Quaker Thought and Life Today VOLUME 7 APRIL 1, 1961 NUMBER 7 IN THIS ISSUE BOD knoweth best whot is needful for us, and all that He does is for our good. If Dialogue and the Inner Light we knew how much He loves . • . • • by Maurice Friedman us, we should be always ready to receive equally and with indifference from His hand the sweet and the bitter; all A Quaker Profile would please that came from Him. by Ralph A. Rose - BROTHER LAWRENCE Learning to Teach While Teaching ., by Irvin C. Poley A Treasure Hunt for History Teachers . • . • by Richard A. Platt THIRTY CENTS $5.00 A YEAR Greece and the Greeks 130 FRIENDS JOURNAL April I, 1961 Of Interest to Friends FRIENDS JOURNAL John Woolman Memorial House John Woolman continues to challenge our times with his insight into personal needs and causes of social evils. The early American house built in 1783 on land in Mount Holly, N.J., once John Woolman's orchard, became the John Wool­ man Memorial in 1916. Ever since it has been a quiet place for study and writing, for individual and group retreats, for committee meetings and small conferences. The living room comfortably seats up to 25. There are Published semimonthly, on the first and fifteenth of each month, at 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia 2, Pennsylvania five bedrooms with seven beds, providing for up to ten per­ (LO 8-7669) by Friends Publishing CorPoration sons. The garden and lawn slope back from the street to the WILLIAM HUBBEN Editor lower quiet nook, quite suited to retreats and outdoor meet­ MILDRED A. PURNELL BUSH CLINTON ings. There is a small library of devotional and Quaker Assistant Editor Business Manager books, including several editions of the Journal of John Wool­ MYRTLE M. WALLEN TACY H. BROWNBACK Advertisements Subscriptions man. CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENTS The facilities of the Memorial for night lodging and meals RICHARD R. WOOD, Philade)phia are offered on a cost basis for persons wanting to use the house Africa ......................... ... Maurice Webb, Durban England ......................Horace B. Pointing, London and grounds for purposes suggested above. Food will be pro­ Joan Hewitt, London France ............... ................. Wolf Mend), Paris vided by arrangement, or guests may bring their own provi­ Germany ..............................Ann! Halle. Berlin sions and prepare meals in the kitchen. India ............................ Benjamin Polk, Calcutta Japan ............................. Paul M. Sekiya, Tokyo The John Woolman Memorial is within ten minutes' walk Lebanon ........ Calvin W. and Gwendolyn Schwabe, Beirut Scandinavia ................ Ole Olden, Stavanger, Norway of the Friends Meeting House, Mt. Holly's business section, Midwest (Five Years) .. .. Errol T. Elliott, I ndianapolis, Ind. West Coll8t ................ Ferner Nuhn, Claremont, Calif. public eating places, and the Philadelphia bus. Yet, even with BOARD OF MANAGERS a new housing development nearby, the grounds are secluded 1958-1961: Carol P. Brainerd, Arthur M. Dewees, Miriam enough for a person to feel quite removed from the throng E. Jones, Daniel D. Test, Jr., Anne Wood, Mildred B. Young, 1959-1962 ; Howard H. Brinton, Sarah P. Brock, and thralldom of the passing world. Bliss Forbush, Lawrence McK. Miller, Jr., Philip Stoughton, Carl F. Wise. 1960-1968: Mary C. Calhoun, Eleanor S. Inquiries for the use of the John Woolman Memorial are Clarke, James Frorer, Francis Hortenstine, Emily Cooper Johnson, Elizabeth H. Kirk, Elizabeth Wells. invited by the resident caretakers, Samuel and Clarissa B. THE JOURNAL ASSOCIATES are friends who add five Cooper, 99 Branch Street, Mt. Holly, N.J. (Amherst 7-3226). dollars or more to their subscriptions annually to help meet the over-all cost of publication. Make cheeks pay­ able to Friends Publishing Corporation. Contributions are tax-exempt. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States, possessions, Can­ The Journal of John Woolman and a Plea for the Poor, ada, and Mexico: $5.00 a year, $2.75 for six months. Foreign countries : $5.50 a year. Single copies: t wenty subtitled "The Spiritual Autobiography of the Great Colo­ cents, unless otherwise noted. Cheeks should be made nial Quaker" and comprising the John Greenleaf Whittier payable to Friends Journal. Sample copies sent on request. Second Class Postage Paid at Philadelphia, Pa. Edition text, has been announced as one of the new Ameri­ can Experience Series, published by Corinth Books and dis­ tributed by the Citadel Press, 222 Park Avenue South, New York 3, N. Y. The introduction has been written by Frederick Contents B. Tolles, Director of the Friends Historical Library, Swarth­ Page more College, and the author of many books on Friends, the Of Interest to Friends . 130 most recent being Quakers and the Atlantic Culture. To be Editorial Comments ........ ......... .......... 131 published in the spring of 1961 at $1.75, the book is one of a Dialogue and the Inner Light-Maurice Friedman . 132 new series of quality paperbound books, all "new editions of A Quaker Profile-Ralph A. Rose . 134 historic writings which mirrored and shaped our nation from Poetry by Sam Bradley and Marguerite Werner .... 135 earliest times to the present." Greece and the Greeks-Florence L. Sanville ...... 136 Ecce Homo (poem)-Kenneth Heafield ........ .. 137 A statue by Sylvia Shaw Judson, formerly a member of Rescuing the Caleb Pusey House- Mary Sullivan Providence Meeting, Pa., and now a member of Lake Forest Patterson . 138 Meeting, Illinois, has been received by the City of Philadel­ The Courier phia. This sculpture, cast in bronze, is a statue of Mary Dyer, Learning to Teach While T eaching-Irvin C. Poley 140 seventeenth-century Quaker fighter for religious freedom, who A Treasure Hunt for History Teachers--Richard was hanged in Boston. The statue, a duplicate of the one on A. Platt ...... .................... ....... 142 Boston Common, will probably be installed in the Independ­ Friends and Their Friends . 144 ence Hall area of Philadelphia. FRIENDS JOURNAL Successor to THE FRIEND (1827-1955) and FRIENDS INTELLIGENCER (1844-1955) ESTABLISHED 1955 PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 1, 1961 VoL. 7-No. 7 Editorial Comments Are Miracles Unwanted? now that much of it is becoming the secret property of HE early associate of Martin Buber in his work of a few highly trained minds willing to serve destruction? T translating the Old Testament was Franz Rosen­ These are new dilemmas, and our religious leaders stress zweig, who died years ago. Rosenzweig once instructed that the sense of being lost and living without direction his hearers about the need of inward freedom in acquir­ is the most pervasive feeling in contemporary man. ing a belief. He illustrated his point in the following The National Council of Churches has now published manner: Long before the days of Hitler many Jews in the views of over 1,000 "knowledgeable" people who Frankfurt, situated on the Main River, were indifferent have expressed themselves about the great needs con­ to their faith. The city was a prosperous cultural center, fronting the Church. These needs are identical with and Jewish families in large numbers settled there, in­ those of most individual persons. The replies indicate cluding a good many secular or indifferent Jews. Rosen­ that "being lost" has a new meaning in our day. We zweig ventured to say that all of them, the timid ones, have to discover anew what it means to save man's soul. the cold ones, the cynics, all would become firm believers The individual has lost his sense of purpose. Fatalism if the Main River would suddenly stop flowing on Sat­ and cynicism are common. Most people are willing to urdays. Their new faith, however, would be the faith of be manipulated for power or profit by a few. Many con­ weak ones, who wanted special proof that they were fess that their almost perpetual state of "numb fear" doing the right thing. They were unwilling to assume remains unrelieved. Many feel disappointed after join­ the risks implied in a living faith. They were neither ing a Church. free to sense the glory of faith nor strong enough to bear its unpleasant consequences. But God wants free Instantaneous Communication believers, whereas a miracle has a dictatorial effect. It Our plight is increased by the overuse of all means is totalitarian. It dictates agreement. It cuts off any of communication. World problems seem to have become doubt. But God will not take responsibilities from our constant personal problems. We are bound to link human beings, and the River Main kept flowing even events in Africa with problems in the South. A short during the tragic days of the Nazi persecution. while ago the white leader of the delegation of the Union of South Africa to the United Nations was denied the Great Needs use of two apartments in New York City because he Two generations ago the Swiss historian Jacob Burck­ could not promise not to receive Negroes as guests in hardt, who was as prophetic in many of his statements his apartment. There can hardly be a doubt that echoes as he could be pessimistic, wrote that "the people no from this incident were immediately heard in Africa and longer believe in principles. But from time to time they welcomed by his apartheid friends. Conversely, incidents are likely to believe in messiahs. This is the reason of white churches which appoint Negro leaders or sup­ that in our hopeful twentieth century authority will port the cause of the American Negro are similarly broad­ again raise its head." He might have added that modern cast in the dark continent. We may feel intimidated by man also expects miracles to happen, although he prides being all the time on the stage of world opinion. But himself on his power of reason and his scientific outlook. we may also seize such a situation as an enormous oppor­ Authority, or dictatorship, has indeed raised its head tunity.