A Brief Overview of Friends History

That which people had been vainly seeking without, with much pains and cost, they by this ministry found within, where it was they wanted what they sought for, namely the right way to peace with God. For they were directed to the light of Jesus Christ within them, as the seed and leaven of the kingdom of God.

— William Penn, 1694

THE MOVEMENT which resulted in the Religious Society of Friends arose in seventeenth-century England after the height of the Puritan revolution. In this period of great religious ferment and seeking, when old church forms were being questioned and many people were reading the Bible for the first time, Quakers sought through direct inward experience to find again the life and power of early Christianity.

George Fox was born in 1624 in the hamlet called Drayton-in-the-Clay, located in Leicestershire in the heart of the Midlands. His parents were Christopher and Mary (Lago) Fox, both Puritans. Christopher was a church warden and his trade was weaving. George was apprenticed to a shoemaker who also dealt in-sheep and cattle. From his boyhood resolution to be honest in all things, George went on to reject all double standards of living. After much Bible study and travel about the country seeking help and comfort from ministers and members of established religious sects, he had an experience at the age of twenty-three which he later described in his Journal:

As I had forsaken all the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those called the most-experienced people. For I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, O then, I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition,” and, when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give him all the glory. For all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief, as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence, who enlightens, and gives grace and faith and power. Thus when God doth work, who shall let it? And this I knew experimentally. My desires after the Lord grew stronger and zeal in the pure knowledge of God and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book or writing. For though I read the Scriptures that spoke of Christ and of God, yet I knew him not but by revelation, as he who hath the key, did open, and as the Father of life drew me to his Son by his spirit. And then the Lord did gently lead me along, and let me see his love, which was endless and eternal.

During the next five years, as George Fox traveled about England, small groups of like-minded people began to gather. These early Quakers had a remarkable sense of mission: having found a personal encounter with Christ, they felt compelled to share it with all who would listen. By the year 1700, George Fox and the Valiant Sixty had traveled all over England and to Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Holland, Germany, and France were visited by Friends, and Mary Fisher went to see the Sultan of Turkey. Thousands of Friends had been imprisoned and hundreds had died in prison.

Beginning in 1655 many Quakers visited Barbados and the English colonies. They won the struggle for religious toleration in New England and Virginia, thousands settled, and meetings were established in all the colonies. George Fox and twelve other Friends made a trip in 1672, visiting Barbados, arriving in Maryland and traveling to all of the important Quaker centers. Colonies of Friends settled in New Jersey in 1675 and 1677, and in Pennsylvania after 1681, when William Penn received the grant from King Charles II.

The first Yearly Meeting met in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1661 and this was followed by the establishment of Yearly Meetings in Dublin, London, Baltimore, Virginia, Philadelphia (including New Jersey), New York, and North Carolina. As the distances were great, Friends continued to look to England more than to the neighboring colonies.

The first minute of advice against the slave trade was written in 1688 by Germantown Friends, near Philadelphia.

In the eighteenth century there was continued visiting by Friends in the traveling ministry, who sometimes spent as long as a year visiting meetings and families. This intervisitation was supplemented by letters and epistles and had a unifying effect. The writings of the founders of the Society were widely circulated and read. These early Friends saw no need for higher education and, given the rigors of frontier life, there was at this time a decline in educated leadership. However, because so much attention was paid to establishing elementary schools in Quaker communities, the general literacy level was raised above that of the colonies in general.

As John Woolman and other concerned Friends aroused the consciences of many, Meetings became more and more uneasy about slavery. The subject was brought up again and again, until in 1784 the Society was united in refusing membership to any who held slaves. Friends continued to work for universal abolition.

The first Meeting for Sufferings in the colonies was established in 1756 by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to extend relief and assistance to Friends on the frontiers who might suffer from the Indians or others; to represent the Yearly Meeting; and to look out for the interests of the Society, but not to “meddle with matters of faith or discipline.”

The Yearly Meetings’ comparatively informal rules of order were reduced to writing, and manuscript copies were made for the use of the Quarterly Meetings. Parts were printed from time to time, and eventually an official Extracts from the Minutes and Advices was published by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and distributed to its constituent monthly meetings.

Withdrawal of Friends in America from government, and from society generally, began with the trials of the years of the French and Indian Wars (1754-1763). Naval actions in the Napoleonic wars and the war of 1812 cut off opportunity for travel for both American and British Friends.

Friends had come to rely upon tradition and the truth that had been revealed to previous generations, rather than remaining open to new revelation. At the same time Americans, including Quakers, were being influenced by the democratic ideas of the Declaration of Independence, rationalism, and the more liberal religious philosophy of the French Revolution and a religious movement of evangelism. A struggle developed between Friends who emphasized the outward historical events recorded in Scripture and those who emphasized inward mystical experience. It began as a controversy over the authority of the elders, but became a theological controversy between the followers of the historic Christ (Orthodox) and followers of the Inward Christ (Hicksite). Each emphasized a portion of the message of early Friends and rejected the rest as they saw it interpreted by the other group.

The first separations came in 1827 in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and 1828 in New York Yearly Meeting, with two-thirds of the membership, particularly those in the country, forming Hicksite Meetings. There were no separations in New England, Virginia, or North Carolina Yearly Meetings. Baltimore Yearly Meeting separated but the Orthodox group was very small. Ohio Yearly Meeting, established in 1813, separated into groups of equal size. Indiana Yearly Meeting, established in 1821, had a much larger Orthodox group. London Yearly Meeting chose to recognize the Orthodox Yearly Meetings and ignored the Hicksite Yearly Meetings until 1915.

Within the Orthodox Yearly Meetings, there began to be one group which was increasingly attached to Quaker tradition and belief in the inward life as supported by John Wilbur, while another group was sympathetic to the ideas of Joseph John Gurney with increasing emphasis on the importance of Biblical authority. In 1845, in New England, a small group of Friends formed a separate Yearly Meeting with John Wilbur, while in Ohio Yearly Meeting the Wilburites were the larger group in a separation. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting avoided another division by stopping all communication with other Yearly Meetings, a situation which persisted until 1910. Lack of communication and the resulting isolation deprived some Friends of a steadying conservative influence and others of the stimulus of liberal and progressive movements.

Later, in the 1870’s, as Orthodox Yearly Meetings accepted the pastoral system in Iowa, Indiana, and Kansas, and in 1903 in North Carolina, new Conservative yearly meetings were established.

Another major nineteenth-century development was the establishment of Quaker colleges. Haverford was founded in 1833 and Earlham in 1847. In the years between 1864 and 1900 there were founded Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Wilmington, Penn, Guilford, Whittier, Pacific (now George Fox), Friends University, and Nebraska Central.

There were various gatherings of Friends for cooperative effort and greater unity of purpose and practice. These resulted in the establishment of Friends General Conference in 1900 and, in 1902, Five Years Meeting (now Friends United Meeting). Ohio Yearly Meeting did not join Five Years Meeting, and Oregon Yearly Meeting withdrew in 1926, Kansas Yearly Meeting in 1937. In 1957 Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting separated from Nebraska Yearly Meeting. These four Yearly Meetings formed the Evangelical Friends Alliance in 1965.

The reunion of Yearly Meetings began in New England in 1945 with the joining of the Orthodox and Wilburite Yearly Meetings and two independent Monthly Meetings. In 1955 the Hicksite and Orthodox Meetings joined in both New York and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings. Three bodies joined to become Canadian Yearly Meeting.

Friends in Austin Texas

(to be completed)