Here we are gathered in an old Friends Meeting House which I prefer to call
the new Meeting House. Indeed this is the new
Meeting House for Plainfield Friends, the original one having been erected in
1731 nearby. After the construction of the present or new building, the old
one was dismantled and the timbers used for erection of the Horse and
Wagon Shed which is now the first-day School wing. When entering the large
room through the breezeway one can note the soundness of the old timbers
as the gateway is supported by the original wood used in 1731, for building
the old Meeting House. That was in 1788, yet the origin of Plainfield Friends dates back to 1686 when
the second governor of the Colony East Jersey began holding Meetings for
Worship in Amboy, then the main part and quasi capital of East Jersey. The origin of the Religious Society of Friends
goes back still further.
Let us go back to the middle of the 17th century. The Reformation had its
effect on all of Europe, but what had begun more than 100 years earlier as a
spiritual revolt against old forms and authorities quickly developed its own
forms and authorities. On the European Continent, mainly in those parts
known as The Netherlands and Germany, a spiritual revolt began against the
new churches' alliance with the state to supplement their own authority.
People were seeking an inward type of religion, a kind of mysticism with the
immediate experience of the divine, rejecting formal institutional services,
similar to some present views of the younger generation. Here is an example
of a radical view expressed by a German religious revolutionary of the 17th
century. Jacob Boehme, who said, "The devil is a great advocate of church-going. "
For such a statement implying the devil's delight for absolution of sins on the
part of the church so that people might commit further acts in the devil's
service, Jacob Boehme was imprisoned. His writings had been known in
England and it is certain that mysticism in a variety of forms had been in the
English air during the first half of the 17th century. In 1624 Jacob Boehme
died and as if the mystic hands of the Creator would not let such spirit perish
from the earth, in the same year a new torch was presented to mankind - GEORGE FOX.
His mother was pure and upright and deeply religious and taught the Bible
to little George. The young man was a shepherd and cobbler. By age 19,
during England's Civil War, he became restless, sometimes greatly
depressed, unable to sleep, and set out as a lonely wanderer - an act so
similar to the tendencies of modern youth in this age. If George Fox had gone to
college, we could call him a dropout! He sought advice from priests and
tender people, like present-day gurus, but they could not "speak to his
condition". One priest advised him to marry, another recommended tobacco
and psalm singing! In his wanderings, insights like these came upon him:
"God does not dwell in temples made by man, but in their hearts" - a phrase
borrowed from the Scriptures.
Upon some particular distress there came to him a flood of light and he
heard an inner voice say, "There is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak to
thy condition." In his journal, he says: "... and when I heard it my heart did
leap for joy." As the civil war continued and George Fox sought inward peace
among all the strife around him, he saw "there was an ocean of darkness and
death, but an infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over the ocean of
darkness. In that I saw the infinite love of God." With these visions and
experiences, he felt moved to preach to others, a service Fox began in 1646.
He met many like-minded people, thousands who were disillusioned by their
churches, people who were unhappy about the strife in their country, the
Cavaliers demanding the killing of Round Heads and vice versa, with the
churches taking an active part in the civil strife; and so George Fox in his
early ministry attacked the church and the clergy - as to him they were not
true Christians.
He wrote: "To be bred at Oxford or Cambridge is not sufficient to fit a man to
be a minister of Christ." And he said, "Consider in silence, in lowliness of
mind, and thou wilt hear the Lord speak unto thee in thy mind." Not only
had he discovered for himself the Inner Teacher, but also the way of Quaker
worship! Of course, he got into conflict with the church and in the same year
when Charles I was executed and Oliver Cromwell took control as the
"Protector", George Fox was imprisoned for the first time in 1649 in
Nottingham.
I am quoting from his "Journal": "And when I came there, all the people
looked like fallow ground, and the priest, like a great lump of earth, stood in
his pulpit above. ... And he told the people that the Scriptures were the
touchstone and judge by which they were to try all doctrines, religions and
opinions - I was made to cry out and say,'Oh, no, it is not the Scriptures ...'
But I told them what it was, namely, the Holy Spirit, by which the holy men
of God gave forth the Scriptures ... for it led into all Truth, and so gave the
knowledge of all Truth. ... Now as I spoke thus amongst them, the officers
came and took me away and put me into prison, a pitiful stinking place."
Fox reports further that the sheriff, John Reckless, set him at liberty a short
time later and sent for him to his house where they had "great meetings".
Soon the sheriff with his wife and children became "Friends"; and John
Reckless moved to go out and preach to the people. Others followed his
example, speaking to the mayor and the magistrates who, angered at it, sent for Fox from the sheriff's house and put him back in prison. No
sooner was he free than George Fox went on with his traveling and his
preaching; but he was attacked, beaten, and stoned while in the stocks, so
that when set free again he was "scarce able to stand".
George Fox wore a suit of leather because it was durable and suitable to his
rough outdoor, horseback life, and he always paid his way as he traveled and
soon he became the best-known man in rural England. To those who did not
know him by name, he was "the man in leather breeches". In religious
history Fox is among the spiritual reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries,
but unlike his predecessors who were scholars, he based his messages on
his experience alone: namely, to know God "experimentally". Fox refers to
his experiences as "openings" - like man's soul as a potential centre of
revelation, it is "a candle of the Lord". There is something of God which
may be called a seed within or a divine light in everyone. Revelation is not a
matter of date or geography - it is continuous and can occur anywhere. To
Fox, revelation did not end with the last chapter of the Bible.
During the year 1650 he was again arrested and closely questioned at Derby.
He was condemned to six months' imprisonment for blasphemy, but this did
not cool his zeal. From prison he wrote to priests, to the magistrates, to his
enemies and to his friends. As he was released from prison, officers of
Cromwell's army tried to recruit him with the rank of captain. Fox made his
famous reply, often quoted these days, that he knew "from whence all wars
did rise" and that he lived "in the virtue of that life and power that took away
the occasion of all war".
Upon his refusal to serve in the army of Parliament, he was given another six
months and thrown into a cell with 30 felons. After his release in 1651 he
went on with his ministry undeterred. He preached mainly among people
that had separated from the Established Church, at first in the north-west of
England, like Leicester, West Yorkshire and North Westmorland, in town
squares, market places, cemeteries and outside churches. Frequently he was
arrested or beaten and hounded out as an unwanted intruder. Fox became a
social revolutionary unwilling to make any distinction between superiors and
inferiors, dropping all titles, saying "thee" or "thou" to everyone, as the
plural "you" when addressed to ONE person smacked to him of class
distinction. He did this in order to show the equality of men before God.
This reminds me of the simple exclamation "Man! " used by many of the
present youth who are similarly unwilling to accept class distinction. Let me
quote from a letter of a headmaster of Germantown Friends School:
"The carefully honed intellect does not necessarily improve the quality of life
or assure the growing illumination of the inner light. I can not help thinking
of that irrepressible, utterly candid and extraordinary man, George Fox, and
how uncomfortable so many of us would be with him today. But the kids
would adore him for his marvelous unorthodoxy and his raw simplicity... I really do think, along with other kinds, many young people in their own
way are having their trips up Pendle Hill, and what they see may be decisive.
" (I might say that Pendle Hill refers to the mountain on top of which Fox had
a vision of "a great people to be gathered".)
Lest you think that George Fox always was beaten and driven out, here is a
passage from his Journal about a visit to a "steeple house" in 1651:
" ... where the great high priest, their doctor, preached, and sat me down ...
till the priest had done. And he took a text, which was. 'Ho, every one that
thirsteth, let him come freely, without money and without price.' And so I
was moved of the Lord God to say unto him,'Come down, thou deceiver and
hireling, for dost thou bid people come freely and take of the water freely, and
yet thou takest three hundred pounds off them for preaching the Scriptures
to them. ... Did not Christ command his ministers,'Freely you have received,
freely give?' And so the priest, like a man amazed, packed away."
In his effort to direct people "from darkness to the light and to the spirit of
God, their free teacher", he even won among his followers some Yorkshire
priests who renounced all taxes and tithes, but at another occasion Fox
wrote that a man, "...up with his Bible as I was speaking and hit me in the
face that my face gushed out with blood." He was dragged out of the church,
stoned, beaten, thrown over a hedge into a garden, till he was smeared all
over with blood and dirt. But Fox writes in his Journal: "My spirit was
revived again by the power of God -- I declared to them the word of life and
showed to them ... how they dishonored Christianity." Fox reports that
the man who had shed his blood in the church was afraid that his hand
would be cut off "for striking me in the steeple house", but Fox forgave him
and would not appear against him at the judicial inquiry.
Ever larger crowds gathered to hear George Fox - they were mostly working
folks, and in 1652 on Firbank Fell in Westmorland, an enormous crowd
assembled on a Sunday afternoon who were turned by him from Seekers to
Finders. Thus, when Fox was 28, thousands recognized him as the leader for
whom they had waited and historians consider the year 1652 as the time of
founding The Religious Society of Friends. But that was not the original
name, as Fox's three-hour-long message on Firbank Fell was on "Truth" and
his followers called themselves the "Friends of Truth". Fox' principal
message was that Christ was come to teach His people Himself, by His Power
and Spirit in their hearts, and that the so-called "Professors", those Priests
and others who merely "profess" Christianity, were not the people called to
do so - Christianity cannot be taught, it must be experienced. Manmade
doctrines based on the Scriptures are wrong - by the Holy Spirit or Inner
Light man should live. George Fox' mission was, to turn people to an Inward
Light, or Spirit and Grace, a kind of quasi-Christian renewal in a time of
falling away from truth. We must remember that this was the restless period
of conflict between the Established or Anglican Church and the Roman
Catholic Church from whom it had separated a century earlier. Fox' earliest followers
called themselves "The Children of Light" besides the name "Friends of
Truth" previously mentioned. In 1652 a Christian movement was born that
was neither Protestant nor Catholic, and for three centuries Quakerism has
been a bridge between these two large bodies of Christianity.
This movement, however, was never thought of as another sect, but as
"Primitive Christianity Revived" - like the Christians of the first century Fox'
followers considered themselves as a Community. By 1655, two years later, a
good number of men and women had joined Fox in his mission. Known as
"First Publishers of Truth", they were kind of missionaries later called "The
Valiant Sixty"; they traveled throughout England, Scotland and Ireland,
knowing that they would encounter opposition, imprisonment and possibly
death, but they were ready to suffer in the cause of Christ. It should be
mentioned that there were many similar groups, that is to say, congregations
of Seekers who had separated themselves from all religious bodies, and many
of their "teachers" or leaders were joining the new movement. All other
separate groups disappeared, only that body now known as The Religious
Society of Friends survived.
In 1652 Fox made his first visit to Swarthmoor Hall near Ulverston,
Lancashire, where Margaret Fell lived, the wife of Judge Fell, who was also
the Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster. Margaret Fell supported the ideas of Fox.
On the day of his arrival, Fox had an encounter with the priest of Ulverston -
he was put out of the church and it was only thanks to Margaret Fell that he
was allowed to go on with his speaking in the graveyard. The judge, having
heard of this little affray, came home very ill-pleased, but a conversation with
Fox made him so at ease in his mind that he gladly put his house at Fox'
disposal. Until his death in 1658, he was a great help to the new Society,
taking up its defense against his colleagues on the bench. Judge Fell,
although a defender of their rights, never joined the movement and during
the Meetings of Worship at Swarthmoor Hall, sat in his study adjoining the
meeting room with the doors wide open, just to hear the words spoken, but
at the same time witnessing that he was not a part of the group.
After Margaret Fell became a widow. Fox with agreement of his followers and
of Margaret Fell's children, married the lady of Swarthmoor Hall. Until today
Swarthmoor (or Blackmoor - in memory of which Swarthmore College was
named) is one of the important pilgrimage places in the northwest of England
for all Quakers and those close to Quakerism. Swarthmoor became the center
of the young movement. Margaret Fell made it the Power House of the
Children of Light, a place to recharge the batteries of the Valiant Sixty. (I'd
like to mention that in 1969, the Young Friends of North America started
another Power House, named New Swarthmoor, and situated outside Clinton,
New York.)
Many of the early followers died in prison, the youngest one at the age of 19.
George Fox was imprisoned eight times for a total of 6-1/2 years.
Nevertheless, the movement grew rapidly; at the death of Fox, in spite of the
most frightful persecution, there were about 50, 000 Quakers in England and
Ireland, 15, 000 of whom had been in prison. The word "Quaker" was not
liked by George Fox, the name having been given by a judge who complained
that wherever these people appeared, they made the earth quake for ten
miles around. The name stuck and henceforth the Children of Light and
Friends of Truth were called Quakers. Very early published books and tracts
show subtitles like this: "Given forth by those whom the world in scorn calls
Quakers".
Any religious society which wants to endure must rely on some form of
organization, but in the very early days of the Friends of Truth there was no
such thing. It has already been stated that Fox had no desire to found a new
sect; however, the persecutions that came upon the Quakers hastened the
movement towards cohesion and association. Help had to be given to Friends
in prison and their families, itinerant missionaries had to be supported; and
the Society had to meet the needs of its living, growing corporate life. It was
William Dewsbury, one of Fox's first followers, who as early as 1652 was
asking for general meetings to examine urgent problems. Other leaders
made similar suggestions yet they were very careful not to lay down a code of
rules and regulations.
In 1656, at the conclusion of a meeting of Elders at Balby, Yorkshire, a
letter on twenty points of conduct was sent "from the Spirit of Truth to the
Children of Light", giving counsel rather than drawing up rules. The letter
ends thus: "Dearly beloved friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a
rule or form to walk by, but that all with the measure of light which is pure
and holy may be guided; and so in the light walking and abiding, these may
be fulfilled in the spirit, not from the letter; for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life." This quotation is very dear to present-day Quakers and we
find it in the beginning of the book on Faith & Practice, also known as the
Book of Discipline. Additional advices were issued from time to time by
various meetings; to the present day each larger group, known as Yearly
Meeting, issues advices, as well as queries, which are frequently revised to
reflect the changing attitudes in our Society.
The first business meeting seems to have been set up in 1654. Subsequent
meetings were local and held monthly, therefore, the term "Monthly
Meeting". The system of Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly Meetings as it finally
developed in England and America suggests the organic principle of the
affiliation of cells or small units in a large organism. Individual Friends have
the same responsibilities in the larger group as in the smaller. There is no
delegated authority! As Fox wrote in a long epistle on church government:
"The least member in the Church hath an office and is serviceable and every
member hath need of another." Finally, a Meeting for Sufferings had to be set up, the name still being kept in England. It is, in fact, the
executive committee for all business arising between one Yearly Meeting and
the next. Rufus Jones, the great Quaker writer, had this to say about the
development of the Quaker organism:
" The type of organization which Fox developed for the groups of followers
gathered around him indicates plainly enough that he was not a lonely
dreamer but a practical leader of men, though here, again, he did not
absolutely originate something wholly new and unique. He saw the latent
possibilities in the simple type of group- fellowship that already existed and
he expanded these and worked them out into new and fresh ways of
expression. ... It was marked by almost utter simplicity of structure and
method. There were no essential officials, no ritual, no programme, no
outward and visible sacraments, no music, no paraphernalia of any kind. ...
There was the widest freedom, and the greatest possible stretch of the
principle of democracy. One might have supposed that chaos would have
resulted, but it did not result. . . . For three centuries this group-fellowship
and this gently unauthoritative leadership have weathered the storms and
the stress and the strain of the years."
From the early days of the movement, Friends were very careful to record
births and deaths for their members; but the question of marriage was more
delicate. They refused to recognize that any priest had the power to declare
that two people were henceforth husband and wife. This was Fox' comment:
"Never from Genesis to Revelation did ever any priests marry any." However,
in 1661 the Quaker marriage procedure was recognized by law.
Something should be told about the social testimonies developing in the
beginning of Quakerism. The so-called "plain speech" of thee and thou has
been referred to. "Hat honor" was an important issue, to doff one's hat to
superior people, like judges or noblemen was an acceptance of their
superiority, so Friends' hats were never removed to a person - only to God: at
time of prayer or when the Lord spoke through a person. The pegs behind
me on the wall give silent witness to hat honor to God alone - no doubt the
elders and ministers sitting on the upper tier of the facing seats used to hang
their hats on these pegs when a prayer was offered or a message was given.
Old pictures like the one in the First-day School Wing entitled. ' "The
Presence in the Midst" show men and women alike wearing their hats during
Meeting for Worship. Have you noted that picture?
Thomas Ellwood, a very early Friend, said that the vanity and useless
elegance of his clothes was revealed to him so sharply that forthwith he
stripped off his lace, ribbons and useless buttons, and gave up wearing rings. From the beginning the problem of poverty held the attention of Quakers.
In 1659, Fox recommended each meeting to take care of its poor, to provide
work for those who were unemployed or were compelled for conscience's sake to give up their livelihood. Parents were to be helped to educate their
children so that there should be no beggars amongst Friends.
Other examples could be given but this summary taken from the book, "The
Beginning of Quakerism" by the English Friend, William Braithwaite, may
give you a more complete picture:
1. The treatment of all life as a sacred thing, thus making social service a
sacred duty.
2. Sensitiveness to oppression and injustice, due to the habit of following
the light.
3. A sincerity of behavior, which, in courts of justice, refused oaths, in civil
life rejected all servilities and flattering titles and compelled simplicity of
dress and address, and, in business, obliged men to plain and straightforward
dealing, at fixed prices.
4. An inwardly controlled temperance, which retrenched luxuries, frivolities
and excesses in food and drink.
5. A Puritan outlook on art and recreations.
6. A recognition of the Divine worth of every human being, which overthrew
the dominance of racial and class distinctions and gave woman her place of
equal comradeship with man.
* * * * *
Throughout this presentation I had to restrain myself not to mention the
parallel development of Quakerism and Friends' ideals in the colonies which
is part of the topic of the next talk. However, the struggle and convictions of
one early English Friend had much to do with why a colony was not named
"New Wales", why the Indian place called Coaquannock became the center of
political and cultural life about 200 years ago- even why there is this
particular Meeting House in Plainfield. This English Quaker was just 20
years younger than George Fox, he was born of aristocratic parents far
removed from the farmers and laborers, the "Seekers" who were Fox' first
followers.
In 1952 just before the third World Conference of Friends in Oxford, Rosalie
and I made a pilgrimage to the northwest of England to see the various sights
where Quakerism originated. In the prison of Lancaster Castle, guides show with delight the old Quaker Cells and when
encountering Quaker tourists, lock them in so that they may experience the
total darkness in which, the early Quakers found themselves. We went to
Preston Patrick Hall where George Fox was tried and in that very hall, now
owned by a couple not members of our Society, we located an ancient book
giving us clues where to find the original home of some ancestors of Rosalie,
which turned out to be the WHARTON at Kirby Stephen in Westmorland.
That was a great surprise, of course, but a still greater surprise was to find
nearby the homestead of John Camm, one of the Valiant Sixty, still showing a
panel carved for his brideswain, consisting of his and her initials and year of
marriage: "J M C 1641". We entered this ancient farmhouse called
Cammsgill, that so often hosted Fox and his followers, and there we were at
the deepest root of this Meeting House in which we are gathered at this very
moment! WHY? John Camm a few years later convinced Thomas Loe to join
the new movement and Thomas Loe went to Ireland to spread the message
and one time appeared at Macroom Castle to speak to the large household
assembled there. The son of the castle's owner was among them and as he
listened to Thomas Loe giving a message on "There is a Faith that
overcometh the world, and there is a Faith that is overcome by the world!', he
realized in a flash that he could no longer serve two masters.
The life which he had lived, pleasant as it seemed, had to be given up.
Ambition, wealth, even the pleasure of company, must hold him no longer.
He must have recalled his days at Oxford's Christ College when he was fined
and expelled with others for refusing to attend compulsory chapel services.
You see, student revolt existed in 1662 as well as now! His parents, upset
about such behavior, sent him to France on a grand tour and for study, and
probably they prided themselves with the thought that this young man would
yet turn out to be a perfect gentleman. Upon becoming a Quaker after
hearing Thomas Loe a second time, there were quite some clashes between
father and son who had to listen to parental ambitions that he would succeed
him as an Earl, giving up his alliance with those despised Quakers ! Their
final discourse ended with the father commanding his son to "take his
clothes and begone from his house, for he would dispose of his estates to
them that pleased him better." It sounds like a modern story - can you guess
the name of the young man?
Camsgill - the deepest root of this Meeting House: It was William Penn, after whom
Pennsylvania was not named, who was selected as arbitrator in a dispute in
the management of the two New Jerseys. When a group of Quakers took over
the proprietorship of West Jersey and later East Jersey, William Penn
became one of the trustees and no doubt, the second governor of East Jersey
was a Quaker by William Penn's choice. From Amboy, now Perth Amboy, to
what is now known as Plainfield the Quakers moved between 1686 and 1721,
carrying with them their religious and social ideas, giving witness to the
world that God can speak directly to man, delighting to find Him in the
adventure of daily living, worshiping Him by waiting in silence for His
message and to serve Him by acts of loving kindness to His children:
everywhere.
Go to Part 2
Friends for Three Hundred Years
Return
to Title Page for this series
Return
to Plainfield Friends Home Page
