From the archive: Publishers of Truth
Janet Scott continues her series on the Friend and the first world war and writes about developments as the end of 1917 drew near
In December 1917 Meeting for Sufferings made a momentous decision, which would in 1918 culminate in a trial at the time of Yearly Meeting affecting the Meeting’s procedures and, more importantly, resulting in the imprisonment of three Friends. The decision was to print peace materials without sending them to the censor. Truth was Truth and could not be subject to government.
The Friend on 14 December gave a fairly full account of the discussion and printed the statement that was to be sent to government, MPs and the press, as well as to Friends’ committees and Meetings:
The main interest of the Meeting was consideration of what should be the attitude of Friends towards the regulation of 27c of the Defence of the Realm Act. The subject was brought up by a minute of the Service Committee, stating that they felt unable to be bound by it, since to work for peace and goodwill was the duty of all, and could not depend upon the consent of the Censor. This minute was unanimously endorsed by a conference of representatives of the following Committees: Service, Message, Yorkshire 1905, Home Mission and Extension, Peace, All Friends’ Conference, Friends’ Foreign Mission Association, and Friends’ Tract Association, together with the Clerks of the Yearly Meeting and Meeting for Sufferings and the Recording Clerk, and was sent forward by the Peace Committee.
On behalf of the Service Committee Joan M Fry said that the regulation went to the root of Friends’ very existence as a free Society. All history was pushing them forward along a simple and clear line, she said. She expressed the hope that a definite statement would be issued indicating that Friends could not accept the law as binding their action. Christian conscience could not be bound by the state, she added.
The Friend’s 14 December edition reported that she stressed that:
Quakers and Peace were linked together in the minds of people at large, and we ought to give our best thoughts to the way of peace, and to be allowed to express them. If we, as a religious Society, are to submit what we have to say to a Government office, we give away our whole position as Christians; we cannot give up the right to say what seems to us the teaching of Christ. A great tide of fear is swirling past us; we must be like the rock and stand firm for the things for which we have always stood.
JW Graham, the clerk of the Conference, said it had been ‘remarkable to see how Friends had come up from all parts of the country with the clear and unanimous feeling that the time had come when the Society must stand for the liberty of delivering its message’. He continued:
If the Meeting for Sufferings could see its way to public utterance, it might do much to cheer and help other bodies. Our principle must be that we will not be bound or hindered by Government rule from publishing anything we feel it our duty to publish. Our young men have been willing to go to prison for conscience sake, and older men must now be ready to take their part in the struggle for freedom of conscience.
Many Friends took part in the following discussion. There was almost complete agreement that the Society of Friends could not allow itself to be silenced by an outside body. The Friend reported:
L. Violet Hodgkin said that the original seventeenth century name for Friends had been Publishers of Truth; was the twentieth century name for them to be Censored Publishers of Truth?
John Morland thought that as a religious body, no other course was open to us but that of the apostles: “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” We must be prepared to take the consequences.
There was full and careful consideration of the matter before the clerk submitted a minute appointing a few Friends to draw up a brief and dignified statement of the Society’s position. This made it clear that Friends could not be bound by the censor in what they might feel it right to raise. The statement was agreed as follows:
The Executive body of the Society of Friends, after serious consideration, desires to place on record its conviction that the portion of the recent regulation requiring the submission to the Censor of all leaflets dealing with the War and the making of Peace is a grave danger to the national welfare. The duty of every good citizen to express his thoughts on the affairs of his country is hereby endangered, and further, we believe that Christianity requires the toleration of opinions not our own lest we should unwittingly hinder the workings of the Spirit of God. Beyond this there is a deeper issue involved. It is for Christians a paramount duty to be free to obey, and to act and speak in accord with the law of God, a law higher than that of any State, and no Government official can release men from this duty.
We realise the rarity of the occasions on which a body of citizens find their sense of duty to be in conflict with the law, and it is with a sense of the gravity of [this] decision, that the Society of Friends must on this occasion act contrary to the regulation and continue to issue literature on war and peace, without submitting it to the Censor. It is convinced that in thus standing for spiritual liberty it is acting in the best interests of the nation.
J.T. Eliott, Clerk
Revision of the Book of Discipline
London and Middlesex Quarterly Meeting in December received a minute from Kingston Monthly Meeting suggesting that the time had come to revise part one of the Book of Discipline, which dealt with doctrine. The Friend on 14 December reported:
In speaking to the minute, Edward Grubb pointed out that the last Yearly Meeting had not had time to consider the suggestion of the Faith and Order Committee that the statement presented on the “True Basis of Christian Unity” might be used in connection with such a revision. The need for the revision is urgent for various reasons. There are many inquirers being drawn towards the Society in these days. Our practice as a religious body must have a basis in fundamental beliefs. These beliefs are not truly represented in the present volume, which is largely in the form of a creed, and is defective through the want of explanation of the circumstances that led to the statements extracted.
Whilst one or two Friends felt some hesitation in going forward, on the ground that the time was inopportune or that revision was unnecessary, there was a large weight of opinion in favour of passing the recommendation on to the Yearly Meeting. Henry T. Hodgkin pointed out that just as a growing mind needs a growing faith so does a growing Church need an expanding statement of faith. We are living in an entirely different world of thought from that which prevailed when those passages were written. There was an urgent need for revision, not only for our own Society but for the world at large. A minute was passed sending the subject forward.
Books for children
On 21 December the Friend noticed two books for children. A Book of Quaker Saints by L Violet Hodgkin, which has lasted, was noticed principally for the ‘bulk’ of the book and ‘Mr Cayley-Robinson’s soft and charming illustrations’. The Friend was to make up for this in the following year, but at this point it was much more enthusiastic about Edith F O’Brien’s An Admiral’s Son and How he Founded Pennsylvania. It drew particular attention to William Penn’s belief in peace and his plan for a parliament of the nations of Europe that would enable them to settle differences peaceably.
The Friend
On 28 December readers were reminded that:
As a weekly paper the Friend completed its first quarter of a century a year ago; but as a Quaker organ it is this week three-quarters of a century old. Its first issue, edited by Charles Taylor, was dated First-month, 1843; its last monthly issue, edited by Joseph S. Sewell, was dated Twelfth-month, 1891; and its first weekly issue (Henry Stanley Newman editor) came out on 1st January, 1892. In the seventy-five years it has been successively in the hands of nine editors.
May we wish the Friend many happy returns on its 175th birthday!
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