quakers

quakers, or Society of Friends, are said to have derived their name either from ecstatic shuddering or from George Fox's advice to Justice Bennet in 1650 to tremble at the word of the Lord. They originated during the religious tumult of the 1650s, had no formal ministry or service, and professed the principle of the ‘inner light’, a sense of the direct working of Christ. Their refusal to pay tithes, insistence upon addressing everyone as thou, refusal to doff hats to authority, and the extravagant behaviour of some of their members, shocked a hierarchical society, and they were fiercely persecuted before and after the Restoration. The earlier excesses of the movement were soon abandoned and they acquired a reputation for sobriety and peaceableness. Quaker organization was based on a monthly meeting, quarterly county meetings, and an annual meeting in London. They benefited from the Toleration Act of 1689 and in 1696 were allowed to affirm rather than take an oath. There was considerable emigration to Pennsylvania, founded on quaker principles. They were not enthusiastic evangelists and did not share in the rapid growth of dissent in the early 19th cent., having 413 meeting-houses in 1800 and 371 in 1851. Quakers refuse military service but are often prominent in ambulance and medical corps.

J. A. Cannon