FRIENDLY SOCIETIES 



FKIKNDS 



aBpenaM of management pm\ided fur. Sickbeneiits 

 insured till sixty five, at wliich age a pension or 

 def.-iied annuity shall commence, and continue for 

 remainder of lift-. Reserve funds to realise a clear 

 percentage of interest, equal to that on which 

 taMes or scales of contributions have been cal- 

 culated, generally 3 per cent. Candidates refused 

 \\ lin cannot 'pass' tin- doi-tor, or who have exceeded 

 in \eais the inaxinniiii limit of forty-five, forty 

 being preferred. KHieimt supervision of rick pay- 

 meiits in guard against ' malingering^' or fictitious 

 claims. Society not to be of local isolated type, 

 dependent solely on its own resources, but ussuci 

 ated with other liraiiclu-s of one and the same 

 organisation, or of the centralised type. Means to 

 be taken, in seasons of distress or loss of work, 

 whereby membership may lie retained. Provision, 

 if desired, for juveniles, widows, orphans, and 

 tie, aveil members. 



We would strongly endorse the subjoined 

 authoritative warning : ' A word of caution may be 

 added against forming too hasty conclusions 

 adverse to friendly societies, if it should turn 

 out that the valuations in many cases show 

 an estimated deficiency in the funds to meet 

 the liabilities. It would be strange if it were 

 otherwise, when for the first time scientific tests 

 are applied to contracts that have been -in opera- 

 tion without a scientific basis for a long series 

 ot years. It must be borne in mind, however, that 

 nothing is more elastic than the contract made by 

 a friendly society witli its members ; no error more 

 easy of remedy, if found out in time, than one 

 existing in the original terms of such a contract. 

 Hence the words "insolvency," " rottenness," and 

 the like, which we sometimes hear freely used as 

 describing the general condition of friendly societies, 

 are utterly out of place. Of friendly societies in 

 gein-ral it may be said that, as there are no associa- 

 tions the benefits of which are more important to 

 their members, so there are none that are managed 

 with greater rectitude, and few with equal success.' 

 Introduction to W. Tidd Pratt's Law of Friendly 

 SMitto* ( 1881 ), by E. W. Brabrook, F.S. A. 



For further information, the following authorities may 

 be consulted: Dr Baernreither's Enylixh Associations of 

 Working Men ( 1889 ) ; the present writer's Friendly 

 Society Movement ( 188(5 ) and Mutual Thrift ( 1891 ) ; Year 

 Book of Friendly Societies Rei.iiatry Office ; Annual Re- 

 ports of Chief Registrar. Also Ratcliffe'a Experience of the 

 Manchester Unity ; Mr Francis G. P. Neison's Foresters' 

 Experience; and the same eminent actuary's Observa- 

 tions on the Efficient Valuation of Friendly Societies. 



Friends, SOCIETY OF, the designation proper 

 of a sect of Christians, better known as Quakers. 

 Their founder in 1648-66 was George Fox (q.v.). 

 In spite of severe and cruel persecutions, the 

 Society of Friends succeeded in establishing them- 

 selves both in Kngland and America. They have, 

 indeed, never been numerically powerful (having at 

 no time exceeded 200,(XX) menibers) ; but the purity 

 of life which from the beginning has so honourably 

 distinguished them as a class has unquestionably 

 exercised a salutary influence on the public at large; 

 while in respect of certain great questions afl'ecting 

 the interests of mankind, such as n;ir and .s-A/ro-//, 

 they have, bevond all doubt, originated opinions and 

 tendencies which, whether sound or erroneous, are 

 no longer confined to themselves, but have widely 

 leavened the mind of Christendom. Eminent 

 Friends have been George Fox, Robert Barclay, 

 Thomas Ellwood, William Penn, Elizabeth Fry, 

 Mrs Opie, J. J. Gurney, Bernard Barton, Dalton 

 the physicist, John Bright, Birket Foster, &c. ; 'un- 

 friendly' Friends were Benjamin Robins, who rev- 

 olutionised the art of Gunnery (q.v.), Tom Paine, 

 and Sir Richard Church. 



(1) Doctrine. It is perhaps more in the spirit than 



in the letter of their faith that the Society of 



Friends differ from other orthodox Christian*. 

 They themselves assert their belief in the great 

 fundamental facts of Christianity, and even in the 

 substantial identity of most of the doctrinal opinion- 

 which they hold with those of other evangelical 

 denominations. The Epistle addressed by George 

 Fox and other Friends to the governor of mrhodoea 

 in 1673 contains a confession of faith not differing 

 materially from the so-called Apostles' Creed, 

 except that it is more copiously worded and dwells 

 with great difl'nseness on the internal work of 

 Christ. The Declaration of Christian Doctrine 

 put forth on lehalf of the Society in 1693 ex- 

 presses a belief in what is usually termed the 

 Trinity, in the atonement made by Christ for sin, 

 in the resurrection from the dead, and in the 

 doctrine of a final and eten a I judgment ; and the 

 Declaratory Minute of the yearly meeting in 1829 

 asserts the inspiration arid divine authority of the 

 Old and New Testament, the depravity of human 

 nature consequent on the fall of Adam, and other 

 characteristic doctrines of Christian orthodoxy, 

 adding: 'Our religious Society, from its earliest 

 establishment to the present day, has received 

 these most important doctrines of Holy Scripture 

 in their plain and obvious acceptation.' It is 

 nevertheless certain that uniformity of theological 

 opinion cannot be claimed for the Friends, any 

 more than for other bodies of Christians. As 

 early as 1608 William Penn and George Whitehead 

 held a public discussion with a clergyman of the 

 English Church, named Vincent, in which they 

 maintained that the doctrine of a tri-personal God, 

 as held by that church, was not found in the 

 Scriptures, though in what form they accepted the 

 doctrine themselves does not appear ; and some 

 time later Penn published a work himself, entitled 

 the Sandy Foundation Shaken, in which, among 

 other things, he endeavoured to show that the 

 doctrines of vicarious atonement and of imputed 

 righteousness do not rest on any scriptural foun- 

 dation. But in general the Society of Friends, in 

 the expression of their belief, have avoided the 

 technical phraseology of other Christian churches, 

 restricting themselves with commendable modesty 

 to the words of Scripture itself, as far as that is 

 possible, and avoiding, in particular, the knotty 

 points of Calvinistic divinity (see Barclay's Cate- 

 chism and Confession of Faith, published in 1673, 

 where the answers to the questions to avoid theo- 

 logical dogmatism are taken from the Bible 

 itself). This habit of allowing to each individual 

 the full freedom of the Scriptures has, of course, 

 rendered it all the more difficult to ascertain to 

 what extent individual minds, among the Society, 

 may have differed in their mode of apprehending 

 and dogmatically explaining the facts of Chris- 

 tianity. Their principal distinguishing doctrine is 

 that of the ' Light of Christ in man,' on which 

 many of their outward peculiarities, as a religious 

 body, ure grounded. The doctrine of the internal 

 light is founded on the view of Christ given by St 

 John, who, in the first chapter of his gospel, 

 describes Christ the Eternal Logos as the 'life' 

 and light of men,' ' the true light,' ' the light that 

 lighteth every man that cometh into the world,' 

 \c. Barclay taught that even the heathen were 

 illumined by this light, though they might not 

 know jus, indeed, those who lived In'fore Christ 

 cniilil not know the historical Jesus in whom 

 Christians believe. In their case Christ was the 

 light shining in darkness, though the darkness 

 comprehended it not. The existence of 'natural 

 virtue' (as orthodox theologians term it) among 

 the heathen was denied by Btarclay, who regardea 

 all such virtue as Christian in its essence, and as 

 proceed ing from the light of Christ shining through 



