58 QUAKER ASPECTS OF TRUTH 



And when everything else has gone — when everything 

 has been eliminated from Christianity which is not of 

 Christ — then what is left is Quakerism, The Quaker 

 ideal is Christianity from which all accretions, whether 

 from Hebrew, Greek or Roman sources, have been 

 removed ♦ 



I have already told you how George Fox and the 

 Early Friends sought to get back to primitive Christ- 

 ianity. Two hundred and fifty years ago, they modelled 

 their Society upon that which they conceived to have 

 been the constitution of the Early Church of the First 

 Century, and they arranged their meetings to simulate, 

 as closely as possible, the simple gatherings of these 

 Primitive Christians, so that when a modern scholar. 

 Professor McGiffert, drew an historical picture of these 

 meetings of the Early Church, he described, without 

 knowing it, a Quaker's meeting. 



And how wise these Early Friends were in thus 

 going back to Primitive Christianity ; for if we wished 

 to drink of the Irwell, we should do well to seek for it 

 near its source, ere ever it had become a polluted stream. 

 And what is true of the river Irwell is equally true of 

 the River of Life. 



Now, we are too apt to think of Quakerism as a 

 miscellaneous collection of religious opinions and 

 practices, having no particular connection with one 

 another, save only that they were held by George Fox 

 and the Early Friends. But any such impression of 

 Quakerism is absolutely erroneous. Quakerism consists 

 of a special position from which the Truth of God is 

 seen, and it is logically impossible to see and accept 

 truth from this point of view, without accepting, 

 practically, the whole of Quakerism. 



The difference between the Quaker view of truth 

 and that adopted by most of the other religious denomi- 

 nations is very similar to, if not identical with, the 



