They moreover believe that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is to be experienced by every sincere believer in Christ, in reference both to his religious duties and to his daily walk in life,—that to be guided by the Spirit is the practical application of the Christian religion. They also maintain that this manifestation of the Spirit, given to every man to profit withal, is the only essential qualification of the Christian for service in the church, and is independent of human choice or appointment. They hold it to be the prerogative of Christ to call and qualify by the Holy Spirit his servants to minister in word and doctrine, and that, as in the earliest period of the Christian church, this Spirit was poured upon servants and upon handmaidens, so he con tinues to call from women as well as from men, from the young and from the old, from the unlearned and from the poor, from the wise and from the rich, those whom he commissions to declare unto others the way of salvation. As such have freely received the gift of the ministry, so are they freely to give without hire or bargaining, far less to use it as a trade to get money by. Hence they refuse the payment of tithes and all other ecclesiastical imposts. They believe that the true worship of God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit ; and that all other worship, beginning and ending in man's pleasure, ought to be rejected. Hence they abstain from the use of all prescribed forms of prayer, and refuse to observe appointed days of thanksgiving, or of fasting and humiliation. They believe that as all the types and shadows and ordinances of the Law were fulfilled in Christ, so he established no new ordinances to be administered or to be observed in his church, that his baptism is that of the Holy Ghost and of fire, that he himself is the bread of life, and that the communion of his body and blood is inward and spiritual, and that in thus partaking of the substance, the figures are no longer needed. They assert that as God bath assumed to himself the dominion of conscience, all punishment for conscience sake is there fore contrary to the truth ; provided that uo man under the pretence of conscience prejudice his neighbour. They believe that true religion delivers man from the spirit and vain conversation of this world, and leads him to inward communion with God; and that hence all foolish and superstitious formalities and all frivolous recreations ought to be rejected: thus all public rejoicings are disapproved of.
Friends deem the taking of all oaths unlawful, and much of their suflbrings arose from the firmness with which in former days they refused the oaths often wantonly tendered to them. They believe too that all wars and fightings are inconsistent with pure Christianity, and they refuse all participation directly or indirectly in them. They believe marriage to be a divine ordinance, but in their marriages they do not use the intervention of a minister, for whose interference they allege that there is no Scripture warrant. When any of the Society intend to marry, they acquaint their respective men's and women's meetings of their intentions, and the necessary inquiries having been made as to the consent of parents, the freedom of the parties from all previous engagements, and, if the woman is a widow with children, as to the security of a due provision for these, the parties in a public meeting for worship solemnly take each other in marriage, and a certificate of the fact is given to them. Friends abstain from all pomp in the burial of their dead and from the use of mourning apparel or of grave-stones. They do not use the heathen names of the days or months, but designate them by their numbers ; and they object to address an individual in the plural number, or by his title of courtesy, or by any designation which they consider as either inconsistent with Christian truthfulness, or as irreverent or merely complimentary ; but they have no scruple against the use of the simple names of dignity or office.
Disdpline.—The discipline of the society was at least indicated and to a great extent established by George Fox with much foresight ; for notwithstanding the great Increase of the body and the altered eiremn stances of the times, the system has been found adequate to the pro tection and the government of the society.
The members of one or more congregations (according to their size) hold monthly meetings for looking to the orderly conversation of the members, for taking care of their poor (a duty which the society rigidly fulfils to the superseding of all parochial relief), for regulating the proceedings in relation to marriage, and for other matters affecting the well-being of the body.
There are quarterly meetings throughout the nation, to -which representatives are sent from the subordinate monthly meetings. There are monthly and quarterly meetings of women Friends similarly constituted.
There are meetings for worship on Sunday, and in the forenoon of one other day in the week. The epistle from the yearly meeting in 1675 exhorts Friends not to decline, forsake, or remove their public assemblies bemuse of times of mutilating; for such practices are not consistent with the nobility of truth.
Finally, there is a yearly meeting of representatives from all churches of the society throughout Great Britain and Ireland. This meeting is held in London on the Wednesday after the third Sunday in May, and remains sitting many days. It receives reports of tile state of the particular churches, and it issues to them a general epistle.
A similar representative body or yearly meeting of women Friends is held at the same time for the general supervision of the religious state of those of their owe sex, but they have no power to make rules for the government of the body. During the intervals of the yearly meeting, the general business of the society is conducted by a meeting termed the .Nfeetiug for Sufferings, which is a carefully selected standing committee of the yearly meeting. There is a general fund belonging to the society, called the national stock ; it is formed by the voluntary contributions of members, and it is applied to the publication of religious works, the expenses attending applications for legislative relief in cases of suffering, the payment of the expensesa of ministers travelling in foreign parts out of the limits of any meet ing, and other public objects of the society.
Whilst it is the duty of the individual members of the society generally to watch over one another in love, this duty is more especially confided to certain officers of each sex in the respective meetings, who are called overseers, and who, whenever any case of delinquency conies to their knowledge, visit the individual privately, and labour with him in tenderness with a view to his restoration ; but if these efforts prove unavailing, they are to bring the case to the monthly meeting, which appoints a committee to exercise further care in reference to it ; and if all attempts at reclaiming the offender should fail, he is disowned as a member of the society by a document issued by the monthly meeting and signed by its clerk.
There are many wise provisions made by the society for exercising care over those who believe themselves called to the work of the ministry. This care is more especially entrusted to the elders, who are persons chosen for their spiritual discernment, and from having given evidence by their fruits of the soundness of their faith. The eventual recognition or acknowledgment of ministers as such rests however with the monthly meeting at large, including all the men and women members of the congregation. Monthly meetings are cautioned not hastily to give certificates of competence to those who desire to travel in the ministry ; but to take care that these are well approved at home, are of sound doctrine, of good conversation, and in unity with their own meetings.
This notice of tho Society of Friends ought not to be closed without honourable locution of their constant efforts in the cause of humanity. The Lancasterian system of instruction has found among Friends seine of its most zealous supporters; they also early opposed the slave trade, and in 1701 members engaged m the slave-trade were disowned. Latterly there has been a growing tendency to modify the distinctive peculiarities of dress and speech, and the desire for a certain amount of conformity to the innocuous habits of ordinary society has received the formai sanction of the annual meeting. For some time there have been symptoms of a decrease of numbers of the sect, and in 1859 prizes were offered for the best essay on the causes of such decline and the ' means of remedying them.
(' Rules of Discipline for the Religious Society of Friends,' London, 1834; Sewers History of the People called Quakers,' London,1834 ; Barclay's ' Apology,' tthe edition used for this article is that of 1701, London); and Memoir of the Life of George Fox,' 1839; also the articles Fox, BARCLAY, PENN, and ClUltNEY, in the Btoo. Div.)