body. It receives and on occasion can disown (i.e., expel) members, and it has the direct oversight of the congregations composing it. Its organization is similar to that of other "business meetings or meetings for discipline" (as they are called in distinction to the "meetings for worship"). In addition to this and its committees, its regular officers are elders and overseers. The duties of the former are, first, to encourage and counsel the ministers, and second, to have a Christian care over the membership. In some places they hold office for life or good behavior, in others for a term of years. They are appointed by the joint action of the monthly meeting and the quarterly meeting of ministers and elders, of which we shall speak presently. The overseers are (1) a committee to receive. applications for admission before being presented to the monthly meeting. (2) Their duty is to be on the lookout for any in the meeting in need of spiritual or temporal aid. (3) They are to admonish offenders and endeavor to restore them; and if they fail in this, they are to report to the monthly meeting for its action. (4) In some localities, as in New England, they have special duties in regard to the holding of church property. (5) They prepare at stated times in the year answers to certain questions, called "queries," directed by the Discipline to be answered in order to show the condition of church life and progress. These answers are laid before the monthly or preparative meeting1 for emendation or approval, and to be forwarded to the superior meetings. They are appointed directly by the monthly meeting alone, and the length of their tenure of office varies in different places.

1 Preparative meetings are wholly subordinate to monthly meetings, and usually consist of but one meeting for worship. Their powers are small. When they exist it is chiefly for the purpose of sending answers to the que ries and appointing delegates to the monthly meeting.

Ministers have not been referred to as regular officers. The reason of this has been that the organization is considered complete, as an organization, without them. The Disciplines require the appointment of elders and overseers, but do not require that of ministers. There is no pro

vision in the Disciplines for their training at seminaries or otherwise. The theory is that the church recognizes when the gift and the qualification have been committed to a man or woman, and acknowledges it, after which he or she is called an "acknowledged," "recommended," or "recorded" minister. There is no ceremony of ordination. The minister continues to follow his ordinary vocation, except when for the time being he is prevented from so doing by special religious service at home or abroad; in such case, if his work has the approbation of the meeting, his wants are supplied; but as a minister he receives no salary.1

The acknowledgment, or recording, of a minister is accomplished as follows: A Friends' meeting for worship is supposed to be held under the immediate direction of the Spirit of Christ.2 The congregation meets in silence, with no prearrangement of service; there is no stated length for any sermon, prayer, or exhortation, and often several persons, not necessarily ministers, take part during the same meeting. If any speak in a way that appears to lack the evidence of having a right call, it is the duty of the elders to admonish such; if they speak with acceptance, the elders are to encourage and advise them. If one has spoken frequently and is seen to have a gift, it is acknowledged by the church and a record made of it; the action is in this case, as in that of the elders, taken conjointly by the monthly meeting and the quarterly

1 The custom in this respect has been modified in some places among the Orthodox. 2 See p. 202.

meeting of ministers and elders. The minister is the only officer, if such he can be called, who is not affected by change of residence beyond the limits of the monthly meeting.1

It remains for us now to consider the constitution of the meeting of "ministers and elders," called also in many places the meeting on "ministry and oversight," and sometimes the "select meeting." In every Yearly Meeting the ministers and elders, in many places the overseers as well, and sometimes also persons appointed to sit with them, are required to meet together at regular times, generally every three months, to review the state of the membership and to consider the needs of the work, but without disciplinary powers. They are frequently the ones to propose a suitable person to the monthly meeting for acknowledgment as a minister. They also are required to answer certain "queries" applying especially to them as to doctrine, life, and practice; these are forwarded to a quarterly meeting of similar character, to which representatives are sent. This meeting is composed of the several monthly meetings on ministry and oversight within the limits of the ordinary quarterly meeting. It unites with the monthly meetings in the acknowledgment of ministers or appointment of elders, or, when need requires, in the removal of them from office. Once a year it forwards its summary of the reports from its lower meetings to the Yearly Meeting on Ministry and Oversight. The only duty of this latter meeting beyond that of advice and recommendation is to sanction the action of the monthly and quarterly meetings (of the general membership), or to

1 In some Yearly Meetings among the Orthodox certain doctrinal questions are asked of the ministers and elders, and no one is allowed by discipline to hold office unless these can be satisfactorily answered. In other places these questions are regarded as an interference with personal liberty.

refuse its sanction to consenting to ministers traveling on religious service beyond the seas.

This brings us to a peculiarity of the Society of Friends, which is its arrangement for its ministers traveling. When a minister feels it right to go to a place more or less distant to engage in some form of religious work, he asks the monthly meeting to which he belongs for liberty to go. When he expects to engage in a more extensive work it is required that he obtain the consent of the quarterly meeting as well. When the consent is obtained the clerks of the meetings give him a copy of the minute which states the action of the meeting. If the permission. is refused, he is expected to remain at home. When he

wishes to cross the ocean in his religious labor, the certificate is not complete without the indorsement of the Yearly Meeting on Ministry and Oversight. The discipline requires that a committee be appointed to see that such are suitably provided with pecuniary means for defraying expenses, etc.

Last in order, though first in importance, is the individual congregation known as the Meeting for Worship, the character of which is sufficiently described elsewhere.2 Meetings are always held on the first day of the week, and usually on one week-day also.

1 In North Carolina, and perhaps elsewhere, the consent of the Yearly Meeting at large must also be obtained.

2 See pp. 180, 202.

CHAPTER I.

BEGINNINGS IN ENGLAND.

AMONG the many denominations which appeared in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that time of religious upheaval, none is more striking than the Society of Friends. Though scarcely one of its doctrines was absolutely new, yet the combination of so many radical tenets produced a remarkable factor in the religious economy of Christendom, the effects of which are only beginning to be appreciated.

"England had been stunned for twenty years with religious polemics. The forms of church government-presbyterianism and prelacy-the claims of the independents and the clamors of the sectaries, the respective rights of the pastors and the people, were discussed in every pulpit, they distracted every parish and every house." Torn by civil war, agitated with bitter theological disputes, full of men dissatisfied with church, with state, with almost every existing institution, England was indeed in a sad way. It was amid such surroundings, influenced by such currents of thought, out of such a hurly-burly, that the Society of Friends arose.

The history of the early years of the Society is the history of its founder. George Fox was born at Fenny Drayton, sometimes known as Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicestershire, July, 1624. 'My father's name was Christopher

1 J. B. Marsden, "History of the Later Puritans," 2d ed., London, 1854, p. 235.