Quakers

Quakers, the religious body properly called the Society of Friends. They originally called themselves Children of Truth, Children of Light, or Friends of Truth, and received their sobriquet either because of association with highly emotional states manifested physically or because their leader once commanded a judge to “tremble at the word of the Lord.” The Society of Friends arose in England under the guidance of George Fox (1624–91), who after 1647 preached a simple personal religion, as opposed to formal worship and ceremonial. Their fundamental doctrines do not differ greatly from those of other Christian bodies, but they avoid rigid creeds, making their belief less a system than an attitude of mind. They believe that the same spirit that gave forth the Scriptures still guides men to a right understanding of them, and therefore they refuse set forms of worship and have no trained leaders. Because they declined to support the Established Church, resisted the taking of oaths, and were pacifistic, they were continually persecuted in England until the Toleration Act (1689). In America, whence they came in the 1650s, they were likewise persecuted by the Puritans because of their opposition to theocracy. They flourished nevertheless, and in 1681 the colony of Pennsylvania was granted to their leader, William Penn. They became widely known for their humanitarianism, both in their relations with the Indians and in their opposition to slavery of blacks. This attitude may be seen in the writings of John Woolman, while such Quakers as Whittier and Lucretia Mott were prominent among 19th‐century Abolitionists. Although for conscience's sake most Quakers refused to participate in the Revolutionary War, some of them, called Free Quakers, took up arms. In 1827 Elias Hicks pressed the doctrine of the “inward light” to its extreme, and split the Society of Friends into two parts, the Hicksites and the orthodox group. Another schism occurred (1845), with the Wilburites following John Wilbur in returning to what they considered the original principles of the movement. Various groups, holding to common fundamental beliefs, had over 130,000 members in 1990.