A Quaker Weekly VOLUME 1 DECEMBER 31, 1955 NUMBER 27 IN THIS ISSUE #EVEN disUke talk, or specially dislike talk, about obeying God, as if He were The Substance of Hope some Stalin or Hitle1·: I can­ not think that He wants me . by Dorothy Steere to obey Him: what He wants, I think, is that I should learn to cooperate, quietly and in complete freedom, with His Michael Scott Speaks blessed and blessing will, that . by Winifred F. Courtney will of His which I discover deep in my own heart as my own will also-as the best, essential me. E umenical World News -VICTOR GOLLANCZ . by J. Bernard Haviland Fifth National Conference of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO by Esther Holmes Jones FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY $4.00 A YEAR 422 FRIENDS JOURNAL December 31, 1955 One World Two Centuries Ago FRIENDS JOURNAL Letter from the Past-155 T IKE other persons I have supposed that the life of L our ancestors as compared with ours was very pro­ vincial and restricted in information. Without modern communications what could they know of world affairs and how could they have laid upon them "the burden of the world's suffering"? To test this somewhat unmodest sense of our superi­ ority, a device occurred to me. I was reminded by some Published weekly at 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia 2, items in the Sunday travel section of two bicentennials Pennsylvania (Rittenhouse 6-7669) By Friends Publishing Corporation being celebrated this year in quite different places, the WILLIAM HUBBEN JEANNE CAVIN defeat of General Braddock's army near Fort Duquesne Editor and Manager Advertisements MILDRED A. PURNELL LOUISE K. CLEMENT in Western Pennsylvania and the evacuation of the Associate Editor Subscriptions Acadians from Grand-Pre. My memory of the "One­ CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENTS RICHARD R. WOOD, Philadelphia Ross Shay" added to these the Lisbon earthquake. Africa ... ....... ............ .... Maurice Webb, Durban En~rland .... ................ Joan Hewitt, London Seventeen hundred and fifty-five, Horace B. Pointing, London Germany .................. Wilhelm Kohler, Braunsehwei~r That was the year when Lisbon town India . .... , ......... ... ...... Benjamin Polk, New Delhi Japan ............. ............ Bruce L. Pearson, Osaka Saw the earth open and gulp her down Tatsunosuke Ueda, Tokyo Jordan ............... .. .. Graham Leonard, Ramallah And Braddock's army was done so brown. Scandinavia ... ............. Ole Olden, Stavanger, Norway Switzerland ........... .. ........ Robert J. Leach, Geneva Turkey ... ....... ....... .. ... William L. Nute, Ankara Now what did our Quaker ancestors in Pennsylvania Lake Erie Association ...... Winthrop M. Leeds, Pittsbur~rh Midwest (Five Years) .......... Russell E. Rees, Richmond know about these things? The answer, of course, is that New England ................ Thomas R. Bodine, Hartferd West Coast .. ............ Ferner Nuhn, Claremont, Calif. they knew nothing immediately. To learn when and BOARD OF MANAGERS how they came to know, I took the trouble to hunt up 1955-1956: Howard H. Brinton, Sarah P. Brock, Margaret and go through the two contemporary Philadelphia L. Matthews, Lawrence McK. Miller, Jr., Sarah F. Splint. 1966-1967: Eleanor S. Clarke, Barbara L. Curtis, Arthur newspapers for the year. I found out that although the M. Dewees, Irving Hollingshead, Emily C. Johnson. 1966- 1968: Carol P. Brainerd, Willis H. Satterthwaite, Lydia Pennsylvania journal and Weekly Advertiser and the F. Taylor, Daniel D. Test, Jr., Anne Wood. THE JOURNAL ASSOCIATES are friends who add five Pennsylvania Gazette appeared each Thursday in small dollars or more to their subscriptions annually to help meet the over-all cost of publication. size as well as small print, the foreign or distant news SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States and possessions: $4.00 a year, $2.00 for six months. Foreign countries: was much more conspicuous in their pages than the local $4.60 a year. Single copies: fifteen cents. Cheeka should be made payable to Friends Publishing Corporation. news. This news had, of course, none of the competi­ Sample copies sent on request. tion for the attention of readers that we are exposed to Re-entered as second-class matter July 7, 1966, at the post office at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, under the Aet of today. Mareh 8, 1879, · Incomplete information about the engagement near the Monongahela on July 9 was reported cautiously in the Pennsylvania journal for the 24th, and a week later both papers printed a circumstantial eye-witness ac­ count, indicating also what happened to the several officers, including the death of Braddock himself and Contents Page the unwounded survival of an aide then little known: One World Two Centuries Ago-Letter from "Mr. Washington had two horses shot under him and the Past- 155 ....... .......... .. ...... 422 his clothes shot through in several places, behaving the Editorial Comments . 423 whole time with the greatest courage and resolution." Six months after the event the two papers were able to The Substance of Hope- Dorothy Steere . 424 provide their readers with what is rarely done today, Michael Scott Speaks-Winifred F. Cow·tney .. 426 an account of the engagement from the other side, "The Fifth National Conference of the U.S. National French Account of the Battle on the Monongahela." Commission for UNESCO- Esther Holmes The issue of the journal containing this item (No. ]ones ......... ........................ 428 683, January 8, 1756) contains also references to the two Ecumenical World News-]. Bernard Haviland 429 other events, namely, two letters from Portugal about Friends and Their Friends . 430 (Continued on page 430) FRIENDS JOURNAL Successor to THE FRiEND (1827-1955) and FRiENDS INTELLIGENCER (1844-1955) ESTABLISHED 1955 PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER 31, 1955 VOL. 1-No. 27 Editorial Comments The New Year this thought uppermost in our minds: that which we HE turn of a new year has been likened to the did in the past or will do in the future can las t only to T closing of one door and the opening of a new one. the degree in which it is done in the spirit of obedience We do this closing and opening of doors daily so that and Christian love. We must make sure that a door has it becomes a mechanical matter, so mechanical that really been closed and that the door opened leads to a frequently we have to make sure a second time that a new and better room, that the anxieties of the past will door has really been closed. But closed or not, the room no longer need to becloud our vision of the future, and left behind remains with us. It is part of the inventory that our local satisfactions will not terminate in a mood of our mind. of parochial containment. When we close the old year to enter a new one, the Nowadays bold statements about God swarm over the closing seems even less definitive. We carry into the pages of our theological literature. These writers speak new year our human problems as well as our hopes. Our glibly of the nature of God and God's intentions for actions occur in a continuity that takes little heed of man. They ought to teach caution to those of us who the calendar. We are likely to make some kind of re­ speak readily about God's will for Friends, who act as statement, public or silent, of our good resolutions and though they believe in a kind of theological gold stand­ hopes. We pronounce heartfelt wishes to our friends ard and ignore man's progress in recognizing truth. But and neighbors. We relax momentarily from the tensions it seems safe to say that God's plans for Friends have and alarms which usually hold sway over our minds. a purpose far beyond the margins of our Society. This But after that the demands of every day assert them­ is the time to realize that Friends have a unique mes­ selves again. sage to articulate within the Christian world. The em­ phases on clerical guidance and theological dogma so A New Call evident at the 1954 World Council Assembly are not The year 1955 ranks in the history of the Religious our only challenges. Our religious testimonies for peace Society of Friends as one of special significance. Events and racial equality are far from being accepted by most in Philadelphia symbolized the closing of one door quite of our fellow Christians. Fundamentalism must not be independently from the order of our calendar. These permitted to reduce our faith in the inner light to a events had their effect beyond local history and the story sectarian attribute. It is our central tenet, to be shared of Friends General Conference. We have opened a door by all Christians. These affirmations are at the core of leading to new visions and concrete hopes, one that looks George Fox's "unity with all creation." We maintain that upon new spiritual and social hospitality. This step is these beliefs need expression in a way of life, and it is already spreading a sense of spaciousness over the Society more urgent to petition for God's help in the years to such as American Quakerism may not have felt for come than to claim His blessings for positions we may generations. We are beginning to realize that matters have taken in the past. of organization and perhaps even some traditions must give way to the abiding spiritual heritage of our for­ The Eternal Now bears. The inventory of the house they built will serve Such considerations imply an encounter with truth all the future. independent of tiine and the order of the calendar. Truth A new year in the realm of the spirit takes no heed is eternal and sometimes hard to recognize· when it ap­ of our astronomical order. And, again, unlike our calen­ pears in time.