HICKS, Elias (1748-1S30). An American minister of the Society of Friends, born at Hempstead, Long Island. While still a young man of twenty he beg-an to feel a deep interest in religion, and within a few years Ili, upright life and his ability as a speaker gained for Into universal reco1_,mition as a minister in the So ciety. During the next half-century he traveled widely through the Eastern States trom Maine to laryland, preaching and organizing new nimt lugs. He was an earliest and influential advocate of abolition, not hesitating to speak against slav ery even in such a slaveholdin,g community a, Maryland. To his efforts was due in large meas ure the passing of the act which emancipated all slaves in New York in I S27. Ile first became the leader of a faction in the Society in 1817. For a number of years before that there had been a determined 111141 made by some of the members to effect a closer union with the Friends of the English society. and as a step toward this was
proposed the adoption of an orthodox creed. the main points of which were the deity of Christ and the vicarious atonement. The proposition met with considerable favor in Philadelphia, and a number of Friends from that city went down to the Baltimore yearly meeting in 1817 to advocate it there. Hicks. who was present, spoke eloquently against the measure, and secured its rejection. From that time may be dated the schism in the Society which became complete in 1.828. Those who followed Ilieks—called 'Hicks ites' as a term of reproach—far outnumbered the orthoMix, and for many years there was great bitterness of feeling between the two factions. Of late, however, this has largely disappeared. Hicks published: Observations on SlaverY (18111; sermons ( 1828) ; Journal of the Life and Religious Labors of Elias flicks (1832) : and Lett( rs (1834).