Thomas Kelly: A Biography (review)

Abstract

120Quaker History colored glasses. In his preface he writes that he feels the unique contribution of the book was found in his examining "Quaker ideas as a whole, rather than from the point of view of one geographical area or of one theological section of the total Quaker community." It is the most satisfactory book written about Friends in many years. It will not satisfy all Friends, but it would not be wrong to say that no good book could please all Quakers today. For the larger audience, the readers Elton Trueblood has gathered outside the Society, this volume will provide a most stimulating and, hopefully, inviting portrayal of the Religious Society of Friends. Haverford CollegeEdwin B. Bronner Thomas Kelly: A Biography. By Richard M. Kelly. New York: Harper & Row. 1966. 125 pages. $3.75. I have been acquainted with this book since it was only a concern in the mind of Dick Kelly in 1957, while he was still a Haverford undergraduate. I am delighted with the finished product. Having experienced a conversion experience himself while a student at Westtown, Richard Kelly's main purpose in writing a biography of his father was to document the cataclysmic religious experience Thomas Kelly went through in the late months of 1937 and the early months of 1938. Evidence for this change is given in Douglas Steere's introduction to A Testament of Devotion, but all too briefly. Since it was my privilege to know Thomas Kelly intimately as a student and as a member of a cell-worship group in his home, I have been very much helped by this biography, precisely because I knew only the "new" Tom Kelly. I first met him on religious retreat in April 1938, as the crucial months drew to a close. Tom's scholarly image of himself had been shattered by a great failure, thus opening the way for him to become the authentic prophet of holy obedience, to which these pages bear witness. Long selections of his letters home from Nazi Germany in the summer of 1938 are the high point of this book. One short selection will give you a taste: I spent the evening at Karlsruhe talking of the life, which ... is a translation of love into deed. And afterward they said, 'How amazing to hear such talk!' . . . But I am convinced that it stül speaks, when it is genuine. . . . This world . . . strips off all but the genuine. It has to be genuine to stand up in this world of flame. And Quakers have no business here, or anywhere, unless they are genuine. But if the reality of the Divine Life is in any person, there is a living message and everybody . . . can read it . .1 see it as an aspect of the Incarnation. The Life of God must be actualized in men, in life, in lives. And in such lives there is born the way of Redemption (p. 101). It is amazing to reflect that Thomas R. Kelly, the apostle of total commitment, actually said on the morning of the day on which he was to die of a heart attack, "This will be the greatest day of my life!" Those eager to learn more of Thomas Kelly won't want to miss this book. Wilmington CollegeT. Canbt Jones ...