overcome evil, but they were themselves henceforth members of a sect, separated from the world by forms and ceremonies, obedient to the government of their quarterly and yearly meetings, and recognised by the State.

The year 1700 marks the summit of their success. Then I in 130 of the population was a Quaker, in 1850 there was only 1 in 1100, and now the decrease is much greater. The story of the decline is a simple one. In the first place, their peculiar habits tended to make them rich. Their regard for details, their scrupulous punctuality and honesty, their methodical ways, their exclusion from the pursuit of politics and pleasure, fitted them to succeed in business. They became wealthy, and the day of outward prosperity is too often the day of abated zeal. For sixty years the Quakers slept. Here and there the letter of a Friend shows that the spirit of Fox still lived, but as an active power during these years the Society ceased. Its members were content to gather the rules around them which cut them off from the world; content to give negative testimony against tithes and war, to bear and make no protest; content to disown the members who broke some rule or dared to marry in the world, without making any effort to meet

their needs or restore their faith. The Quakers were simply one among many sects. When, therefore, the Wesleyan revival passed over England and touched of course the Quakers, it roused among them men to whom the one thing needful seemed the restoration of the Quaker discipline. Rules were more rigorously enforced, many were disowned, and Joseph John Gurney pleads that the operations of the Holy Ghost must be 'perceptible' before they are acknowledged. If the immediate result of such action was an improvement of morals, and a more active interest in questions like those of the slave trade and war, a further result was the secession of Hicks and his friends in America. These, returning to the doctrine of inward light, denied the teaching of the Bible and identified themselves with the Unitarians.

Under such influences the Society has now come to occupy but a small place in our national life. Many honest Friends think the Society has done its work, and that the doctrines of George Fox will now reach the world through the Peace, the Aborigines, and the Liberation Societies. They are content once more to be silent, to stand still and wait while the Holy Ghost revives forces other than their own to establish justice and peace.

To young England the existence of Quakers is now but a memory. Such memories it is good to have. It is good to think of those quiet homes not cumbered by finery or rubbish, beautiful by their soundness, healthful by their order. Father, mother, child in their silence commune together, and when one speaks the spirits of all enforce the words. There is a look in their faces to remind us of the saints of the Church and of the merchants of Venice a look restrained by responsibility and inspired by thought. Of such men in such homes it is good to think.

If with greater experience we note their mistake if we say that the effect of abolishing old forms was only to set up new with narrower limits-if we say that the same place is given to ritual by those who protest against it as by those who fight for it—if we say that forms were unwise which required disownment on account of marriage in the world, and forced a man to go to prison rather than take off his hat, change the fashion of his dress, or honour the heathen gods by talking of Sunday and Monday-if we condemn Quakerism as a mistake, we may still search out and reverence the truth it expresses. What is there we may take for our learning?

1. The Quakers owe some of their beauty and dignity to their obedience to rule. It is in homes where all things go by order, it is in business which is subject to fixed principles, and it is in those meetings where silence reigns and men humble themselves before her, it is by constant discipline that the Quakers gain the dignity which is man's birthright. To-day we sell the birthright. We surrender our dignity for a moment's pleasure. As followers of Him who for thirty years was subject to His parents, whose praise it is that He learned obedience, let us submit ourselves to rule. 'This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.' We must take Quaker teaching, we must conquer our wills and affections, and obey the rule of silence and order, that we may gain, as the Quakers, the dignity and the calm of noble manhood.

2. The Quakers brought to bear the grandest principles on the smallest details. It was because the Lord said it that Fox would not remove his hat. It was a matter of religion to be punctual, and it was not beneath the highest authority to forbid whispering and anonymous letter-writing. This is the pregnant principle to which we owe great reforms. It was this which put the Quakers at the

head of movements to free the slaves and relieve the prisoners, and it is to this same principle we must trust for future reform. Useless is it to hope that parliament laws will cure evils at home and do justice abroad. Each man must remember that for every idle word he is responsible. By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.' It is a man's words, his most trifling acts, which make or mar the world. Right or wrong, God or devil presides over every act. It is no mere kindness, no mere private interest, which directs you to make an appointment, to give or refuse your hand, to write a letter, to choose a dress, to make a gift. The least thing we do is either right or wrong—enough, that is, to cause joy in the angels of heaven or in the demons of hell-enough, that is, to be fruitful in happiness to thousands or to be a source of misery to three and four generations. As Nature's greatest laws work in the raindrop, so the highest principles are involved in the smallest act. There are evils around us still uncured. God's earth in London is defiled by hovels and mansions which make it hideous, man's life is degraded by luxury, oppression, and neglect. The Quaker teaching that God regards the smallest act needs to be