Quaker queries

Next in importance to the impression made upon my young mind by the teaching regarding the perceptible guidance of the Holy Spirit was the one made by “Friends’ testimonies,” as they were called, and by the “Queries” founded upon them.

These “Queries” were a series of questions concerning the practice of Quakerism. They were solemnly asked and answered once a month in the Monthly Meetings, which had been appointed for the purpose of transacting the business of the Society. There were eight of these Queries, and they formed a noble code of morals, calculated to produce a people of unflinching uprightness and honesty in all their dealings, and of remarkable self-restraint and self-denial in their private lives. Much as I chafed under them as a child, I have never been able to forget the lessons they taught; even now, I often find myself guided by their precepts.

With such monthly probing of conduct as these Queries demanded, it was almost inevitable that a high standard of righteousness became an integral part of a Quaker’s life, and I feel it to have been an invaluable element in my own religious training.

Behind these Queries lay a body of “Friends’ testimonies” from which the Queries had arisen.

Although unwritten — except insofar as they were expressed in the Queries — these testimonies were absolutely binding upon every true Friend. I have often thought that they were, in reality, our Quaker Ten Commandments, though no one ever said so. As a child, I certainly believed that they were special commandments given to us as Quakers, distinguishing us from all the Christians around us and making us the “peculiar people” we were proud to call ourselves.

Many of these testimonies were strict and severe, and to outsiders they must often have seemed harsh. But as all the Quakers I knew had been brought up on them from infancy, they did not press upon us as heavily as might be supposed. They served, however, to keep Quaker feet walking in a narrow way —the “strait gate and narrow way” spoken of in Scripture as the only path that “leadeth unto life.”

Every one of these testimonies had been, we devoutly believed, directly revealed by the Holy Spirit to the early Friends; and however unreasonable they might otherwise have seemed, we young Friends reverenced them as the very oracles of God.

Since these Queries have almost entirely fallen into the background among Quakers of recent years, I will record them here as a faithful exposition of the Quakerism of my youth.

First Query. — Are all our religious meetings for worship and discipline duly attended; is the hour observed; and are Friends clear of sleeping and of all other unbecoming behavior therein?

Second Query. — Are love and unity maintained among you? Are tale-bearing and detraction discouraged? And when differences arise, are endeavours used to end them promptly?

Third Query. — Are Friends careful to bring up those under their charge in plainness of speech, behavior, and apparel; in frequently reading the Holy Scriptures; and in restraining them from reading pernicious books and from corrupt conversation? And are they good examples in these respects themselves?

Fourth Query. — Are Friends careful to discourage the unnecessary distillation and use of spirituous liquors, and the frequenting of taverns; to avoid places of diversion; and to maintain true moderation and temperance at marriages, burials, and all other occasions?

Fifth Query. —Are poor Friends’ necessities duly inspected, and are they relieved or assisted in business suitable to their abilities? Do their children freely partake of learning to fit them for business, and are they and other Frie nds’ children placed among Friends?

Sixth Query. — Do you maintain a faithful testimony against oaths; a hireling ministry; bearing arms, training, and other military services; engaging in fraudulent or clandestine trade; buying or vending goods so imported; or dealing in prize goods; and against encouraging lotteries of every kind?

Seventh Query. — Are Friends careful to live within the bounds of their circumstances and to maintain moderation in their trade or business? Are they punctual in their promises and just in payment of their debts? And when any give reasonable cause for fear in these respects, are they timely laboured with for their preservation or recovery?

Eighth Query. — Do you take due care regularly to deal with all offenders in the spirit of meekness, without partiality or unnecessary delay, for their help; and when such labour is ineffectual, do you place judgment upon them in the authority of truth?

The reading of these Queries in our Monthly Meetings constituted a kind of public, monthly confessional for the whole Society, and they were seasons of solemn self-examination for both old and young. Each separate meeting belonging to the Monthly Meeting sent in its own set of answers, and the discussion of these was known as “the consideration of the state of society.”

Such answers as these linger in my memory: “Our meetings have all been duly attended by most of our members, but some Friends have not observed the hour.”

“Mostly clear of unbecoming behavior, but some sleeping has been observed.”

“ Friends generally are careful to bring up their children in plainness of speech, behavior, and apparel, but more faithfulness in this respect is desirable.”

“Our testimony against oaths, a hireling ministry, bearing arms, engaging in clandestine trade, and against encouraging lotteries, has been faithfully maintained by all our members.”

It was the custom, after each Query and answer had been read, for a period of silence to follow, giving Friends an opportunity to “relieve their minds” of any message that might have been given them concerning that particular Query. These intervals were generally times of deep searching of the heart for all who were present.

As I remember it, the Query that was preached upon most frequently and most fervently was the Third, concerning the testimony for “plainness of speech, behaviour, and apparel, and against the vain fashions of the world.” It was this testimony that most contributed to making Quakers a “peculiar people,” and that caused us young Friends the greatest heart -burnings. I remember vividly the suffering I endured each month as I sat beside my mother listening to this Query read and expounded. My constant fear was that it might make her still more strict in keeping us from the “vain fashions of the world,” which, i n spite of all our training, held a fascination we could never wholly overcome. As the Friend appointed to read the Queries approached this particular one, I would try my best to abstract my mind, even surreptitiously stopping my ears, attempting to cheat myself into thinking that if I did not hear it, my mother would not notice it either. But alas, I was always doomed to disappointment, for the preaching on this Query was the most frequent and most impassioned, and in the end, both she and I were obliged to listen.

Two incidents of my childhood, connected with this Query, come back to me with great vividness.

Our mother had bought us white China-crape shawls with lovely long fringes that seemed to us too beautiful for words, and we wore them with immense pride. One day, however, she returned from a meeting where the Queries had been read and answered, and told us that she had felt during the meeting that our long fringes were too “gay” for Friends’ children, and that she believed it her duty to cut them shorter.

I can see it all now, as she carefully spread the shawls on a large table, laid a yardstick across the fringe at what she deemed the proper length, and proceeded to cut off all the beautiful extra strands. It was like cutting into our very hearts. I remember how we pleaded and pleaded that the fatal yardstick might be moved down just a little further. Our great fear was that our fringes would be shorter than those of our intimate friends Hannah and Jane Scull, who were allowed to be a little gayer than we were. To have their fringes even a tenth of an inch longer than ours seemed a calamity beyond bearing. I cannot remember how the matter ended, but I shall never forget the agonies of mind we endured during the process.

Another experience connected with a dress left an indelible impression on me. The sleeve considered “plain” in my day was the leg -of-mutton sleeve, and all our dresses were made accordingly. But some benign influence — what it was we never knew — induced our mother one spring to allow our sleeves to be made somewhat in the fashion of the day, which happened then to be Bishop sleeves, full at both shoulder and wrist. The fashionable Bishop sleeves were very large, but ours were tiny little ones; however, they were real Bishops, and our pride in them was immense. They belonged to our new spring school dresses, of a brown-and-white striped print — “calico,” as we called it. Although the weather was still wintery, our desire to display our fashionable sleeves was so overwhelming that nothing would do but that we must put them on and take a long walk without our coats; and no two prouder little girls ever walked the streets of Philadelphia than Hannah and Sally Whitall on that morning. I remember our younger sister Mary wanting to go with us, but her sleeves were still leg-of-mutton, and we felt it would spoil the full effect if one member of our party appeared in the despised shape, so we made her walk on the opposite side of the street. I can still see her longing glances across the way as she admired our glory from afar.

She had her revenge soon enough. Ruffled “panties” (as we called drawers then), reaching to the feet, had come into fashion, and when our mother made her a new set, they were long and ruffled, while we still had to wear our plain hemmed ones, not showing below our dresses. This time, Mary too went out to walk to display her new finery, but, kinder than we had been, she invited us to accompany her. I am ashamed to say that the old Adam in us resented her favored condition so strongly that we refused to walk on the same side of the street with her, and scornfully crossed to the other side, leaving her to walk alone, with all the glory of her beautiful ruffled panties destroyed by our cruel scorn and unkindness.

The early Friends, in their testimony against the foolish changes of fashion among the “world’s people,” had adhered, as far as possible, to the style of dress in vogue when they first arose. In a very few years, this naturally became peculiar, and eventually developed into a sort of Quaker uniform which all faithful Friends felt “led” to adopt. I say “as far as possible,” because certain styles, when they ceased to be fashionable, soon disappeared from the market and could no longer be easily obtained; and also because even the strictest Friends could not help being somewhat influenced by time and habit.

Their testimony regarding plainness of apparel was not a testimony for or against any specific fashion, but simply a protest against following the “vain fashions of the world.” By th e time a style had become old-fashioned and was passing out of use, Quakers were ready to adopt it.

I recently came across a curious illustration of this in extracts from an old diary. In Queen Elizabeth’s time, before Quakers existed, the general fashion was to wear green aprons as part of a lady’s church -going dress. But when Quakers appeared, this style was beginning to die out, and stiff white aprons were becoming fashionable. In order not to follow changing fashions, Friends kept to the green aprons for their go-to-meeting dress, and their preachers denounced the fashionable white aprons as “gay and polluting.” One old preacher is recorded as having declared that the starch water used to stiffen them was “the devil’s water with which they needed to be s prinkled,” warning his hearers against its contaminating use.

Curiously enough, this Quaker objection to following worldly fashions extended even to many useful inventions, which one would suppose Friends’ practical good sense would have welcomed. I remember when sewing machines first appeared; they were considered exceedingly worldly. When I decided to buy one, I had to make the purchase in secret and hide the machine in the most inaccessible room in the house, lest anyone be grieved by my worldliness. Of course, later on, when Friends had grown used to the innovation, sewing machines became common in every well-ordered Quaker household; but for a long time, I felt an uneasy sense of having fallen from grace because of the worldly thing I had acquired.

The standard of plainness necessarily varied from generation to generation. But whatever the standard, the testimony against the vain fashions of the world remained unchanged, and each generation felt that the established costume of its day was in some sense a Divine ordinance, patterned in Heaven itself.

This conviction of the sanctity of “plain dress” arose largely, I believe, from the fact that nearly all personal religious experience seemed to come through this channel. The newly awakened Friend, whether yo ung or old, was invariably confronted with the question of “becoming plain , ” and the surrender of will involved in adopting the Quaker uniform always brought such peace and rest of soul that it was almost inevitable they should regard the plain dress as the cause of the blessing. This was especially true of our own dear father. In his diary, under the date of 1823, when he was just twenty-three, he writes: “While at home from my fifth voyage, I believed it right to adopt the plain dress and language of Friends. While under conviction of its being right, and fearing I should lose my situation if I did so, I met with Samuel Bettle, Sr., who, without knowing the distressed state of my mind, told me that if I were faithful to what I felt to be right, the Lord would make a way for me where there seemed no way; which indeed He did, giving me favour in the sight of my employer, much to my comfort. Hearing of a ship needing a chief mate, I borrowed a plain coat of my friend James Cox — my own not being ready — and applie d to the captain, telling him I could not ‘Mr.’ and ‘Sir’ him as was common. He kindly replied that it would only be a nine-day wonder, and at once engaged me as first mate. Thus, my prayer was answered, and a way was made for me where I saw no way. Praise d forever be the name of the Lord.”

This was the turning point of his religious life, followed by such an uplifting of soul and such a sense of God’s love that he could never dissociate the two experiences. All his life , he believed that if anyone adopted the same dress, the same blessing would follow. I believe he would gladly have bestowed a plain coat upon anyone who would consent to wear it, and nothing ever disturbed his profound conviction that plain coats and plain bonnets had been shaped and patterned in Heaven.

He even assured us once that he fully believed the armies of Heaven, spoken of in Revelation 19:14, who followed the King of kings on white horses, all wore “plain coats.” He was a member of the Board of a Quaker college near Philadelphia, where all students were required to wear straight-collared plain coats. But in hot weather, when students were obliged to wear linen or seersucker coats, the thin collars would wilt down in the heat. When the question came before the Board whether turned-down collars might be permitted in such circumstances, some members were inclined to allow it, but our father would not hear of it. He declared that if the collars could not otherwise be made to stand, whalebone must be used to stiffen them, for “stand they m ust.” I believe, however, that the summer heat finally proved too strong for even his stalwart principles, and he reluctantly consented to the turned-down collars.

I have no doubt similar things occur in other denominations besides Friends. They, too, have their own particular forms and ceremonies required of their members, and submission to these often results in a sense of peace and spiritual rest similar to that experienced by Friends when adopting the plain dress. And like the Friends, many have supposed these forms or ceremonies to be the cause of the blessing, and have elevated them to a place of sanctity, believing them ordained and patterned in Heaven. I felt this very strongly not long ago when attending a Roman Catholic Mass in Italy. I was inclined to criticize the gorgeous robes of the priests, thinking that the Lord could not possibly care for such things, when suddenly it flashed upon me that there was, after all, no real difference between a robe of crimson and gold and a black coat with a stra ight collar, or between a Sister of Charity’s quaint costume and a sugar -scoop bonnet with a dove-coloured shawl. Just as the Quakers of my childhood were certain that their plain clothes were pleasing to God, so these devoted priests were certain that their rich vestments were acceptable in His sight. Each believed they were obeying the Lord in their dress, and their obedience, according to their understanding, was the essential point.

Since that time, I have had no difficulty in feeling absolute Christian charity toward every sincere form or ceremony, however contrary to my own ideas, for I realize the deep truth of the words: “The Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”