THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

The following letters were addressed to the Editor of the Friends' Review
in Philadelphia, in reference to certain changes of principle and
practice in the Society then beginning to be observable, but which have
since more than justified the writer's fears and solicitude.


I.

AMESBURY, 2d mo., 1870.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REVIEW.

ESTEEMED FRIEND,--If I have been hitherto a silent, I have not been an
indifferent, spectator of the movements now going on in our religious
Society. Perhaps from lack of faith, I have been quite too solicitous
concerning them, and too much afraid that in grasping after new things we
may let go of old things too precious to be lost. Hence I have been
pleased to see from time to time in thy paper very timely and fitting
articles upon a _Hired Ministry_ and _Silent Worship_.

The present age is one of sensation and excitement, of extreme measures
and opinions, of impatience of all slow results. The world about us
moves with accelerated impulse, and we move with it: the rest we have