doctrines and maintain the testimonies of our early Friends. I am not
blind to the shortcomings of Friends. I know how much we have lost by
narrowness and coldness and inactivity, the overestimate of external
observances, the neglect of our own proper work while acting as
conscience-keepers for others. We have not, as a society, been active
enough in those simple duties which we owe to our suffering fellow-
creatures, in that abundant labor of love and self-denial which is never
out of place. Perhaps our divisions and dissensions might have been
spared us if we had been less "at ease in Zion." It is in the decline of
practical righteousness that men are most likely to contend with each
other for dogma and ritual, for shadow and letter, instead of substance
and spirit. Hence I rejoice in every sign of increased activity in doing
good among us, in the precious opportunities afforded of working with the
Divine Providence for the Freedmen and Indians; since the more we do, in
the true spirit of the gospel, for others, the more we shall really do
for ourselves. There is no danger of lack of work for those who, with an
eye single to the guidance of Truth, look for a place in God's vineyard;
the great work which the founders of our Society began is not yet done;
the mission of Friends is not accomplished, and will not be until this
world of ours, now full of sin and suffering, shall take up, in jubilant
thanksgiving, the song of the Advent: "Glory to God in the highest!
Peace on earth and good-will to men!"

It is charged that our Society lacks freedom and adaptation to the age in
which we live, that there is a repression of individuality and manliness
among us. I am not prepared to deny it in certain respects. But, if we
look at the matter closely, we shall see that the cause is not in the
central truth of Quakerism, but in a failure to rightly comprehend it; in
an attempt to fetter with forms and hedge about with dogmas that great
law of Christian liberty, which I believe affords ample scope for the