The Henson Journals

[78]

Tuesday, September 13th, 1927.

I will tell you without repeating myself that I love the Quakers.

Voltaire.

I spent the morning in reading Stephen Hobhouse's "William Law and Eighteenth Century Quakerism", which arrived by the morning post, & which I thought ought to be read before my Article on 'Quakerism' was written. I found it extremely interesting, but more for what it had to say about William Law than for any new light on Quakerism that it could provide.

There came to lunch Espin and his assistant from Tow Law, Rainbow & his boy Gerald from Shotton, and Tillard, the returned parson from the Bahamas. He told me that the bars were open and doing a brisk trade while yet the steamer was in the Hudson, when he sailed from New York in an American liner: whereas everything alcoholic was sealed up long before the American coast was reached on board the English boat.

Ella and I walked round the Park with Beck. Kenneth Hodgson came to tea: &, when he had gone, Petitjean came to tell me that he was contemplating matrimony, & to ask my advice as to his seeking a new assistant curacy. I told him that I didn't like his frequent moves, for I could not believe that any effectual pastorate could be fulfilled without getting to know the people, & win their confidence.

[79]

Lecky. History of England in the Eighteenth Century

vol. I, p. 255 'As soon as the Toleration Act was passed, England was studded with their (Quakers') meeting–houses. Between 1688 and 1690 licenses were taken out for 131 new temporary and 108 new permanent places of worship for the society, 64 being in Lancashire'.

" p. 256 "Their refusal to take oaths, to pay tithes, and to subscribe articles, rendered necessary a considerable amount of special legislation".

" p. 325. The Tithe Act defeated in the Lords, 1721.

" ii. p. 118 Jewish and Quaker marriages exempted from Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act, 1753.

" iv. p. 21 "The Quakers, though their distinctive character was clearly imprinted on the colony (Pennsylvania), had found that some departure from their original principles was indispensable. A section of them, in fragrant opposition to the original tenet of their sect, contended that war was not criminal when it was strictly defensive. A long line of canon defended the old Quaker Capital against the French & Spanish privateers: & the Pennsylvanian Assembly, in which the Quakers predominated, repeatedly voted military aids to the Crown during the French wars, disguising their Act by voting the money only 'for the King's use', and on one occasion 'for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or other grain', the latter being understood to be gunpowder".

" p. 37 "The Quakers were usually noted for their righteous dealing with the Indians".

" p. 226 "The dominant Quaker party of Pennsylvania was at least as hostile to rebellion as to imperial taxation."