296 PENNSYLVANIA, THE QUAKER COLONY CHAP. 



merely for himself : he has a share in the state and in its 

 responsibilities ; he may have to countenance methods of 

 government not ideally right, though he must never be 

 content with them, nor cease to labour for their removal. 



The question as it presented itself in the home country 

 was somewhat different, for there the authority which public 

 officers derived from the king was apt to overshadow their 

 responsibility to their fellow-citizens. But in either land it 

 was one of great moment, and it had a fateful influence upon 

 the history of the society. Could Friends with their pure and 

 high ideals take part in government ? Some of the early 

 Quakers thought that they could ; Christians, said Penn, 

 should keep the helm and guide the vessel to its port, not steal 

 out of the stern of the world, and leave it without a pilot. 

 The later society, led mainly by English Friends, came in 

 effect to the decision that they could not take such part ; no 

 doubt the customary oath of office was an especial hindrance ; 

 and in consequence they withdrew for a century and a half 

 into private life. It would be out of place here to do more 

 than allude to the emergence of English Friends from this 

 position in the course of the nineteenth century, and to their 

 gradual entrance in considerable numbers into magisterial, 

 civic and parliamentary life. 1 



Penn, who had an intimate knowledge of the ways of 

 government, founded his state, as we have seen, upon 

 peace principles, and these were successfully maintained 

 for many years. But by the time at which we have 

 arrived public opinion in his colony had changed, although 

 the Friends were still in control. Some of these, and 

 especially James Logan, allowed of defensive war. When 

 the British demands for war taxes came before the 

 Assembly it long resisted them, but was sometimes 

 induced by loyalty to the king and duty to the other 

 constituent parts of the empire to make grants " for 

 the king's use," without specifying the military purpose 



1 It may be noted that John Bright based his opposition to the several 

 wars of his time upon the circumstances of each ; he resigned from Gladstone's 

 Cabinet in 1882, because the bombardment of Alexandria was in his judgment 

 an act of unjustifiable war. This might nevertheless be consistent with a 

 strong personal conviction that all war was wrong. See M. E. Hirst, in Fds. 

 Quart. Exam., Jan. 1916. Upon the attitude of the early Friends to war and 

 the facts quoted above, see W. C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism ; 

 George Fox's Journal, ed. Camb. ; E. Burrough, Works ; Barclay, Apology, 

 Prop. XV. ; I. Penington, Works, i. 323. 



