Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS George Fox's Book of Miracles. A Reconstruction from Many Records of an Unknown and Unprinted Book by the Founder of the Society of Friends. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by HENRY J. CADBURY, with Foreword by RUFUS JONES. (Cambridge: at the University Press; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948. xvi, 164 p. Illustrations, index. *6.5o.) George Fox believed firmly that, with help from on high, he was able to perform miracles. In the pages of his famous Journal he briefly describes about a dozen of these, although his cautious editor, Thomas Ellwood, was inclined to tone his descriptions down. There was nothing hesitant, however, about Fox's own claims. He left a manuscript in which he described more than 150 miraculous episodes in which he had had a part. This manuscript disappeared in a manner not now known. In the present book Pro- fessor Cadbury has attempted with great ingenuity to reconstruct the missing work. What made the enterprise possible was an index prepared to go with a catalogue of George Fox's papers drawn up shortly after his death. In this index, the lost book of miracles kept bobbing up in the guise of the symbol "O"; Dr. Cadbury found some 350 entries in which this symbol appeared. As a rule each entry gave the opening and closing words of the passage to which reference was made. But, since each incident was usually catalogued under more than one word, the number of phrases about a given incident, and hence the information about it, increased as the study went on. Dr. Cadbury has pieced together the odds and ends of information thus supplied and has put them into a sequence which, fragmentary as it is, gives a sur- prisingly adequate notion of what the lost volume contained. The reconstruction itself occupies less than fifty pages. To this is prefixed a 100-page introduction which, to one reader at least, is of greater interest than the restored work itself, since Dr. Cadbury raises for discussion in it the main questions which a modern reader is likely to ask. Were Fox's miracles, for example, of the type which would now be called psychosomatic, cures of the body through the inducing of a better attitude in the mind? Most of them undoubtedly were. "Many of Fox's cures," writes Dr. Cadbury, "must be treated as the normal control of strong per- sonality over physical or mental illness." Or as Elizabeth Hooton put it, "his commanding presence, his piercing eye and the absolute assurance which his voice gave that he was equal to the occasion were worth a thou- sand doctors with their lancets." This does not mean, however, that the 396 1949 BOOK REVIEWS 397 ailments he dealt with were merely mental; only about eighteen of the whole number can be confidently so described. There were sufferers from agues and fevers, ulcers, scrofula and smallpox; one strange case is that of an eleven-year-old boy "grown almost double." In the light of what is now known about the influence of mind on body, particularly in persons abnormally constituted, there is no reason to doubt that many or most of these cures took place. What we hard-headed critics of the present day will find harder to believe, of course, is that they were miracles at all, in the sense of exceptions to natural law. Here Dr. Cadbury, I think, would be with us. At the same time, he is more patient with Fox than some of the rest of us would be. I must frankly admit that Fox is not to me a very attractive figure. It is not merely that he was ignorant— ignorant of medicine, of science generally, of history and philosophy; he was complacently ignorant. What is more, he was an egotist: Dr. Cadbury has to admit that "the whole manner of the book was to glorify Fox as the miracle worker." Fox habitually described his "miracles" in language copied from the Bible, a practice which had the double advantage of ex- treme vagueness as to the facts of the case and a dim and rich suggestiveness of supernatural presence. Dr. Cadbury feels able to describe him as "neither credulous nor incredulous but discriminating." I think this carries charity too far. Fox was a great man—granted. But it is possible to be a great man on the moral side and also to be a man of warped and contracted intelli- gence. Unhappily, Fox was both. Yale University BRAND BLANSHARD Meeting House and Counting House. The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682-1763. By FREDERICK B.TOLLES. (Published for The Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948. xiv, 292 p. Illustrations, appendices, bibliographical essay, index. $5.00.) Even the most optimistic among the first settlers of Philadelphia would hardly have dared predict at the outset how quickly the city would grow or how rich its leading businessmen would become. Yet, as George Fox foresaw, the prosperity they soon achieved became the greatest single threat to the simplicity and spirituality which were the essence of their Quaker faith. This book is a study of the way of life of the men who domi- nated the commerce, society, and politics of the city for seventy-five years and of the interaction between their way of life and their religion. Four excellent chapters make clear the nature of the conflict implicit in the Quaker ethic as it applied to economic life. On the one hand were the principles of equality, simplicity, and peace, and the doctrine of steward- ship; on the other, were the inherited Puritan concept of the "calling," which implied a divine blessing upon the diligent pursuit of one's daily 398 BOOK REVIEWS July occupation, and an emphasis in Quaker teachings upon such virtues as industry, frugality, prudence, honesty and order. These principles con- tributed to economic success, but success might lead in turn to the vices of luxury and pride. When the Quaker merchants began to attain real prosperity the implicit conflict became explicit. After a somewhat sketchy chapter on the nature of the merchants' busi- ness and their attitudes toward contemporary financial problems (this is not, of course, a study in economic history), the book proceeds to a description of their manner of living. Neither in their attitudes nor in their behavior did these grandees show democratic tendencies in advance of their times; they were, in fact, class-conscious aristocrats. Although they eschewed excessive ornamentation, their clothing was "of the best sort" and their houses were as comfortable and elegant as those of rich non-Quakers. Chapters on the literary and scientific interests of the Quaker merchants establish that at least some of them were "among the best-read and most cultivated men in Colonial America." They used their wealth generously to assist "the Lord's poor," and were often most public spirited, but clearly many of the magnates were not fully observing the principles of equality and simplicity. In secular affairs they were becoming more and more like "the world's people." There were Friends, however, who were disturbed by this trend, and when, in 1756, the international situation made it impossible for the Quak- ers to maintain their political leadership without being unfaithful also to their testimony of peace, matters reached a crisis. The Society of Friends underwent a reformation; Quakers withdrew from public office; a new spiritual sensitivity appeared, especially among the younger generation; and in time, many of them reverted to a way of life in harmony with "the simplicity of Truth." By the time of the American Revolution, Philadelphia Quakerism had come full circle. Professor Tolles has brought to his study both the techniques of a trained historian and the sympathetic understanding of a "convinced" member of the Society of Friends. The result is a thoughtful and illuminating inter- pretation of one of the most interesting groups of men in colonial America. Yale University LEONARD W. LAB ARE E Gentleman's Progress. The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamiltony 1744. Edited with an Introduction by Carl Bridenbaugh. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948. xxxii, 267 p. Illustrations, index. $4.00.) Dr. Alexander Hamilton, a Scotch physician, practicing in Maryland, undertook a journey for his health in the year 1744. Leaving Annapolis he traveled north through Baltimore and Philadelphia to New York, where he took passage on a river boat for a round trip to Albany. Upon his return he 1949 BOOK REVIEWS 399 rode out to the end of Long Island and crossed over to New London; his route then took him to Newport, Boston, Portsmouth and, finally, to York in present-day Maine. His return was by the same route, except that he did not cross over to Long Island, but continued to New York on the jnainland. This journey, which Dr. Hamilton estimated at 1,624 miles, he carefully chronicled. In the literature dealing with the colonial period, Dr. Hamilton's Itiner- arium takes an important place because of its value as a historical document. His shrewd analyses of what he saw and his detailed description of much which other observers have neglected promotes a clearer understanding of colonial life. The curiosity of the people, their rapt interest in theological questions, and their growing identity as Americans are outstanding impres- sions received from the book. "I found but little difference in the manners and character of the people in the different provinces I passed thro'," wrote Dr. Hamilton.

Load more