Page:On membership in the Society of Friends; being some remarks on an article lately published in the "Friends' quarterly examiner" on birthright membership (IA onmembershipinso00barciala).pdf/6



writer of this paper had no intention ever to have addressed his fellow Members upon the subject of Birthright Membership. An article, however, appeared in the Quarterly Examiner of Fourth Month, 1872, from the pen of his friend and valued correspondent, J. S. Rowntree, in which he endeavoured to stem the growing conviction of some of our most active and valued Members, that Birth- right Membership is at the root of some of our greatest difficulties—a view which was shared by our friend J. S. Rowntree himself in 1859, and expressed to the world in his well-known Prize Essay. It should be clearly understood that the writer considers this fact to entitle his friend's arguments in favour of Birthright Membership to our most careful consideration, and that it in no way places him at a disadvantage, although allusion to it in this pamphlet is inevitable.

Incidentally, statements, similar to those which the writer has made publicly with reference to the nature of Membership in the early Society of Friends, are controverted in the article lately published in the Quarterly Examiner; and, most reluctantly, after carefully considering the subject, he feels bound by considerations of his duty towards the Society, to reply to this article as a whole, and particularly to bring forward some facts connected with Membership in the early Society of Friends, which he did not intend to publish in a controversial form.

He ventures to think that the view taken by J. S. Rowntree—that Membership in the early Society of Friends was a Birthright Membership—is not only shown to be untenable, but that the contrary may be considered to be fully established.

The full discussion of the subject of our present system of Membership could hardly be opened better than by a defence of our existing position by so able a writer as J. S. R., and the impossibility thus exhibited of defending it on any principles but those which, if carried out to their legitimate conclusion, would destroy (if it were possible) the Visible Church, and her united testimony for Christ in the midst of an ungodly world, has convinced the writer that it is the duty of all who love the great principles of the Society of Friends, seriously to consider if it is possible to prepare the way for a new and better system of Membership.