Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/161

Rh Q U A K E K S 149 travelled to their meetings for worship, sometimes as disturbers of the clergy in their office because they spoke in churches, sometimes as guilty of breaches of the peace because they preached in streets or markets, sometimes for refusing to pay tithes, sometimes for refusing to take off their hats, sometimes for refusing to swear. So matters remained till the Restoration of Charles II., when the publication from Breda of his declaration for liberty of conscience again raised hopes of ease in the hearts of the Friends. But these hopes were again destined to disappointment. The laws under which the Quakers were persecuted during the revived Stuart period were (1) the common law, (2) the old legislation in ecclesi- astical matters which. was revived on Charles's accession, (3) the special legislation of the period, and (4) the ecclesiastical laws as administered by the ecclesiastical courts. In the first class was the general law as to breakers of the peace ; in the second class may be mentioned the statute of 6 Hen. VIII. by which im- prisonment was appointed as a punishment for non-payment of tithes, the statute of Elizabeth imposing the oath of supremacy, the Act of Uniformity passed in the first year of Elizabeth, the Acts of the 23rd and 29th years of the same queen which im- posed fines and penalties for non-attendance of church and the statute of the 35th year of Elizabeth by which an obstinate offender in that matter was made a felon without benefit of clergy, and, lastly, the statute of 3 James I. imposing the oath of alle- giance. (3) The special legislation during this period under which the Quakers suffered included (a) a statute 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 1, especially directed against them and punishing their refusal to take an oath, or the taking part in assemblies for worship, with fine, and a second conviction with an obligation to abjure the realm, or transportation to any of the king's plantations ; (b) the Act of Uniformity (13 & 14 Car. II. c. 4), more stringent than that of Elizabeth ; (c) the Five-Mile Act passed in 1665 (17 Car. II. c. 4) ; and, lastly, the Conventicle Act of 1670 (22 Car. II. c. 1). (4) The ecclesiastical courts, on the return of the Stuarts, were restored to their former vigour, and Quakers were continually proceeded against in them for non-payment of tithes, oblations, and other church claims, and also for non-attendance at the parish churches, and for contempt of the discipline and censures of the church. Many of their body were accordingly excommunicated, and under the writ de excommunicato capiendo confined to prison. The passing of the Conventicle Act gave fresh vigour to the persecution of Dissenters. But, on loth March 1671-72, King Charles II. issued his declaration for suspending the penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, and shortly afterwards by pardon under the great seal released above four hundred Quakers from prison, remitted their fines, and released such of their estates as were forfeited by prasmunire. The dissatisfaction which this exercise of the royal prerogative created induced the king in the following year to recall his proclamation, and the suffer- ings of the Quakers revived ; and, notwithstanding repre- sentations and appeals to King Charles II., the persecution continued throughout his reign. On the accession of James II., the Quakers addressed him with some hope from his known friendship for William Penn, and pre- sented to him a list of the numbers of their members undergoing imprisonment in each county, amounting in all to fourteen hundred and sixty. King James not long afterwards directed a stay of proceedings in all matters pending in the Exchequer against Quakers on the ground of non-attendance on national worship. In 1687 came the king's celebrated declaration for liberty of conscience, and in the following year the Revolution, which put an end to all persecution of the Quakers, though they remained for many years liable to imprisonment for non-payment of tithes, and though they long laboured together with other Dissenters under various disabilities the gradual removal of which is part of the general history of England. The Toleration Act was by no means the only legisla- tion of the reign of William and Mary which brought ease to the Quakers. The legislature early had regard to their refusal to take oaths; and from 1689 to a very recent date numerous enactments have respected the peculiar scruples of the Friends. This special legislation may be conveniently studied in Davis's Digest of Legislative Enact- ments relating to Friends (Bristol, 1820). 3. With the cessation of persecution in 1689 the zeal of the Quaker body abated. Foreign missions had no existence except in the occasional travels of some wandering minister. The notion that the whole Christian church would be absorbed in Quakerism, and that the Quakers were in fact the church, passed away ; and in its place grew up the conception that they were " a peculiar people " to whom had been given a clearer insight into the truths of God than to the professing Christian world around them, and that this sacred deposit was to be guarded with jealous care. Hence the Quakerism of this period was mainly of a traditional kind: it dwelt with increasing emphasis on the peculiarities of dress and lan- guage which tended to shut Quakers off socially from their fellow-men; it rested much upon discipline, which developed and hardened into rigorous forms ; and the correction or exclusion of its members was a larger part of the business of the body than the winning of converts either to Christi- anity or to Quakerism. Excluded from political life by the constitution of the country, excluding themselves not only from the frivolous pursuits of pleasure but from music and art in general, with no high average of literary education (though they produced some men of eminence in medicine and science, as Dr Fothergill and Dr Dalton), the Quakers occupied themselves largely with trade, the business of their society, and the calls of philanthropy. In the middle and latter part of last century they founded several institutions for the more thorough education of their children, and entered upon many philanthropic labours. During this period Quakerism was sketched from the outside by two very different men. Voltaire (Dictionnaire Philosophique, s.vv. " Quaker," " Toleration") has described the body, which attracted his curiosity, his sympathy, and his sneers, with all his brilliance. Clarkson (Portraiture of Quakerism) has given an elaborate and sympathetic ac- count of the Quakers as he knew them when he travelled amongst them from house to house on his crusade against the slave trade. 4. It cannot be denied that the theology of Quakerism had become somewhat mystic and quietist during the long period we have just considered. About the year 1826 an American Quaker named HICKS (q.v.) openly denied the divinity of Christ, depreciated the value of the Scrip- tures, and recognized no other Saviour than the inward light. A large body of the American Quakers followed him, and still maintain a separate existence. It was this movement which led to a counter movement in England, known in the Quaker body as the Beacon controversy, from the name of a book published in 1835, advocating views more nearly akin to those known as evangelical than were held by many Quakers. A considerable discussion ensued, and a certain number of the Friends holding these more evangelical doctrines departed from the parent stock, leaving, however, behind them many influential members of the society who strove to give a more evangelical tone to the Quaker theology. Joseph John Gurney, by his various writings (some published before 1835), was the most prominent actor in this movement. This period has also been marked, especially within the last few years, by some revival of aggressive action, and Quakers have taken far more part in the teaching in Sunday schools, in the preaching of the gospel to the poor, and in the establish- ment of foreign missions than in the period immediately preceding. In 1847 an association was established to promote Sunday schools in the body; in 1859 a Friends' foreign mission was established; and the Quakers have now a few regular labourers in Madagascar, India, Syria, and Constantinople. Other causes have been at work modifying the Quaker body. The repeal of the Test Act, the admission of