Plainness Of Speech

The “plainness of speech” referred to in the Third Query primarily meant using thee and thou when addressing a single person, instead of the customary you . This testimony, along with the testimony of plain apparel, was one of the chief marks that set us apart as a peculiar people. To say you to one person — whether Friend or outsider — was considered the height of worldliness and insincerity. Never once, until I was married, did I dare to transgress this rule.

Naturally, it made mingling with the outside world rather difficult, since our quaint way of speaking was sure to provoke curious stares or suppressed laughter.

The roots of this testimony lay in the absolute sincerity of the early Friends. They felt it was dishonest to use a plural pronoun for a single individual. Furthermore, in their day, it was customary to address a superior as you , reserving thee and thou for inferiors. But Friends, who believed all people were equal before God — and who believed this in a very practical way — could not tolerate such distinctions. They therefore addressed everyone alike.

Those early Friends were democrats in every fiber of their being, not from political theory but from their unwavering conviction that God had made all the nations of the earth from one blood, and that all were equally His children. It was a noble foundation upon which to build their moral structure, and it helps explain many practices that might otherwise seem quaint or even foolish.

Thomas Ellwood, in his autobiography, recounts the various things he felt called to give up after becoming convinced of Quaker principles. Concerning plain language, he wrote that using you to a single person was a “corrupt and unsound form of speaking,” adopted in “later and corrupt times” as a means of flattering worldly vanity. Since God had always addressed men with thou , and men had always addressed God with thou , Ellwood considered it a moral obligation to follow that example. Under the illumination of what he called “a pure ray of divine light,” he felt required to abandon many such “evil customs” that had sprung up during the long night of spiritual darkness.

So insistent was this testimony in my childhood that it would have seemed shockingly worldly to say you to a single person, almost as “gay” as wearing silk or scarlet. Even after I grew older and went more into the world, meeting good and earnest Christians who used the forbidden word without the slightest qualm, it took great effort to shape my Quaker lips to utter it. Gradually, the difficulty faded. Now, after more than seventy years, thee and thou have become for me simply the language of intimate affection, slipping out naturally whenever someone has truly found their way into my heart. I often judge my own feelings toward a person by this test: when I hear myself saying thee , I know I have begun to love them. Many of my friends — some with no Quaker connection at all — have caught the habit from me, and use those dear old words in our private companionship. My beloved friend Frances Willard was one of them; we thee’d , and thou’d each other for many years.

The writer I quoted earlier, in A Boy’s Religion , describes how he felt as a child about plain speech.

“I said ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ to everybody,” he wrote, “and I would just as soon have used profane language as said ‘you’ or ‘yours’ to any person. I thought only Friends went to Heaven, and so I supposed that using ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ was one of the main tests of admission. Nobody ever told me such a thing, and if I had asked, I’d have been set straight— but for years that was my settled belief.”

He goes on to describe pitying his neighbors who would never, as he imagined, be “let in,” and wondering why they didn’t simply join the Meeting and learn to speak properly. He even taught one little “Gentile” friend the plain language, and the boy used it faithfully with him until the pressure of the outside world, as he put it, “got too heavy” around the age of twelve.

Another testimony related to plainness of speech was the prohibition against calling anyone Mr. , Mrs. , or Miss . These titles were believed to violate the spirit of Christ’s words, “Neither be ye called masters, for one is yo ur Master, even Christ.” No sincere Friend could give a title to a wealthy man while refusing it to a poor one; thus, Christian names were used for all — Thomas, Samuel, Abigail, Elizabeth, and so forth. (We had no Reginalds, Bertrands, Ethels, or Evelyns in those days!)

Where age demanded a touch more respect, young people were expected to use the full name — Thomas Wistar, Abigail Evans, Samuel Bettle, Elizabeth Pitfield. This practice created no end of difficulty when dealing with “the world’s people,” and b rought about many an awkward dilemma.

Our dear father was very strict on this matter, and could never be persuaded — no matter how inconvenient it might be —to use the “gay’’ titles Mr. or Mrs. I remember well the amusement we had, once we were grown, watching his ingenious methods of escaping difficulty whenever he did not know someone’s first name. In place of Mr. or Mrs. , he invented the substitute word Cummishilamus , and would say, for example, “Cummishilamus Coleman said…” or “Cummishilamus Coleman did…” When, however, he had to address a letter, he could not, of course, write such a word, and then he would turn to one of us, a merry twinkle in his dear eyes, and say, “Come, Han, thee has no scruples — thee may write the Mr. or Mrs. on this letter.”

Plainness of speech also forbade us from greeting our friends with good morning , good evening , or from saying good-bye when parting from them. Good-bye was believed to be a corruption of God be with you , and since God was always with you, it seemed a kind of unbelief to express the wish. And to say good morning or good evening — a wish that you might have a good morning or evening — implied doubt of the fact, known to every Friend, that your mornings and evenings must, in the order of Divine Providence, always be good.

I grew up with the distinct feeling that these expressions were very gay and worldly, and that the right — or, as we said, the plain — course was to greet friends with How art thou? Or how does thee do? , and to part from them with the simple word Farewell.

Why Farewell was considered more truthful than good-bye , even if good-bye did mean God be with you , I have never been able to understand.

In perfect consistency with the Quaker ideal of the absolute equality of all human beings in the sight of God, plainness of speech also forbade us to give the title Saint to any departed Christian.

We were never allowed to use it, even as a prefix. For example, we never spoke of the Gospels as the Gospel according to St. Matthew or St. Mark , but always as the Gospel according to Matthew , or Mark, Luke, or John.

I recently saw, in an old diary from the seventeenth century, an account of one very conscientious Friend who felt a “stop” against using the prefix saint even in place-names. She once had great difficulty locating St. Mary Axe because, having dropped the Saint , she asked only for “Mary Axe Street,” which no one understood.

As a testimony against idolatry, we were also forbidden to call the months of the year or the days of the week by their “heathen” names. We were taught to adhere to the “simplicity of truth” by using numbers: First Month , Second Month ; or First Day , Second Day , and so forth. This practice was so universal in my circle that it never even occurred to me to use the heathen names.

I remember being greatly shocked when I came to England in 1873 and discovered that English Friends had abandoned the practice and had returned to the old “heathen” names. For a time, I could hardly persuade myself they were truly Friends at all. And even now, when I date my letters with those names, I still feel as though I am making a forbidden little excursion into the “gay world.”