MISS STEPHEN AND THE QUAKERS.
• [TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."' SIR, Will you allow me space for a word in reply to what seems almost to amount to a challenge from the writer of the letter signed " A Sincere Inquirer," although I can but re- peat myself by referring him to Barclay's " Apology " (Prop. xiii.) for the grounds upon which we, as a Society, have from the first interpreted the words and actions of our Divine Master in a sense profoundly different from that which is attached to them by almost all other Christians ? It is surely not necessary for me to repeat here that the whole question is as to what our Lord did really intend,—not at all as to the supremacy of his authority. Our divergence is, as we hold, from the majority, not from the Master.
The first half of my chapter on " Free Ministry " is an attempt to answer the very question now raised ; to show how my own mind was independently prepared (as I believe that many others are prepared) by the difficulties inseparable from the ordinary view of these matters, to welcome as simpler, deeper, and truer, the Friends' interpretation of the mind of Christ. I have given the history of my own adhesion to the Quaker faith ; but I did not feel it within my province to attempt any controversial vindication of it.
While the " Sincere Inquirer" would have had me take on myself the office (already filled by Robert Barclay and many others) of controverting the tenets of the vast majority of Christians, your very friendly reviewer " censures " me (play- fully, I suppose) because I did not, in passing, " deal with the difficulties" of those who " deny the existence of an object of worship." Truly I have cause to be thankful for some measure of the Quaker instinct of submission to the limits of one's gift.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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