were applicable to private men. The whole attitude of the Quakers assumed the existence of a framework of society, but they refused to admit that the maintenance of that framework justified conduct which was not permissible in private affairs. These Friends were endeavouring to order their lives by a Christian standard; they were punctilious in refraining from ostentatious dress, and in using simplicity in speech.1 They were not in a position to undertake public duties themselves, and they were severe critics of the manner in which official authority was exercised by others. They set up a sort of new religious code, which condemned certain acts as wrong in themselves apart from any consideration of circumstances; and thus they obscured the fact that the rightness and wrongness of conduct is to be considered according to circumstances and that the motives which had been at work make a difference in regard to guilt and innocence.

The Quaker point of view is simple and plausible; it has been revived in the writings of such a man as Tolstoy, and it has found a congenial soil in the great body of Nonconformists. While specially scrupulous in regard to the duties of private men, they have not shown themselves keenly alive to the duty of the nation as a whole, 1 J. J. Fox, Society of Friends, 69–94.

or the importance of organised action. The practical difference between those who do, and those who do not regard the community as a body which has a responsibility to God, comes out at times of national crisis. Men who feel that a nation, which fails to use its power to defend a weak neighbour, or to maintain an engagement, if necessary by force of arms, is guilty of criminal neglect, are ready to do their utmost to save their country from falling into this shame and dishonour. Reluctance to join the army is one sign of lukewarmness in regard to the duties of the community.1 Members of denominations which do not recognise the religious aspect of national life are tempted to plead their own private opinions as an excuse for declining to take a part in a national struggle. In Wales, where for political purposes Nonconformity is dominant, the members of Free Churches have contributed a very small proportion of Welshmen who have rallied to the call to arms; while the strike of the Welsh miners, whatever their grievances may be, shows that they are not keenly appreciative of any duty to the community. Insistence on the rights of the individual

The percentage of the various denominations in the Army is given in a report of the Army Council (November, 1914), Church of England, 70 per cent.; Roman Catholics, 14 per cent.; Presbyterians, 7 per cent., and Wesleyans, 4 per cent. On the other hand the Baptists and Congregationalists furnish 1.2 between them, other Protestants 6 per cent., and Jews.08; and of course there are no Quakers.

conscience and concentration on the duties of private life have their part to play at all times. But religious teaching which goes no further is of little help to the democratic citizen as a guide or stimulus in exercising his privileges; it cannot supply fruitful suggestion in regard to matters of State, and to men engaged in active life it seems to be impractical and absurd. We cannot discuss the duties of the community intelligently unless we regard the community as an organic whole which has a life and duties of its own, and not merely as an aggregate of independent

atoms.

III. CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS

Those who had adopted the new conception of a Christian society, as a purely religious body throughout, were eager to realise it by the only methods that lay within their reach; they seemed to find definite instructions as to their duty in St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians: "What com"munion hath light with darkness? And what "concord hath Christ with Belial?... Wherefore

come out from among them, and be ye separate, "saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." They endeavoured so far as possible to escape from this present evil world; at first they looked to Holland as a district where they might be free

from the ecclesiastical discipline maintained in England, and a congregation of Independents migrated from London to Amsterdam in 1593. Somewhat later congregations from Scrooby and Gainsborough followed these first migrants. Holland, as a confederation of cities and provinces, had little national unity, and made no attempt to maintain the traditional conception of a Christian polity with a well-ordered religious life. Even in Holland, however, they did not find the atmosphere they desired, and they determined to emigrate to the New World where they might be free, once for all, from the unrest created by political intrigue and the wars of religion. The settlers at Plymouth were followed by a still larger number who planted themselves on Massachusetts Bay in 1629, and during the seventeenth century fresh bodies of settlers continued to arrive who were animated by the same spirit. The inhabitants of the Welsh Tract in Pennsylvania in 1690 gave expression to the feeling which was at work in the planting of the New England colonies, as well as that of Pennsylvania. "We can declare," they say, "with an open face to God and man that we "desire to be by ourselves for no other end or pur

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pose but that we might live together as a civil society to endeavour to decide all controversies "and debates among ourselves in a gospel order

"and not to entangle ourselves with laws in an "unknown tongue, as also to preserve our lan'guage that we might ever keep correspondence "with our friends in the land of our nativity."1

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Even in Pennsylvania, where the conditions were most favourable, it was not always possible to avoid causes of quarrel. Though the Indians, as a class, were peaceable, the Welsh Settlers had some trouble with "bad Indians," who roamed the forests and made occasional raids on the live stock of the farms. The rights of property were differently interpreted by Penn and by his Welsh tenants in Pennsylvania; and the views of Roger Williams in regard to civil rights led to his expulsion from Massachusetts; nor was it possible to exclude religious differences altogether, since not all the settlers would agree to the disuse of the Book of Common Prayer. By the end of the seventeenth century it became clear that the attempt to found a new civil society on strictly Christian principles had resulted in failure. A Christian society in the world cannot hedge itself round in such a fashion as to have a complete immunity from the intrusion of mundane and secular affairs. Christians cannot avoid contact with their environment, and live their own life in isolation. * Ibid., op. cit., 388.

1 Browning, op. cit., 379.