve on all committees and other appointments. The mode of conducting these meetings is noteworthy. A secretary or “clerk,” as he is called, acts as chairman or president; there are no formal resolutions; and there is no voting or applause. The clerk ascertains what he considers to be the judgment of the assembly, and records it in a minute. The permanent standing committee of the Society is known as the “Meeting for Sufferings” (established in 1675), which took its rise in the days when the persecution of many Friends demanded the Christian care and material help of those who were able to give it. It is composed of representatives (men and women) sent by the quarterly meetings, and of all recorded Ministers and Elders. Its work is not confined to the interests of Friends; it is sensitive to the call of oppression and distress (e.g. a famine) in all parts of the world, it frequently raises large sums of money to alleviate the same, and intervenes, often successfully, and mostly without publicity, with those in authority who have the power to bring about an amelioration.
The offices known to the Quaker body are: (1) that of minister (the term “office” is not strictly applicable, see above as to “recording”); (2) of elder, whose duty it is “to encourage and help young ministers, and advise others as they, in the wisdom of God, see occasion”; (3) of overseer, to whom is especially entrusted that duty of Christian care for and interest in one another which Quakers recognize as obligatory in all the members of a church. In most Monthly Meetings the care of the poor is committed to the overseers. These officers hold, from time to time, meetings separate from the general assemblies of the members, but the special organization for many years known as the Meeting of Ministers and Elders, reconstituted in 1876 as the Meeting on Ministry and Oversight, came to an end in 1906–1907.
This present form both of organization and of discipline has been reached only by a process of development. As early as 1652–1654 there is evidence of some slight organization for dealing with marriages, poor relief, “disorderly walkers,” matters of arbitration, &c. The Quarterly or “General” meetings of the different counties seem to have been the first unions of separate congregations. In 1666 Fox established Monthly Meetings; in 1727 elders were first appointed; in 1752 overseers were added; and in 1737 the right of children of Quakers to be considered as members was fully recognized. Concerning the 18th century in general, see above.
Of late years the stringency of the Quaker discipline has been relaxed: the peculiarities of dress and language have been abandoned; marriage with a non-member or between two non-members is now possible at a Quaker meeting-house; and marriage elsewhere has ceased to involve exclusion from the body. Above all, many of its members have come to “the conviction, which is not new, but old, that the virtues which can be rewarded and the vices which can be punished by external discipline are not as a rule the virtues and the vices that make or mar the soul” (Hatch, Bampton Lectures, 81).
A genuine vein of philanthropy has always existed in the Quaker body. In nothing has this been more conspicuous than in the matter of slavery. George Fox and William Penn laboured to secure the religious teaching of slaves. As early as 1676 the assembly of Barbados passed “An Act Philanthropic interests. to prevent the people called Quakers from bringing negroes to their meetings.” On the attitude of Friends in America to slavery, see the section “Quakerism in America” (above). In 1783 the first petition to the House of Commons for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery went up from the Quakers; and in the long agitation which ensued the Society took a prominent part.
In 1798 Joseph Lancaster, himself a Friend, opened his first school for the education of the poor; and the cause of unsectarian religious education found in the Quakers steady support. They also took an active part in Sir Samuel Romilly’s efforts to ameliorate the penal code, in prison reform, with which the name of Elizabeth Fry (a Friend) is especially connected, and in the efforts to ameliorate the condition of lunatics in England (the Friends’ Retreat at York, founded in 1792, was the earliest example in England of kindly treatment of the insane). It is noteworthy that Quaker efforts for the education of the poor and philanthropy in general, though they have always been Christian in character, have not been undertaken primarily for the purpose of bringing proselytes within the body, and have not done so to any great extent.
By means of the Adult Schools, Friends have been able to exercise a religious influence beyond the borders of their own Society. The movement began in Birmingham in 1845, in an attempt to help the loungers at street corners; reading and writing were the chief inducements offered. The schools Education. are unsectarian in character and mainly democratic in government: the aim is to draw out what is best in men and to induce them to act for the help of their fellows. Whilst the work is essentially religious in character, a well-equipped school also caters for the social, intellectual and physical parts of a man’s nature. Bible teaching is the central part of the school session: the lessons are mainly concerned with life’s practical problems. The spirit of brotherliness which prevails is largely the secret of the success of the movement. At the end of 1909 there were in connexion with the “National Council of Adult-School Associations” 1818 “schools” for men with
