56Quaker History Whatever misgivings linger, I can certainly praise the work ofKeiser and Moore in making accessible at last the life and witness ofIsaac Penington. This book, with its scholarly appendices and indexing, is indispensable to any serious student of Quaker history and offers a wonderful introduction to a great soul. Moore has also rendered valuable service in returning Thomas Ellwood's autobiography (last published in 1906) to print. Like his friends, the Peningtons, Ellwood was one of that handful of wealthy converts to the Quaker movement in the 1650s. He wrote his memoir many years after his convincement, but it contains many fresh descriptions and original expressions of early Quaker life and thought. For example, the northern Quaker prophets that invaded the South (where Ellwood lived) in the mid- 1650s were known for their fiery, confrontational style. But Ellwood describes Edward Burrough and JamesNayler dealing with his theologically confused father "in a soft and gentle manner" (14). He epitomizes Newgate prison in London (where he was confined in 1 662) as "a type ofhell on earth" ( 1 07), going on to describe the boiled heads ofthree men executed for treason. This volume has been published in Altamira's Sacred Literature Series, which reprints neglected religious works from around the world. Appropriately to that series, Moore's Prologue and three Appendices offer some basic orientation to Quaker history and spirituality. An Ellwood bibliography and suggestions for further reading arc also included. Douglas Gwyn, PastorFirst Friends Meeting, Richmond, Indiana "Rememb 'ring Our Time and Work Is the Lords ": The Experiencse of Quakers on the Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania Frontier. By Karen Guenther. Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 2005. Maps, tables, appendixes, notes, bibliography, and index. $52.50. Karen Guenther, in "Reinem 'bring Our Time and Work Is the Lords": The Experiences of Quakers on the Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania Frontier examines Exeter Monthly Meeting, in Berks County, Pennsylvania , during an era of change and development. The book enhances our "understanding oflife along the early American frontier [and] demonstrates that, unlike most other minority religious groups in early America, Quakers could adapt to and flourish in an unfamiliar and perhaps hostile environment " (21). Nevertheless, the author does not always succeed either in placing Friends in the social context of the frontier community or in explaining adequately their relationship to other Pennsylvania Quakers. Book Reviews57 After an introduction to Exeter Monthly Meeting, the author provides a chapter on the religious environment ofthe county, a fascinating account of thereligious sects ofthearea, especiallythenumerous Germanones. And from time to time—but not very often—German customs are referred to. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 (on Quaker religious discipline and sufferings during the French and Indian and Revolutionary War), which are full of detail, have little comparison to other Pennsylvania meetings. By contrast, the details of economic life in Chapter 6 include anumberofcomparisons to otherQuaker communities, producing a larger picture of 18th-century Quaker life in Pennsylvania. However, inChapter7, the fluidity andmobilityonthe frontier, more attention is given to the 17% ofFriends who removed to Virginia than the 37% who moved down the road to Chester County in Pennsylvania. In contrast to what is often assumed about Friends, education was not apparently aQuakerpriority inBerks County inthe 1 8th century, or, forthatmatter, a frontier priority (Chapter 8). For instance, the first Friends committee formedto setup a school didnothing for fouryears. By contrast, the German religious groups were more active in developing primary schools. Chapter 9, on abolition, is thorough, especially because the reader learns more about non-Quaker aspects ofBerks County than in other chapters. Chapter 10, on Quaker contacts with the outside world, lists, at some length, Friends who visited other meetings and Friends who visited Berks County. The final chapterdiscusses thepost-war decline in the membership ofExeterMonthly Meeting, although without much discussion ofreasons for that decline. The many lists occupy a significant proportion ofthe text, although their usefulness is often open to question. In addition, the map on 23 (of the divisions ofthe county) seems extraneous, and there is no post-Revolutionary map to indicate the dispersal of Friends from Berks County. The appendices list every member of Exeter Monthly Meeting (along with overseers, ministers and elders), the notes...