A Quaker Weekly VOLUME 3 APRIL 20, 1957 NUMBER 16 f'!l:mRE is a pow., within IN THIS ISSUE the world able to set men free from fear and anxiety, from hatred and from dread: a power able to bring peace within society and to establish Joseph of Arimathea by William Hubben it among the nations. This power we have known in measure, so toward this we call all men to turn. Ge~rge Washington and Yearly The spirit and the pQJJ.Jer of God enter into our life 'Meeting by Maurice A. Mook thmugh selfless service and through love- through tender pity and patient yet undaunt­ ed opposition to all wrong. William Wistar Comfort God is Love-love that suf­ fers, yet is. strong; love that . Memorial Minute triumphs and gives us joy. - EPISTLE oF LoNDON YEARLY MEETING, May 1939 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1957 TWENTY CENTS A COPY Epistle of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1957 $4.50 A YEAR · 254 FRIENDS JOURNAL April 20, 1957 FRIENDS JOURNAL Epistle of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends Held Third Month 21st to 27th, 1957 To ALL FRIENDs EvERYWHERE: As we have met in this our 277th annual session, the reading of your epistles has warmed our hearts and given us a sense of shared responsibility. This feeling has been strengthened as visiting Friends have conveyed Published weekly at 1616 Cherry Street, Philadelphia 2, Pennsylvania (Rittenhouse 6-7669) to us their greetings and messages. By Friends Publishing Corporation WILLIAM HUBBEN JEANNE CAVIN A year ago our sessions were permeated by a sense Editor and Manager Advertisements of joy that we were again one in the service of our LOIS L. COMINGS MARTHA TURNER Assistant Editor Subscriptions Heavenly Father. Today, as we consider how closely CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENTS our two groups have been woven together, we lift our RICHARD R . WOOD, Philadelphia Africa ......... ............ .... Maurice Webb, Durban hearts in thankfulness for the many evidences of God's En11land .................... Horace B. Pointing, London Joan Hewitt, London continued loving care for us. Germany ................................ Lottelore Roloff f:erda Crodel We have met under a strong sense of our own need India ........................... Benjamin Polk, Calcutta Japan . ....... .. ...... ........ Bruce L. Pearson, Osaka for spiritual growth. We were reminded of those many Jordan ...................... Graham Leonard, Ramallab Scandinavia .............. Ole Olden, Stavanger, Norway children scattered across the world who are unaware how Switzerland . Robert J. Leach, Geneva Turkey .................... William L. Nute, Jr., Ankara hungry they are because they have never known what Lake Erie Associallon .... Winthrop M. Leeds, Pitt$burgb Midwest (Five Years) . ...... Russell E. Rees, Richmond it means to be adequately fed. It can be so with our New England .............. Thomas R. Bodine, Hartford West Coast ......•....... Ferner Nubn, Claremont, Calif. own spirit, which may not be aware of its undernourish­ BOARD OF MANAGERS ment. We pray for ourselves and for our children that 1956-1967: Eleanor S. Clarke, Barbara L. Curtis, Arthur we may have a hunger for truth and holiness. M. Dewees, Irving Hollingshead, Emily C. J ohnson. 1956- 1968: Carol P. Brainerd, Willis H. SatterthwAite. J.y~ia F. Taylor, Daniel D. Test, Jr., Anne Wood. 1966-1969: How­ The reports of our standing committees have made ard H. Brinton, Sarah P. Brock, Ruth 0. Maris, Margaret L. Matthews, Lawrence McK. Miller, Jr., Sarah F. Splint. us aware of our responsibility to the larger community. THE JOURNAL ASSOCIATES are friends who add five Mass materialism and conformity to manmade patterns dollars or more to their subscriptions annually to help meet the over-all cost of publication. of thought and conduct have brought mankind into a SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States, possessions. Can­ ada, and Mexico: $4.60 a year, $2.60 for six months. position where its very existence upon earth is threat­ Foreign countries: S6.00 a year. Single copies: fifteen cents. Checks should be made payable to Friends Pub­ ened. We believe that the same power which has guided lishing Corporation. Sample copies sent on request. Re-entered as second-class matter July 7, 1966, at the post our meeting in the reconciling of our differences can office at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, under the Act of March 8, 1879. speak through the lives of dedicated Friends to the needs of a suffering world as we open our hearts to God's lead­ ing. We are all brothers in the sight of God, endowed with a share of His spirit. As we seek for this indwelling spirit of Christ we will be given power to witness to the great truth of human brotherhood. Contents Page The wisdom and spiritual resources of those whose Epistle of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1957 ... 254 lives have been deepened by struggles and suffering to Joseph of Arimathea-William Hubben ...... 255 which we are strangers make us feel truly humble. We pray that we all may increase in the knowledge and love William Wistar Comfort . 256 of God and in fellowship with one another. May the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1957 ... .. ...... 257 spirit of Christ dwell in our hearts and be the teacher George Washington and Yearly Meeting- of us all. MaU1·ice A. Mook ........................ 265 Yours in Christian love, Friends and Their Friends 265 On behalf of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Letters to the Editor ....................... 267 CHARLES J. DARLINGTON, Clerk FRIENDS JOURNAL Successor to THE FRIEND (1827-1955) and FRIENDS INTELLIGENCER (1844-1955) EsTABLISHED 1955 PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 20, 1957 VOL. 3-NO. 16 ]oseph of Arimathea AMONG the minor figures of the Gospel, Joseph of His spiritual kinship with Jesus and the disciples was fl. Arimathea attracts our particular attention be­ probably, then, a lonely communion of thought and cause he gave to Jesus the grave he had prepared for aspiration. Joseph may have shared it with Nicodemus, himself. Biblical allusions to Joseph provide the rather the fellow seeker, in guarded conversations and with the slim information that he was a wealthy Jew and a mem­ many safety devices of diplomacy that were part of their ber of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court. He petitioned office and station in life. Both had been reared in the Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus, and we may con­ traditions of the Temple, yet they knew they were still sider him, therefore, sympathetic to Jesus, his family, living in the outer court of truth. or his disciples. This request to the Roman procurator Joseph's final request for the body of Jesus may have, may have taken some courage, since it might easily at least in part, been prompted by self-reproach and have cast political suspicions upon him; guilt by asso­ repentance. He had done nothing to prevent the Coun­ ciation is by no means an invention of our time. Joseph cil from condemning Jesus. Now he knew that we are supplied the clean linen shroud for Jesus and "rolled a never granted neutrality. For the aging Joseph this was great stone to the door of the tomb." Earlier, Nicodemus a late moment to be reborn, but as in the case of Nico­ had come with a hundred pounds of "a mixture of myrrh demus, it was not too late. Time is of the essence when and aloes" to be used for embalming the body. The there is little left of it. His grave was ready; he was tomb was "close at hand," probably near Golgotha, the living in the two dimensions of life and death. What are place of execution. The burial was completed before people thinking who go to their future resting place to the Sabbath began, that is, before six o'clock in the eve­ meditate about the time that will no longer be counted ning. These are the bare facts of the story. in terms of days and years? What thoughts and feelings There are, of course, more suggestive hints to tease are stirring in their hearts? our imagination. The twilight mood of the evening hour It was almost symbolical when Joseph gave his tomb will always be over the Arimathean. There is, first, the to Jesus. The encounter with death seemed postponed, fact that not a single word of his is recorded. As a wit­ at least for the moment, and he had to make new plans ness he appears late to give his mute testimony, and we for his own burial. Yet we are told nothing about it. shall never know how much of a disciple he really was And why should we be? A tomb no longer matters to at heart. There are other unknown factors about his one who has suddenly seen eternity. We also hear noth­ action and attitudes that make his character profile more ing about his later life. He disappears among the face­ tentative than is the case with the disciples. Was he a less many of the Bible whom no archeologist can ever timid man? Was he a spiritual relative of Thomas, dean rescue from the sleep of centuries. The blind man from of the skeptics? Or did Jesus' death open up his heart Jericho, the epileptic boy and his confused father, the and clear his vision for his final generous deed? We adulteress whom Christ saved from death, the healed may easily reprove Joseph and his colleague Nicodemus leper, the girl and the N ain youth raised from the dead, for being intellectuals who so often know too much and the scores of others who had witnessed the incredible believe too little. Until their great moment came, they "mighty deeds," and the thousands who were miraculously may well have found it more comfortable to remain neu­ fed-what became of them? Where did their appalling tral and flounder along in that convenient anonymity experiences lead them? Who of them joined the three which breeds first cowardice and then indiffe~ence.