Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

But there was another subject introduced at the Conference which still more decidedly interfered with the practice of Friends for many years past. It is well known that they have long discouraged all efforts to enlarge their numbers by accessions from the world. To any attempt of this sort has been given the odious title of "proselytism." They seem to have entirely lost sight of the principle, that if they believe their sentiments to be scriptural it is their duty to seek their general diffusion. This scrupulosity has caused the Friends to be almost entirely inefficient in all distinctly Christian efforts for the evangelization of the world. It now appears that, as the introduction of Sunday schools, eighty years since, was the means, under God, of leading to the various efforts which roused the church from the lethargy into which it had fallen, so the attention recently paid to this subject by the Friends will lead on to most important results in the Society generally. We think it well to make a large extract from a paper read by Joseph Rowntree, of York, on "The Sabbath School in its Relation to the Church." He said,

"A Teacher of a Wesleyan Adult Sabbath School, if transferred to one of our own, would be impressed by many points of difference and of contrast. "Both schools would endeavour to attract those beyond the reach of ordinary Gospel influence; both would rejoice in securing as a regular attender a man who went to no place of worship; they would alike endeavour to bring Christian influences to bear through the lessons in the school-room, by home visiting and by association with older and more experienced scholars; but if, after a period of earnest teaching owned by the Divine blessing, the now thoughtful scholar seeks the nurturing care of the church, and desires to enter into closer fellowship with good men, his teacher, if a Wesleyan, will probably pursue a line of conduct differing from that of the Friend. The former will point to his chapel, with its doors standing wide open; he will invite-even press-his scholar to enter. He will assure him of a cordial welcome, he will tell him of the spiritual benefits he may receive, and of the ample field of usefulness in which the church would rejoice to employ him.

"But does not a Friend often say in practice, 'It is a good thing to belong to a church; you need it to satisfy your spiritual and social wants. The Society of Friends is open to you, but it is not adapted to you: you had better join some other religious body?'

"Let us turn to the facts of the case.

"It appears from the last Annual Report of the Friends' First-day School Association, that more than 31,000 scholars have been admitted into the 28 English schools which have sent up full returns, since their establishment. The total number admitted into all the associated English schools will probably amount to about 40,000. Of these 40,000 scholars, how many have been admitted into membership with the Society of Friends? The exact number could not readily be ascertained, but a nearly correct estimate may probably be formed by taking the statistics of three of the larger schools,-Bristol, Birmingham, and York. More than 18,000 persons, including a considerable proportion of adults, have been taught in these three schools, being rather less

than half of the entire number admitted into all the associated schools. Six of these 18,000 scholars have become members of the Society of Friends: 3 at Birmingham, 1 at Bristol, and 2 at York.

“As evidence in support of these marvellous figures, let me quote a letter from Joseph Storrs Fry. He says:-'I cannot learn of more than one person, whose membership can clearly be traced to a connexion with our First-day School: there may possibly be a few other cases, which have escaped the memory of myself and my informants, but they must be very few.'

"As the school at Birmingham was founded in 1845, my informant is able to write with confidence, giving the details of each case.

"These figures render it probable that under 15 persons have been received into membership from all our associated schools; but, to allow for errors and omissions, as well as for variety of experience, let us double this number of 15, and call it 30. This computation shows that not 1 out of every 1,000 scholars joins the Society of Friends.

"To what must we attribute this singular result? Partly, perhaps, to the prevalence of mistaken notions about proselytism. It is felt, and justly felt, to be a poor and an unworthy aim to entice away the members of other Christian churches, or in any way to make the aggrandisement of our own 3 primary end of Christian labour; but, if we cannot ourselves lead on those who have been roused from their thoughtlessness by our own efforts, and who, belonging to no church, look naturally to us for the care and guidance which it is the great duty and privilege of the association of believers to extend, does it not show that there is something wrong? Must there not be either a want of confidence in our own views, or a selfish shrinking from responsibility: or, if neither of these, at least a feeling that our organization and arrangements are not suited to the poor?

"And may it not be, that a false conception of the object and the duties of a church has had something to do with these results? We may have accustomed ourselves to think that the object of a church is to secure to a favoured few a snug enclosure within which they may bask in the full sunshine of Gospel privileges, rather than for the spread of Christ's truth, and for the support and help of the weak. It is also true that sectarian littleness and exclusiveness is one of the banes of the age, and we can imagine it asked, 'Is it not well that at such a time, when the air is filled with controversial disputes, and when even Lancashire Sewing Schools and Relief Committees are made fields for sectarian rivalry, that one body, small though it be, should seek to do good with a single aim, and without looking for proselytes!' This is a delicate and noble feeling, and it represents one side of the truth which we shall do well to keep in view; but the essence of sectarianism does not consist in seeking to draw men to one fold, but rather in making that fold so narrow that a free spirit will not stay within it. There was much of the spirit of sect in the later Scotch Cameronians, who preached no faith, and made no converts: there was but little sectarianism in the burning soul of Whitefield, when he said to the frequenters of St. Bartholomew's Fair, or to the colliers of the North, Come with us, and we will do you good.' If the age is sectarian, and if existing Churches are sectarian, do we in truth make an effectual protest against their spirit by handing over our converts to swell the ranks of these very churches? Christians will belong to some church, and it is doubtless well that they should; if, therefore, we do not make way for them in our own, we send them to some other. If our protest is to avail much, must we not make our own church catholic, and, whilst freely inviting all, especially the poor and the outcast, to

come to us, allow full scope for every variety of Christian character, and perfect liberty for the exercise of every spiritual gift?

"Two cases have come under the writer's own notice, of the way in which this non-proselyting policy is regarded by others. A gentleman, now a member of our Society, told me the other day that it is commonly said that the Quakers do not care for the souls of their neighbours. And not many months before, I listened to a conversation between a Friend and a Wesleyan who had been for twenty years in the service of Friends. The latter ended an animated discussion, by saying, 'Well, you keep all your good things to yourselves: you won't let any one join with you!'

"In contrast with the foregoing, I may mention the experience of an individual who, before joining Friends, had, for a period of nearly twenty years, been a teacher in an Independent Sunday School. He told me, a week or two ago, not as anything wonderful or at all out of the ordinary way, that more than fifty of his scholars had joined the Independent Church, of which he was a member, and that many of them were now filling very useful positions in society. I said to him, 'Yes, but of these fifty, many are the children of Independents, who, if their parents had been Friends, would have become members by birth?' His answer was to the effect that most of these fifty were the children of irreligious parents. Through the labours, then, of this single teacher, about twice as many persons have joined one Independent congregation as have been added to the Society of Friends from the whole of their Sabbath schools. This state of things deprives us, as teachers, of a legitimate, albeit a secondary, stimulus to exertion. When the scholars of the person to whom I have referred, left his class, he would not lose sight of them. He would have the satisfaction and pleasure of seeing them growing up around him, and of cementing the friendship formed at school; or, if they left the town, he would hear of their welfare from some of his co-religionists, or meet them at occasional gatherings, as we might and ought to meet with our old scholars at Quarterly and Yearly Meetings. And if the teacher thus loses a stimulus, not a few of the taught are exposed to grave discouragements. I allude not so much to those who have been handed over to some other religious community, as to those who, attending our meetings, but not becoming members, may wish to render service to their Lord. They may enter upon some humble yet useful labour-tract distribution, for example. One so employed will be likely to get interested in the people on whom he calls. He may find that some of them attend no place of worship. If he were a Wesleyan, he would know that the hearty invitation which had been given to himself, would be extended to those whom he might bring with him. But he is not a Wesleyan, he is an attender of our meetings, and, judging from the facts which we have adduced, he is not likely ever to become a member, and he knows that those whom he may bring to us will probably hold the same anomalous position that he does. A man is not likely to work very earnestly for a church, into whose full communion he has not been admitted, and towards which he stands in the position of an outsider. Thus the missionary efforts of our scholars among persons of their own class of life, towards whom their labours might be richly blessed, are greatly discouraged; and the consequence is one which we can hardly have overlooked, that the attenders of our meetings are less actively engaged in Christian labour than the poor members of many other religious bodies. Is the fault theirs or ours?

"The concluding pages of this essay may seem to have but a distant connexion with the objects which this Conference has in view; but they are, in fact, so bound up with what I have written, as hardly to admit of being passed

by. The true place and mission of Quakerism is a thing which concerns us all as Friends, and it concerns us more deeply who are teachers in our Sabbath schools. Without attempting fully to discuss that mission here, we shall no doubt be agreed that the Society of Friends is called to bear a powerful witness to certain neglected but important truths. This witness is borne through what we call our testimonies.' As the avowed defenders of these truths, a responsibility rests upon us to make our witness to them effectual; and it can hardly be a matter of indifference to us as teachers, whether our collective action advances or retards their acceptance in the world.

"Despite the smallness of our numbers, some of our testimonies' have no doubt been powerful for good. Our 'testimony' against slavery is a conspicuous illustration of this; but then we did not content ourselves with any merely negative holding of it, we did not issue an occasional protest, but we strained every nerve, we left no stone unturned, to put an end to that enormous wicked

ness.

"Unhappily, some of our testimonies have been maintained in a very different manner. The doctrine that every man may come directly to God through Jesus Christ, without priestly intervention, is one of the grandest of our testimonies, as it is one of the most central truths of Christianity. Does our way of holding this truth materially affect or alter the views of any great number of our fellow Christians? The English mind is essentially practical, and it judges of the value and truth of things more by their working and results than by an examination of any formal proof. If, by our testimony against tithes, church-rates, &c., we succeed even in attracting attention to the freedom of Gospel ministry, which we believe the New Testament asserts, it is doubtful whether we shall do more than confirm the inquirers in views previously held. A thinking man here and there will examine his Bible afresh, and perhaps read what Robert Barclay and Joseph John Gurney have written; but the majority will come to a conclusion by a much shorter cut: they will say, 'What the Quakers tell us in favour of their views seems all very true and very good, but the long and short of it is, it does not answer; their meetings are fast dying out, they are onefourth less in numbers than they were fifty years ago, although the population of the country has nearly doubled in that time. And when a low district of a town or an irreligious village has been awakened, do we find that the Friends have gone and started their meetings, and asked the people to join them in their worship, and watched and cared over the new converts, or has this been done by others ?' And is it very unnatural, or very illogical, that men should think that the perpetual diminution of a small Society is a powerful testimony to the weakness of the principles which that Society exists to defend? If Quakerism would once show to the world that it would work,—if it brought the Gospel powerfully home to the millions who now hardly know of its existence, and if from this class it continually recruited itself with willing and earnest soldiers to wage the great battle with sin-if, in short, under the Divine blessing, it became a great aggressive power for good in the country, it might do more in a single year to spread sound views of Gospel ministry, than it would do by its present negative testimonies in 1,000 years."-pp. 141-146.

The same subject had been introduced by a question from Sheffield, where the younger school was very successful; but from 1845 to the present time, none of the scholars in it had joined the Society. It may well be supposed that the outspokenness of Mr. Rowntree's paper startled even the members of the Conference;

and this influence will, no doubt, be still more powerfully felt throughout the Society at large. Still, it was quite as well received as could have been expected, and some desired to send up a letter to the Yearly Meeting on the subject. We will only quote the observations of William White, of Birmingham, which will shew what a great change is coming over the minds of thoughtful men in the Society, and how much reason there is to expect from them active efforts towards the evangelization of the world.

I

"I have seen, and others have seen, a working man slip into our meetings, and it is a rather serious affair for him. He has to push his way through so much good broad-cloth and silk and satin, that it makes him feel nervous. believe that all this gentility hinders these people from coming to our meetings. How does such a person feel if we ask him into our drawing-rooms? He sits down on the nearest chair, on the very edge of it, and puts his hat under it, and in many ways shows that he is ill at ease. The conduct of such people at our meetings gives one the very same idea. If there is anything in our meetinghouses, or our respectability which hinders these from coming to our meetings, it should be altered. The rich and the poor should meet together for worship; and unless we have this admixture, there is certainly something wrong. We want some of the poorer class to infuse life and fire into us, and that would be greatly to our advantage. The paper said, that by some our principles were thought ill adapted to the working classes. When I came into the Society, one idea which struck me about it was the great adaptability of the principles to all classes, they are so simple. Leaving the consideration of our meetings for worship, I think it is highly important to get up small meetings with the humbler classes, where the Scriptures may be read, and they may be told of the Saviour. Many a Friend has a kitchen large enough for this purpose: or if not, let him hire a small room which will hold about twenty. Let them all sit down with their open Bibles, and read round. I do not want these meetings to be times for preaching or patronizing, but let them see we love them, and let us try and bring them to the truth. George Fox would have rejoiced in such meetings. Bring people to the Saviour, and let the teaching of doctrine and discipline come afterwards. Get the heart right, and other things will get right afterwards. We have been too much pleased by hearing of that highly respectable body, the Society of Friends.' Friends, this great respectability has become a 'bugbear' with us! It prevents us from filling our galleries with people culled from the lowest ranks of life. It hinders the progress of liberty in our own meetings for worship, and prevents the opening of many mouths, which should proclaim the truth as it is in Jesus."—pp. 67, 68.

We have occupied so large a space in presenting to our readers these more general subjects which occupied the attention of the Conference, that we have not left ourselves any room for that portion of the business which related more exclusively to Sunday schools. There was, however, much which took place that will interest our readers, and, on a future occasion, we may again draw their attention to the proceedings at this important gathering of First-day school teachers.

« AnteriorContinuar »