Articles in Quaker Periodicals

Abstract

ARTICLES IN QUAKER PERIODICALS By Frederick B. Tolles and Dorothy G. Harris Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College Journal of Friends Historical Society After a lapse of nearly seven years occasioned by war conditions, the Journal of Friends Historical Society has resumed publication with Volume 38 for 1946. The Bulletin warmly welcomes its slightly older and highly valued transatlantic contemporary back into the field. This most recent issue is unusually full of interesting and important articles and documents. A brief obituary of Arthur J. Eddington, President of Friends Historical Society, reminds us of his valuable intensive studies of Quakerism in Norfolk and includes a bibliography of his principal works, published and unpublished.—Pp. 1-2. "Neave Brayshaw and Quaker History" by Geoffrey F. Nuttall is a warm tribute to the memory of the author of The Personality of George Fox and The Quakers: Their Story and Message, calling attention especially to his exact scholarship, his soundness in the use of the historical imagination, and his concern for spreading the Quaker message.—Pp. 3-6. In "Quaker Books in the 18th Century" Ruth G. Burtt draws upon the records of Gloucestershire Quarterly Meeting for an account of the distribution of the books sent down from London Yearly Meeting in the early eighteenth century. She identifies the books, discusses their circulation , and notes among other things Gloucester's interesting suggestion that "Friends Books ... be sent to severall or all ye Booksellers in this Nation," and that a good discount be offered to encourage this method of "Spreading of Truth."—Pp. 7-18. "The Earliest National Meeting of Friends in Ireland: New Evidence as to its Date" by Isabel Grubb establishes the fact that the first general meeting of Irish Friends was held in November, 1669, rather than May, 1670, as most writers, following Rutty and Wight, have assumed.—Pp. 19-20. "Elizabeth Fry at Newgate" is a vivid word-picture by an eyewitness of one of Elizabeth Fry's regular meetings with female convicts; the writer, Melesina Trench, mother of Archbishop Trench, takes special notice of her manner of chanting in prayer.—Pp. 21-23. 47 48 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION From Theodor Sippell of Marburg in the American Zone of Germany comes "The Testimony of Joshua Sprigge," a remarkable excerpt from one of the forerunners of Quakerism in England. Although he never came under the influence of George Fox and although there are points at which his views differed from those of Friends, Sprigge's central experience and message lead Sippell to call him "the first apologist of Quakerism," although his early tracts were published "before Friends were a people."—Pp. 24-28. "The Luke Howard Collection of MSS" was discovered in 1942 and presented by L. Violet Holdsworth to Friends House Library in 1943. A detailed account of each item in the collection is given, with the full text of the principal unpublished items. MSS. of George Fox, James Nayler, William Dewsbury, Richard Hubberthorne, William Penn, Thomas Ellwood, Robert Barclay, and Luke Howard are included in this important collection, as well as an autograph version of part of John Woolman's Sea Journal.—Pp. 32-46. "Some Anecdotes of John Woolman" from a manuscript at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania in the handwriting of John Cox (who attended school in Mount Holly while Woolman was living there) is contributed by Henry J. Cadbury ; the anecdotes illustrate Woolman's scrupulous accuracy in the use of words and the extraordinary sensitivity of his conscience.—Pp. 49-50. "James Grahame's Diary, 1815-1824," edited by G. F. Nuttall, contains excerpts from the diary of a non-Quaker who was intimate with many English Friends; his references to William Allen are laudatory, those to Elizabeth Fry are not.—Pp. 51-54. "Quakerism in Seventeenth Century Bristol" is a brief summary of an M.A. dissertation by Russell S. Mortimer, based upon original sources in Bristol and in Friends Reference Library In addition to material on meetings and meetinghouses, discipline and education, the thesis contains two chapters on Friends' part in the commercial and public life of seventeenth -century Bristol.—Pp. 55-56. Friends Quarterly Examiner In "Marriage and Membership," Stephen J. Thorne...