The Revolutionary Origins of The Methodist Church

Methodist Church

There were no signers of the Declaration of Independence who were official Methodists, for the simple reason the Methodist Church was in a sense not created until 1784 when John Wesley, secretly ordained the first ministers. However, there is room to believe the movements creating the Methodist Church also played a central role in American agitation for independence.

The origins are a little confusing. John and Charles Wesley were both priests in the Church of England, and John famously declared, "I will live and die an Anglican." While at Oxford, they founded a bible and ethical study society which came to be called the Holy Club, and because of systematic thoroughness were familiarly known as Methodists. Systematic study of the bible in small class groups was a central feature. There was no dissatisfaction with, or rebellion from, the Church of England. Missionary zeal was a second early feature of the group, and some early missionaries like Bishop Francis Asbury were especially active in the American colonies. When Asbury came to America there were 1200 adherents of the general concepts, and when he died there were a quarter of a million formal members of the church. This rapid growth soon became its main problem, because the Anglican Church simply could not supply enough priests, and so the local congregations demanded the right to ordain their own ministers. Wesley agreed, but did it secretly. America was a long way from England, and the idea of a local church, independent of England, soon made its appearance, particularly as local practices began to diverge from the Anglican ones.

Missionary zeal soon evolved into a more exhortation evangelism. In Pennsylvania Quaker country, restlessness with Quaker silence produced a reaction of joyous outcry during religious meetings, creating the description "shouting Methodists". Hymn singing was important as a result of Charles Wesley's influence, and many Methodist hymns have been adopted by other Protestant denominations. Drunkenness was a major problem in the colonies, and anti-drunkenness or temperance, was a main feature of Methodist attention. A century later, Methodist ministers were to found the Salvation Army, which embodies many of the principles of evangelical, hymn singing anti-drunkenness crusading.

Charles Wesley

From its earliest days, Methodism welcomed blacks into membership, although a segregationist strain to it ultimately caused trouble. A central figure in the configuration of the early Methodist Church was John Newton, the captain of a slave ship. After nearly perishing in a storm, Newton attributed his rescue to God's intervention, writing the famous hymn, "Amazing Grace. He spent the rest of his life in evangelical activities, with particular emphasis on black people.

Although his American visit preceded the formation of the Church, George Whitefield the evangelical preacher played a major role in preparing the Colonial Philadelphia populace for the concepts of Methodism. He attracted great crowds to his sermons, and Benjamin Franklin describes in his autobiography the great impact Whitefield had on him. Now, as it happened, the German Reform church had started but was unable to complete a church building at 235 North 4th Street, which was sold at auction to members of the local Methodist Society. This church building, started in 1763, purchased in 1767, and completed in 1769, can fairly claim to be the oldest Methodist Church building in continuous service in the world, although the dates of these things are pretty confusing for a church officially created in 1784. Just to make things more difficult to understand, Barratt's Chapel, ten miles south of Dover, Delaware, was completed in 1784 on land donated in 1780. If you say it slowly, you can see that it is possible to describe Barratt's Chapel as the oldest house of worship built by and for Methodists. John Wesley's chapel, on City Road, London, is however still the mother church, so to speak. St. George's Church in Philadelphia is notable for ordaining the first black minister, Richard Allen, who had been born a slave of Benjamin Chew (the Chief Justice, whose house was Cliveden, the scene of the Battle of Germantown). Allen was obviously a remarkable person, who bought his own freedom by working as a shoemaker, and who later drove wagons from Rehoboth, Delaware to Valley Forge during the Revolution. (Allen had actually been sold by Chew to Stockley Sturgis, a Delaware plantation owner, who is the one who remorsefully sold him his freedom). Allen often preached five times a day, built up a huge following in the black community, and broke off to form the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The first Church was Bethel, replaced several times at 6th Lombard Streets,, but there are now many others across the country.

Visitors from New Jersey, crossing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, will be able to see the top half of St. George's Church as they descend into Philadelphia. At Christmastime, the windows are lit with real candles, and the interior is a beautiful simple white room. It now has less than a hundred members, but houses the genealogy and other church records for a wide area, and is very popular with people doing research. The bishop's chair dates from Bishop Asbury. Barratt's Chapel is smaller and simpler, but the highway makes a wide swing around it and its burial ground, so it remains a prominent feature of the area around Frederica. It takes several minutes to drive around it, even at high speed, on the way to the Delaware beaches. Wesley College is not far away. Stockley (currently spelled Stockley) is commemorated as the name of a small town on the highway, twenty miles south of here.

The Hogan Schism

These issues of controlling authority (ultimately quite parallel to the contrast between a monarchy and a republic) came to a head around 1820, when a charismatic Irish priest named William Hogan came to Philadelphia, and soon became the clear favorite of the trustees of the local church. There had previously been difficulty getting anyone to accept the contentious job of Bishop, but when Henry Conwell took the job, he soon decided that Hogan had to go. The trustees nevertheless supported Hogan, and it became necessary to appeal to Horace Binney,

Horace Binney

a non-catholic, to negotiate a solution. (Binney's son later became a founder of the Union League, and like his father was much respected for many civic accomplishments.) The outcome, unfavorable to Hogan, encouraged the Church to become much more forceful in exerting Vatican control over provincial churches, especially American ones.

So matters turned out one way for the Methodist-Episcopals, and the opposite way for the Catholics. Each group now expresses satisfaction with the enduring effect on their system. However, it is clear that both top-down and bottom-up convictions are very unyielding, and are not confined to either religion or politics. Both philosophies are in fact seemingly resoundingly justified by occasional experiences, and therefore strongly persist to this day. Along the same lines, the election of bishops by the priesthood, and selection of the priests by the lay deacons, are the central differences between the Church of England and the American Episcopalian Church. The evolved solution among the American Episcopalians has been the latitude to seek a "flying bishop" from somewhere else when the local bishop differs significantly from the viewpoints of some local parish. This has been a source of vigorous debate even recently, and even in the Philadelphia area.

While there is no need to stir up these dangerous embers, anyone who seeks to understand the issues which led to the American colonies going to war for independence from England, must understand this matter. Many historians would agree that the American Revolution was provoked by George III attempting to strengthen the monarchy at a moment in history when the colonists were seeking more local autonomy. All colonial institutions tended to reflect this central disagreement about autonomy in governance, but it is conceivable that the religious influenced the political more than the reverse. Tensions about authority were of course greatly magnified by the other notoriously strong religious dissensions of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century.

Stephen Girard and Religion

Girard College

In 1950, an elderly retired gentleman named Witherbee paid me a visit when I was temporarily covering a practice for a doctor in Woodbury, New Jersey, in locum tenens, as we say. His medical problem was easily tended, and we chatted.

He told me that he had attended Harvard Divinity School many years before, and one day was about to graduate as an ordained minister. His family, and many other proud families, were gathered on folding chairs on the lawn in Cambridge to watch the graduation ceremonies. The graduates were called up one by one, in alphabetic order.

Since Witherbee is at the end of the alphabet, he had a lot of time to think over the significance of what the members of his class were doing. In time, thinking over the personal defects of each classmate who preceded him, he became overwhelmed with a personal question. "How can I tell others how to behave, when I don't know how to behave, myself?"

And so, when his turn came, his name was called out, and he rose in his seat. "I decline to graduate."

The consternation of his family can be imagined, along with the stir in the audience, the astonished face of the Dean, and his own confusion about the uproar he had just caused. But although the die was cast, and the action a final one, it had a surprising outcome. The next day, he received a telegram from the Girard College in Philadelphia, inviting him to be considered for the position of Director of Religious Studies. It seems that Stephen Girard had provided in his will that no ordained minister might set foot within the walls of Girard College, and yet they felt they needed someone to oversee religious study. Witherbee was perfect: he had the credentials, but he did not have the ordination curse.

And so he happily remained in that capacity for the rest of his employed life.

AFSC: American Friends Service Committee

Two things uniquely characterize the work of the Friends Service Committee (AFSC): it's often both dangerous and unpopular. That's not required for relief following Indonesian tidal waves perhaps, but the work that really needs someone to do is often both dangerous and controversial.

Rufus Jones

The Service Committee was founded in 1917, mostly by Rufus Jones and Henry Cadbury, as a way of helping conscientious objectors to World War I. The Mennonites, the Brethern, and the Quakers were opposed to all wars not just that particular one, but two of those religions are of German ancestry, and lacked the same credibility of the English-origin Quakers in a war with English allies against the Huns, Boche, and Kaiser enemies. The early focus of the Committee was on the Field Service, or Ambulance Corps; which was plenty close to the action, and plenty dangerous. After the War, the defeated German population was starving, and the Quaker Herbert Hoover directed the relief effort with great credit to the Quaker name, and immense European gratitude.

Reinhard Heydrich The primary organizer of the mass murder of Jews in the Third Reich.

After that, when German Jews were suffering persecution by the Hitler administration, the Quakers initially responded in a uniquely Quaker way. Rufus Jones and two other Quakers went to see Reinhard Heydrich, to tell him the world disapproved of his behavior. They fully realized they represented a pool of important world opinion, particularly within Germany, and it was time to speak truth to Power. The Germans left the room to confer, and the three Quakers bowed their heads in silent prayer. Apparently the room was tape recorded, and when the German officials returned, they did promise some efforts to improve matters. As the situation for the Jews soon got much worse, many Quakers risked a great deal to shelter and rescue the persecuted exiles. Relief to the defeated German populace had to be repeated after that war, as well. Each effort built up more credibility to be able to switch sides for the next effort, and the sincerity has seldom been seriously questioned.

U.S. government notices to American citizens or aliens of Japanese ancestry that they must move to internment camps. (Photograph by Dorothea Lange. May 1942)

The Japanese were also our hated enemies in World War II, and once more a long history helped the relief effort. Nearly 100,000 American citizens of Japanese origin were interned on the West Coast as potential traitors in 1941, often under deplorable conditions. Clarence Pickett was director of AFSC at the time, and his sister had spent years in Japan as a missionary, so his remonstrations with the American government were prompt and credible. One of the more active workers was Esther Rhoads, sister of the famous surgeon, who had spent time in Japan earlier. One of the ingenious efforts with the Nisei was to assist 4,000 of them to get into college, and find them hostels and jobs while they were away at school. Many of these college students later became prominent in various ways, greatly assisting the post-war reconciliation between the two countries.

Elizabeth Gray Vining

Two Quaker ladies at the AFSC made a totally unique contribution when a request was received to provide a suitable tutor for the Crown Prince, now Emperor. He didn't convert to Christianity, but he later married a Christian, and you can be sure he got a plenty good dose of Quaker style and belief from Elizabeth Gray Vining. This tall, strikingly handsome Philadelphia woman had Bryn Mawr written all over her, and turned heads whenever she entered a room. When she went back home, she was followed as tutor for seven years by, guess who, Esther Rhoads who by then was the director of the Tokyo girls school. It remains to be seen, of course, what the final outcome of this deeply emotional situation will prove to have been. At the moment, the main sufferer seems to be the immensely talented American-educated woman who married the Emperor. But we will see; these are all powerful women in a very quiet way, unaccustomed to losing. One wishes the royal family all the best in their sometimes difficult position.

And then the Service Committee did its work in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Zimbabwe, and Somalia on the unpopular side, in every case. There are stories of venturing into war zones with hundred-dollar bills scotch-taped to their torso, where every fifty feet there was someone who would cut your throat for a dime. One worker in Laos entertained a group of us tourists with tales of living for weeks with nothing to eat but grasshoppers and cockroaches. Dangerous, unpopular, and uncomfortable. It sounds like a wonderful outlet for someone who is a perpetual rebel without a cause, but if you can find one of those at the Service Committee, you must have done a lot of looking.

The Service Committee, like the Quaker school system, is mostly run by non-Quaker staff. That means that neither of them exactly speaks for the religion itself. This little religious group of 12,000 members is stretched thin to provide a vastly greater world influence than its numbers imply. Hidden in the secrets of the group is an enduring ability to attract sincere non-member adherents to their work. And a quiet watchfulness to avoid losing control to any wandering rebels without a cause.

Christ Church Memorabilia

Strickland

C hrist Church in Philadelphia was established in 1695, and was thus recently celebrating its 310th anniversary with an exhibition of the church's artifacts. They are listed here after an anonymous article in Beaumont News:

Books were sent in 1697 by Thomas Bray.

In 1701, Queen Anne sent the communion silver.

In 1727 Philip Syng carved the baptismal basin.

There is a prayer book altered on July 4, 1776 to remove King George's name.

Colleges and Religions Drift Apart

Yale Divinity School

Until fairly recently, academic institutions have existed as an outgrowth of religion, enlarged monasteries, sort of. The Catholic Church in Europe had its medieval universities, but it could probably have got along without them. It was Protestantism, especially American Protestantism, which needed a place to train ministers. Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton and the other early American colleges were established to train ministers. If there was room, they sometimes took students with no intention of entering the ministry; more often, the non-ministers had enrolled with a religious vocation but drifted away from it. In time, the professional schools of medicine and law joined theology as learned professions, and of course the colleges needed a supply of educated teachers for themselves.

And so it evolved that colleges and universities of the Philadelphia region almost always had religious sponsors, and among Catholics the different Orders had their own colleges. Temple had Baptist origins, Princeton was Presbyterian, Eastern University was originally Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. There is Moravian College, and so on. Since this was once an entirely Quaker region, we have Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and Swarthmore, although the Quakers were slow to trust the idea of colleges, since they hoped their members would remain unmoved by clergymen. The other dominant religion of the colonies, the Anglicans, split off from the British church as Episcopalians, and then got somewhat scattered by the awkwardness that many Anglicans were Tories. The non-Tory Anglicans tended to wander off into Methodism, a form of Episcopalianism formed by non-ordained leaders cut off from British influences by the Revolution. The Presbyterians, however, were the heart of the American Revolution; their Scotch-Irish ancestors had no trouble saying what they thought of the British. With the attainment of Independence, they prospered as victors. Gradually, the original idea of a college to train ministers evolved into a college to teach future lay leaders of religious groups about their faith. Hidden in this transformation of the schools was an acknowledgment that leadership was migrating away from the clergy. Even the Quakers, who always declared they had no truck with clergy and had no fixed doctrine to teach, grasped the central point of this and formed their three colleges so that Quaker children could acquire a Quaker education, and presumably, find other Quakers to marry. That was the slogan of the times, but the underlying realization was that the enduring values of a religion are guarded and promoted by an educated elite, not an ordained clergy.

This drift toward what is called secularism had some peculiarly Philadelphia variants. The University of Pennsylvania was founded by Benjamin Franklin, a deist, and has never had a divinity school, although it has a school of religious studies. A deist is someone who believes that something called God may have created the world and established its rules. Perhaps so, but since that original and final act of creation, God has simply left the world to run along on its own. Out of this and the dissensions of the Revolution, grew up the tradition of wealthy Philadelphia families sending their children to Harvard and Yale if Episcopalian, and to Princeton if Presbyterian. Princeton was a natural direction to take during the 19th Century when wealthy estates occupied the banks of the Delaware River all the way up to within walking distance of Princeton, and the River was the main highway. This hurt the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania by draining off sources of support, either to other Ivy League schools or to the trio of Quaker colleges. It particularly hurt Penn's undergraduate college, since the Quaker Colleges, and Princeton, held back from professional and graduate schools, and looked to send their graduates to Penn after the formative undergraduate years. Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, Ursinus, Muhlenberg, and Lafayette did the same, remaining content to provide a sound liberal education rather than training for a career. Consequently, an opportunity was created for graduate schools without an undergraduate base, like Hahneman, Women's and Jefferson Medical Colleges, or Lehigh and Drexel for engineering,, Moore School for Art. Mergers and academic imperialism have tended to push all of these free-standing units toward fuller university status. All in all, nearly a quarter of a million students now attend colleges in the Philadelphia region. But a sound liberal education was not exactly the same as a sound religious one.

Meanwhile, of course, religion has lost its dominance in American life. Things reached some sort of climax in 2000, when Yale University officials contemplated closing the Yale Divinity School. It was said to be an expensive distraction, out of the mainstream of University life. Momentarily forgetting that the teaching of Divinity was the main reason for founding the University, those former flower children of the sixties, now fortified with tenured rank, abruptly learned that religious feeling in America is not entirely dead. Dying, perhaps, but not so dead as to forget the legalities of restricted endowment funds.

The next step in this evolution is not so clear. In 2006, the majority of Americans seem to live in "red" states, where religion is both strong, and displeased with acknowledging automatic authority to secularized universities, or even to "blue" states in general. The decisive issue is whether this topic is mainly an educational one, or mainly a religious one. And that remains to be seen, because at the moment it is not quite either one.

Easter Sunrise in Philadelphia

Thomas Holmes

William Penn first advertised the layout of his new city in a book by Thomas Holmes published in 1683. Records are lacking about how these plans developed, how much of the idea came from Holmes, how much of the rest was carefully planned, versus how much just worked out. There's not much doubt the streets were laid out in a square grid. And the "numbered" streets all run North and South, following the compass path. These two ideas make it inevitable that the cross streets named after trees would run due East and West. That's enough for a sketch, and whether anyone thought about it further is not clear.

However, the consequences of this layout are that if you looked East at the sunrise on March 21, the rising sun would be exactly framed within the streets, whether they are lined with trees or lined with skyscrapers. That would make quite an Easter morning, with every cross street in the city pointed exactly but briefly at the rising sun.

Let your imagination run on this idea, a little. The exact day of Easter varies a little because of the Biblical definition of Passover to which it is linked, and the Eastern Orthodox Easter varies from that. With Philadelphia providing a forceful example of the utility of using an astronomical definition which was probably the original basis for all the religious traditions, maybe it would even become easier to remember just what date Easter is, each year. Or, perhaps things would go haywire the way things did in Brazil. Magellan sailed into what looked like the mouth of a big river on January 1, 1520, so he named it the Rio de Janeiro. They have an enormous Mummers-like celebration down there in Rio every New Year's, in spite of the awkward fact that it's just a big bay, there is no river there at all, and the dates for Christmas are astronomically a little mixed-up too.

Well, to get back to William Penn, his streets run North and South from Magnetic North. Even though it's quite a natural mistake to make in the Seventeenth Century, that's six degrees off from True North. So the astronomical transformation of Philadelphia into one big humongous Easter sunrise celebration never happened.

We'll never know for certain, but, on reflection, that may be just as well.

Quaker Doctrine and Schism

Society of Friends

The Society of Friends had never promulgated articles of religion to be subscribed, or a catechism to be taught." In this curious manner, a lack of doctrine has become the doctrine. Still more unexpectedly, a religion dedicated to peace and non-violence has mostly defined itself by resisting some proposals so violently that schism was the result. The central propositions can now be best deduced by observing the reasons why dissenters departed the Society, or why agitators were directed to separate. It can be questioned whether the early Quakers who shaped the Society really intended for non-members to define it. In 1691 the first serious rebellion from non-doctrine came from George Keith, who may well have had exactly this issue in mind. Aside from Thomas Lloyd the Deputy-Governor, Keith was the most learned and educated man in the colony, with a large following of admirers. It seems unfair to accuse Lloyd of jealousy, but he was probably Keith's only intellectual equal at the time, and was burdened with the responsibility of governing the colony with full respect for the interests of the then-absent proprietor, William Penn. When Keith raised the concern that unwritten Quaker principles could not be confidently explained or disputed, Lloyd remained silent for a time. However, when antagonism to what Keith was saying reached the point of prosecution and expulsion from the Society of Friends, Lloyd must certainly have been in the background. Keith eventually became an Anglican priest, taking a number of Quakers with him. His eventual spiritual direction is surely evidence that he longed for closer adherence to Biblical Christian teachings or even rituals. Lloyd, on the other hand, is thought to trace descent from the early Princes of Wales, and could well have over-reacted to ideas which destabilized power.
Keith may have been more persuasive than he seemed, however. By 1827 the pendulum appears to have swung against excessive thee-and-thou doctrine, however unwritten it may have been. Having experienced one schism from those who wanted more doctrine,

Elise Hicks

Elias Hicks then split the Society with a return to mysticism, seeking less rigidity and doctrine where Keith had once demanded more of it. After the 1827 separation, Quakers were to remain divided into two religions, the Hicksite and the Orthodox, for a century until Rufus Jones led the two factions to re-unite. The banners they waved were "the inner Christ" and the "outward Christ" and for some the central issue was Biblical doctrine and ritual. For others, it was a matter of balance between obedience and individualism. At present, Quaker doctrine remains unwritten, although a book called "Faith and Practice" explains what has been customary. Quakers are now a long way from wearing black hats and "plain" speech, and do come fairly close to what Hicks was striving for. In many ways, the doctrine of "the light within" is held to be sufficient to define the mystical core of Quaker belief, from which everything else may be derived.
The simple formula of "not enough ritual" versus "too much ritual" arriving at its present state of "just enough ritual" must be qualified by two other schisms, however. When the Revolutionary War came to Pennsylvania, a certain group of Quakers exemplified by Betsy Ross and Nathaniel Greene but led by Samuel Wetherill wanted to fight for Liberty enough to split off their own church,

The Free Quakers.

The Free Quakers. Although the surface issue was opposition to war for any reason, in 1781 the war was mostly over. The larger underlying political upheaval was the Quaker withdrawal from government twenty years earlier. This too was explained as a refusal to fight wars for any reason, but it can also be seen as the dilemma of all religious states, who cannot fairly govern a non-believing minority without either persecuting them or allowing them to usurp. Buying the land from underneath the Indians was one thing; living peacefully alongside the unruly Scotch-Irish of Western Pennsylvania proved to be quite another.
Even that synopsis fails to capture what was happening. In 1705 the Pennsylvania Assembly, composed entirely of Quakers, signed a petition to King William III ("William of Orange") which had the effect of a bargained compromise: in return for permitting affirmations instead of oaths, the King agreed to extend liberty of conscience under the English Act of Toleration of 1696 to those who subscribed to what would today be called the Apostle's creed. Through the hazy lens of intervening history it is difficult to see why this was a useful compromise, except for what is implicit. As long as Pennsylvania was firmly Tory, the English king would do any necessary fighting on the frontier, and the pacifist Quakers could continue to control the government. Seventy years later, in 1776, that no longer seemed a workable arrangement, and in fact the Quakers had withdrawn from government in 1756.
After the upheavals of adjusting to a new system of government, the nation settled down to enjoy what was the main reward of Independence: vast stretches of unoccupied fertile land to the West. A selectively agrarian segment of Quaker society migrated to Ohio, Indiana and Iowa. These scattered pioneers did not have Penn, Lloyd and Logan to guide them, and felt a much greater need for pastoral guidance. In time, mid-western and western Quakers evolved into formal churches with ministers, and colleges to teach the ministers, while the eastern seaboard Quakers remained seated in silent worship, without ministers or music, in "unprogrammed meetings". And so, back to where we started, searching for the proper balance between mysticism and ritual.

Religion at Girard College:Spiritual But Irreligious

According to Cheesman A. Herrick, "After Girard had dictated that famous section of his will excluding clergymen, and William J. Duane had written it down, Girard asked Duane what he thought of it. Duane, being quite unprepared for the question, and somewhat at a loss to interpret the section, answered, 'I can only say now, Mr. Girard, that it will make a great sensation.' To this Girard replied, 'I can tell you something else it will do -- it will please the Quakers.'"

unprogrammed meetings

In the Western part of America, Quaker meetings sometimes do have paid ministers, but the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and its component monthly meetings have held steadfastly to the tradition of "unprogrammed meetings"-- without ministers. Girard was not a Quaker, but he greatly admired them, and three of the five executors of his will were Quakers. It therefore seems likely, at a minimum, he hoped that Quaker sentiment would fortify his intended banishment of clergymen from his school for orphans, and he might well have got the basic idea from them. Quakers have long noted with disapproval that paid ministers have often publicly supported wars, and Quakers notice that governments waging wars have typically sought to stir up warlike feeling by persuading ministers to help them do so. Another behavior which is almost inherent in the clergy, is for ministers to feel that they are measured by the size of the congregation they attract, and hence almost invariably proselytize for new membership. Girard had firm ideas about influencing impressionable orphans, and he did not wish to have outside ideologies capture the administration of the school. 1830 was an evangelical time, and Girard could easily imagine some highly charismatic minister captivating the school.

Other motives may of course be imagined. This is what is actually in the will:

Prohibiting any ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect from holding or exercising any station, no such person should ever "be admitted for any purpose or as a visitor, within the premises occupied by the College...I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever, but inasmuch as there are such a multitude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans free from the excitements which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce." As matters were to turn out, religious meetings have been conducted by laymen almost every day at the College, and the custom grew up that the boys themselves were often called upon to conduct religious meetings. A great many graduates of Girard College eventually went on to careers in religious ministry, so it even seems likely that their experience at the school had the effect of interesting them in the ministry by giving them a taste of it.

In 1844, the numerous relatives of Stephen Girard tried to break the will. No one has seriously proposed their grievance was anything but financial. However, they sought the services of the most noted lawyer, orator, and statesman of his day, Daniel Webster. Webster would have been wise to refuse to take the case, since he could think of no better argument to use than that -- the exclusion of ministers demonstrated the school for orphans was not a true charity, and only a true charity would be allowed to exclude ministers. Several days of oratory enveloped this preposterous argument, which today reads like pure bombast and humbug. The U.S. Supreme Court in time unanimously rejected his brief, with the generous comment that the law was not on his side. Other lawyers have privately remarked that such oratory was never intended to persuade a court, but to impress a rich client.

Horace Binney

Horace Binney, the lawyer son of another Horace Binney who established an enduring reputation for calmness in midst of a religious storm during the Hogan Schism, was the successful defender of Girard College. In contrast with the flowery reverberations of Webster's voice, Binney confined himself to short words in short sentences, sticking strictly to the point without appeal to emotion. In fact, one wonders why Webster stooped to it. Historians credit him for the arguments that later inspired the defenders of the Union with enough conviction to win the Civil War. Essentially, he convinced Unionists that the Constitution had not created a confederacy, but a Union, which implicitly must have all the powers needed to preserve itself. Half the nation would not accept his reasoning, however, and his willingness to proclaim nonsense in the Girard case confirmed many Southern suspicions that the Union argument was also specious. Fifteen years later, Philadelphia was quite slow in coming to the Union side, for a variety of reasons. His attacking a cherished Quaker belief in a Quaker city was certainly not useful. In time, it would be possible to hear a quiet parody of the Union's marching song, that "He died to make men holy -- we will kill to make men free."

Advice to Young Men and Boys

It is unfortunate that the one thing most people think they know about Girard College is that religion is excluded. Far from it, there is more attention to morals and ethics than in public schools. Indeed, Girard College compares well with Phillips Exeter Academy, Webster's prep school and perhaps his model. One of the great concerns about orphans is that they may be easily led into a life of crime; there is no doubt that the Girard College makes unusual efforts to keep that from happening. In fact, the school may be said to have written its own prayer book during the late 19th Century. Books of devotion were written and then organized by committees of laymen, eventually published by the Chairman, Benjamin B. Comegys. Entitled Advice to Young Men and Boys", Comegys notes that the book was published "in the hope that it may be the means of helping some boys and young men other than those to whom the Addresses were made." It would have to be observed that Girard College inspired an unusual interest in the ministry among the boys, by encouraging them to lead in the ceremonies themselves. And by having the Board of Trustees participate in the construction of books of moral principles, they no doubt similarly evoke a high sense of fidelity within the businessmen trustees. Since those entrusted with huge amounts of money are faced with huge temptations, the Trustees quite possibly need the stimulus as much as the students do.

The No-Doctrine Doctrine

quaker

Although Quakers have long been famous for good relations with the Indians, both groups strongly prizing simplicity and keeping your word, few Indians converted to Quakerism. Indians would attend the silent meetings and listen respectfully, but in the end Christian converts were far more likely to convert to the Moravian Church. To resist defining your common beliefs creates automatically a problem for explaining what you believe. It becomes acceptable to believe a wide range of things, but it is also acceptable to believe very little. Not surprisingly, the two great religious schisms of the Quakers have broken their unity on just this point.

PA History

The first great Quaker schism was created by one George Keith (1638-1716), who was born a Presbyterian and died an ordained Episcopalian. For several decades however Keith was one of the foremost leaders of the Pennsylvania Quakers, partly as a result of being just about the best educated man of the Colony. His leadership however led him to crave a more defined set of Quaker doctrines, and when he carried this idea too vigorously, he eventually encountered implacable opposition which in time caused him and his considerable number of followers to be expelled from the Society of Friends. (George Keith should not be confused with Sir William Keith, whom Hannah Penn appointed as governor of Pennsylvania in 1717.)

Elias Hicks

The first great schism was thus about whether there might be too little defined doctrine in Quakerism. The second great schism by contrast grew out of the feeling there was too much doctrine. Led by Elias Hicks in 1830, the Hick sites split off from mainstream Quakerism in a quest for more simplicity, less religiosity, more silent contemplation of the Inner Light. In a sense, the outward show of protest in the black hats, plain dress, plain speech had provoked a reaction that these things were no longer simple, they were ostentatious. Too many people were being "eldered", too many people were being "read out of meeting" for violating doctrinal rules.

Curiously, both rebels were cast out, but over each following century the church as a whole gradually adopted what was largely their view of things. After Keith, Quakerism became more rigid and formalized. After Hicks, it became more mystical and free-thinking.

By insisting that in spite of turmoil it caused no doctrine was to be defined, Quakers have edged into the negative position of defining what they are not. Unlike the early sects of Christianity, Quakers have discarded the hope of miraculous divine intervention as a reason to behave in a Friendly Christian way. No one is apparently going to revive your bones from the tomb, feed your multitudes with forty loaves, or descend from Heaven and drive your enemies into the sea. Neither a later reward in Heaven nor a forthcoming everlasting punishment in Hell can be regarded as either very likely or much of an incentive to good behavior. Other religions may believe these things and might even turn out to be right, but Quakers feel the unembellished Golden Rule is a sufficiently understandable motive for conduct.

And gentle indirection is often a better way to persuade others than thundering oratory. The story is told of a visitor who found himself in a Quaker gathering, and made polite conversation by asking what the Quaker position was on the Trinity. A sweet old gentleman is said to have smiled and said, "We believe in the following Trinity: The brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of God -- and the neighborhood of Philadelphia."

The Rights of Man

Law Books

Until the time of our Civil War, a lawyer had two sets of books on his shelves, roughly equal in size. One was the Common Law, evolved by the Courts over thousands of years. The other was Statutory Law, created by Congress and the Legislatures in about a hundred years. Today, the Statutory Law is vastly larger in size, as our elected representatives keep adding to it. Thomas Jefferson would be greatly pleased with this result, disappointed only that it was not even more unbalanced. John Marshall is the name most often associated with resistance to this trend. Marshall and Jefferson hated each other.

Sir Francis Bacon

There are many ways to define the essential difference between the two kinds of law, coming down ultimately to the question of Who Decides. The Common Law was created by judges, who purport to be experts or at least serious students of the subject, attempting to be impartial referees of people with major disputes. If they are running smoothly, the judges leave things alone. In the early part of the Sixteenth Century, Sir Francis Bacon was instrumental in organizing the Common Law process into an acknowledged pattern much like the scientific method being developed at the same time by people like Galileo. A theory was propounded, and then tested by actual disputes; when the theory was found to be flawed in some way, it was modified and offered for further testing. The Law evolved. Oliver Wendell Holmes is famous for the remark that "The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience." But Holmes' quip is incomplete; the common law is logic, constantly tested by experience. And a major feature of the experience is that if things are running well, remain silent.

Statutory law bases its claim to preeminence on the reasoning that elected representatives in congress assembled are more likely to express the collective wishes of the whole nation than are a cloistered minority who spend their lives listening to disputed arguments. One group tends to develop an inflated view of the importance of mass opinion, while the other group is perhaps a little too disdainful of it. In the end, the authors of the Constitution elected to set the two against each other, hoping the tension would reach a balance point.

There were historical reasons for concern, both ways.

Christ Church and Elfreths Alley

Elthreths Alley

The north side of Dock Creek (now, Dock Street) was lower than Society Hill side, and somewhat swampy. The tendency to flood caused the north side to have smaller and less permanent buildings, and so it became the Colonial waterfront area remaining more commercial, and in parts, shabby, even during the 19th Century.. Still further to the north this was not the case, but the waterfront and food market patch more or less marooned Christ Church, now the single most graceful and elegant Colonial building still standing. This formerly commercial area is now called Old City, with many loft apartments mixed among surviving warehouse outlets, and of course the ethnic restaurants characteristic of such gentrified areas.

Christ Church

Elfreth's Alley, running for one block east and west between Second and Front (1st) Streets. Some of the history of this street is obscure, so some of it is probably synthetic, because nothing particularly historic happened there to create detailed records. Elfreth's Alley claims to be the oldest street in America, a claim that can be substantiated back to 1702. The street is filled with little "workers houses", presenting a solid front of buildings on both sides of the cobblestoned street. Most of the houses could vaguely be called "father, son and holy ghost houses", looking as though they consisted of three rooms on top of each other, although in fact most of them are larger. A moment's consideration shows that the street consists of many double houses, with three doorways in front. Each house had a door to the interior, and most of them have a third door opening to a shared tunnel between the two houses, leading to the back yards. These tunnels were called "easements", a term that has migrated from its earlier usage. Although William Penn envisioned large single estates in his "Greene country Townie", he sold considerable land to people who remained in England as absentee landlords, who soon found that many small houses produced more rent than one or two big ones. One of the houses on Elfreth's Alley acts as a museum, with tours; there is an active civic association, and once a year in June there is a street fair.

Because the land was swampy and the neighborhood congested, Christ Church soon outgrew its backyard burial ground, and burying important people under slabs in the walkways and corridors. Visitors who do not come from that sort of religious background are typically uncomfortable walking over such graves, a quite common arrangement in European cathedrals. But eventually, it was necessary to go several blocks westward to create a "new" burial ground. Most of the famous names from the Revolutionary era, like Benjamin Franklin and four other signers of the Declaration of Independence are found on the tombstones at Fifth and Arch, just across the street from the Free Quaker meeting house, and opposite the Philadelphia Mint. On the remaining corner of Fifth and Arch is the Constitution Center which will open July 4, 2003. It can already be seen that its architecture clashes with the rest of the historic area, but it is fervently hoped that its programs will redeem it.

Free Quaker Meetinghouse

Independence Hall

Until this year, there was a Beautiful Mall stretching north from Independence Hall to the approaches of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Concealing an enormous parking garage underground, the surface looked like a several-block lawn lined with flowering trees in the spring, framing the beautiful Eighteenth Century building (just as the mall in Washington leads to the Washington monument.)

Stretching from Independence Hall east to the Delaware River is another mall filled with historical buildings like Carpenters Hall , the First Bank(Girard's) and second bank (Biddle's) Banks, the Old and the New Custom houses, the American Philosophical Society, and others. The eastern mall was the property of the State of Pennsylvania when it was created, it seemed more economical to the frugal rural legislature to turn it over to the federally funded National Park Service, joining the mall stretching northward. Well, somebody got another ton of federal money appropriated, and now we are filling the north mall with buildings which largely hide Independence Hall from the passersby. There is a perfectly enormous New Visitors Center, containing a couple of auditoriums and a big bookstore. Mostly the concept seems to be to provide a place to get out of the rain if you are an out of town visitor, provide public bathrooms, and a place to get a hot dog. At least the visitors center is red brick, and arched, with white woodwork. At the far northern end is an overwhelming stark granite block of a building, which will open July 4, 2003. It is a Constitution Center, claimed to be an interactive museum, and we shall see what we shall see. The looming monolith overwhelms and blocks the view to Independence Hall, and it better be good.

Free Quaker Meeting

If Independence Hall, which after all is a block long, is overwhelmed by the new constructions, the Free Quaker Meeting is totally hidden. This perfectly charming Eighteenths Century Quaker meetinghouse is just across Fifth Street from Benjamin Franklin's Grave, and just across Arch Street from the Constitution thing, completely in its shadow. Charles E. Peterson designed the restoration of the building, which had been added to and detracted from, over the years, but you can be sure its interior is now both beautiful and authentic. Before you go in, notice the inscription on the plaque under the northern eaves:

By General Subscription for the FREE QUAKERS. Erected in the Year of OUR LORD 1783 and of the EMPIRE 8.

The Quakers who build this building seem to have thought they were part of a new empire, but that implies an emperor, and of course one was never created. Three years after the dedication of this building the Constitutional Convention met in the same Independence Hall, and our national form of government was somewhat strengthened from the Articles of Confederation also written here. Benjamin Franklin had a hand in both documents, but the first one was mainly composed by John Dickinson, and the second one by James Madison. If you go into the Free Quaker building, it seems to be a single large room with an interior balcony, and a could of small staircases in the back leading don to what would presumably be restrooms. As a matter of fact, the Park Service extended the basement to include kitchen and dining room, and several offices which are a surprise if you are allowed to go down to see them.

History of Free Quaker

Charlie Peterson wrote a book about the restoration, but the main book about the spiritual history of this group was written by Charles Wetherill. Quakers, as everyone ought to know, are pacifists. The American Revolution put a number of them in a quandary because they felt that Great Britain was injuring their rights by denying them a representative in the Parliament which ruled them, but resorting to violence was another matter. Eventually a group did break away from the main Quaker church to fight for independence. They were then "read out of meeting" , the equivalent of being excommunicated, not allowed to worship in the regular meeting houses they had helped finance or to be buried in the church graveyards. Samuel Wetherill was one of the leaders of this group, just as his descendents are the most active today in the surviving historical society. Samuel created quite a furor, demanding to use the orthodox meeting house and burial grounds. He was, in his own view, just as much a Quaker as the others since no doctrine is absolutely fixed in that religion, and was freely entitled to speak his mind to persuade others of the rightness of his sincerely held positions. The main body of Quakers would have none of it, and the Free Quakers were firmly expelled, forced to hold a public subscription and build their own meeting house. Wetherill of course personally knew every on of the members who expelled him, and there may be some truth to his loud, pointed and undenied contention that the true division was not between pacifists and fighters, but between Tories and advocates of Independence. Whatever the truth of these accusations , it does seem in retrospect that the split was fairly divided between wethy established merchants, and small shopkeepers and artisans. Quite a few now-famous names appear on the rolls of the Free Quakers, like Timothy Matlack the actual Scribe of the Declaration of Independence document, Biddles, Lippincott, John Bartrum, Crispins, Kembles, Trippes, and Wetherills. When the meeting had dwindled down in 1830 to two lone parishioners, one was a Wetherill, and the other was Betsy Ross.

If This be done well, What is done evil?

John Woolman

The Quakers of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting can rightly claim credit for successfully starting the movement to eliminate slavery in America. John Woolman of Mount Holly, New Jersey is the member given credit for determinedly agitating to eliminate a social institution which was then thousands of years old, and still persists to some extent in certain parts of Africa and Asia.

Nevertheless, even Quakers were slow to endorse emancipation when first confronting the idea. The German-speaking Quakers of Germantown were urged in 1688 to adopt the concern of four members -- Garret Henderich, Derek and Abram Op De Graeff, and Francis Daniel Pastorius -- which follows. The Germantown meeting referred it to the Quarterly Meeting, which referred it to the Yearly meeting. All of these ultimately declined to act, stating "It being a thing of too great a weight for this meeting to determine." Nevertheless, it percolated for eighty years, until Woolman was eventually able to bring the Yearly Meeting to adopt a favorable "minute". A full century after that, the rest of the nation came around to the same position, but only after fighting the bloodiest war in our history. Things change slowly, but without someone pushing them, they may never change at all. Nothing in their history better illustrates the central Quaker approach of "steely meekness", that quiet, patient, polite -- sometime brave -- persistence in the practical advancement of what is reasonable and just.

Francis Daniel Pastorius

The Declaration of the German Friends of Germantown, Against Slavery, in 1688.

These are the reasons why we are against the traffic of men's body, as followeth:

Is there any that would be done or handled at this manner? viz.: to be sold or made a slave for all the time of his life? How fearful and faint-hearted are many at sea, when they see a stranger vessel, being afraid it should be a Turk, and they should be taken, and sold for slaves in Turkey. Now what is this better done, than Turks do? Yea, rather it is worse for them, which say they are Christians; for we hear that the most part of such negers are brought hither against their will and consent, and that many of them are stolen . Now though they are black, we cannot conceive there is more liberty to have them slaves, as [than] it is to have other white ones. There is a saying , that we shall do to all men like as we will be done [to] ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent, or color they are. And those who steal or rob men, and those who purchase them, are they not all alike? Here is liberty of conscience, which is right and reasonable; here ought to be likewise liberty of the body, except of evil-doers, which is another case. But to bring men hither, or to rob, [steal] and sell them against their will, we stand against. In Europe, there are many oppressed for conscience sake; and here there are those oppressed which are of a black color. And we who know others, separating wives from their husbands , and giving them to others:and some sell the children of these poor creatures to other men. Ah! do consider well this thing, you who do it, if you would be done in this manner--and if it is done according to Christianity! You surpass Holland and Germany in this thing. This makes an ill report in all those countries of Europe, when they hear of [it,] that the Quakers do here handler men as they handel there the cattle. And for that reason some have no mind or inclination to come hither. And who shall maintain this your cause, or plead for it? Truly, we cannot do so, except you shall inform us better hereof, viz,: That Christians have liberty to practice these things, Pray, what thing in the world can be done worse, towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to stranger countries; separating husbands from their wives and children. Being now this is not done in the manner we would be done at, [by]; therefore, we contradict [oppose], and are against this traffic of men's body. And we who profess that it is not lawful to steal, must , likewise, avoid to purchase such things as are stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing, if possible. And such men ought to be delivered out of the hands of the robbers, and set free as in Europe. Then is Pennsylvania to have a good report, instead it hath now a bad one, for this sake, in other countries. Especially whereas the Europeans are desirous to know in what manner the Quakers do rule in their province; and most of them do look upon us with an envious eye. But if this is done well, what shall we say is done evil?

If once these slaves ( which they say are so wicked and stubborn men,) should join themselves--fight for their freedom, and handel their masters and mistresses, as they did handel them before; will these masters and mistresses take the sword at hand and war against these poor slaves, like, as we are able to believe, some will not refuse to do? Or, have these poor negers not as much right to fight for their freedom, as you have to keep them slaves?

Now consider well this thing, if it is good or bad. And in case you find it to be good to handel these blacks in that manner, we desire and require you hereby lovingly, that may inform us herein, which at this time never was done, viz., that Christians have such a liberty to do so. To this end we shall be satisfied on this point, and satisfy likewise our good friends and acquaintances in our native country, to whom it is a terror, or fearful thing, that men should be handelled so in Pennsylvania.

This is from our meeting at Germantown, held ye 18th of the 2nd month, 1668, to be delivered to the monthly meeting at Richard Worrell's.

Garret Henderich
Derick op de Graeff
Francis Daniel Pastorius
Abram op de Graeff.

***
At our Monthly meeting, at Dublin, ye 30th 2d mo., 1688, we having inspected ye matter, above mentioned, and considered of it, we find it so weighty that we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here, but do rather commit it to ye consideration of ye quarterly meeting; ye tenor of it being related to ye truth.

On behalf of ye monthly meeting,
Jo. Hart.
***
This above mentioned was read in our quarterly meeting, at Philadelphia, the 4th of ye 4th mo., '88, and was from thence recommended to the yearly meeting, and the above said Derick, and the other two mentioned therein, to present the same to ye above said meetings, it being a thing of too great a weight for this meeting to determine.

Signed by order of ye meeting.
Anthony Morris

Joseph Priestley, Shaker and Mover

Priestly

Joseph Priestley, sometimes also spelled Priestly, is surely one of the more undeservedly neglected men of history. He has been called, with justice, the Father of the Science of Chemistry. He might also be called with equal justice, the father of the First Unitarian Church . The First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, at 21st and Walnut, is the first and oldest Unitarian church, and was indeed started at the urging of Priestley. Priestly wrote a scholarly work on the teachings of Jesus, which so captivated Thomas Jefferson that Jefferson wrote him the outline of another book that needed writing. Apparently, Priestley didn't have time, so in 1803 Jefferson wrote it himself, in the four languages he was fluent in, English, French, Latin and Greek. Although those were simpler times, there have been few if any others who have told a President of the United States that he was just too busy to respond to a presidential request, particularly when the President could then find he had time to do it himself.

Priestley's theological teachings were based on scientific reasoning. They were highly controversial, to say the least. He rejected the concept of a Trinity (he was a Calvinist minister, mind you), the divinity of Christ, and the immortality of the soul. Essentially, he rejected the concept of an immortal soul on the reasoning that perceptions and thought were functions of material structures in the human brain (Edmund O. Wilson's idea of Conscience is largely similar), and therefore will not outlive the cerebral tissue which produced them. In 1791, mobs burned his house in Birmingham, England, his patronage was revoked, and he hastily emigrated to Philadelphia. It isn't hard to see why these ideas were unpopular with the Anglican church, which is probably the main reason he was made into a non-person, and his scientific ideas denigrated as the product of other people.

That's too bad, because he really was a scientist of immense importance. As a young man, he encountered Benjamin Franklin in England, and he was certainly a man after Franklin's heart. He noticed funny things about gases that rose from swamps and over mercury salts, and Franklin encouraged him to systematize and analyze his observations into theory. Although he called it anti-phlogiston, he discovered oxygen. And then hydrogen, and nitrous oxide, and sulfur dioxide, and hydrochloric acid. He really was the first scientific chemist, the Father of Chemistry. Franklin, Lavoisier, and Priestley became fast friends, and enthusiastically exchanged ideas and observations, eventually leading to Lavoisier's fundamental principle: Matter is neither created nor destroyed, it only changes its form. But in the end, it made no difference. Priestly had offended some pretty large religions, so nothing he did in chemistry was going to get much attention. He went up to Northampton, Pennsylvania, now two hours drive North, establishing a little religious colony the relics of which anybody can now visit, but hardly anyone now does visit. He died in 1804, just after his friend and co-religionists Thomas Jefferson became President of the United States.

Priestley's life can be summarized in one of his own most quoted remarks. "In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones."

The Swedenborgian Church

A mong the many churches centered in Philadelphia, the Swedenborgian is probably the least typical and most difficult to understand. The church does not actively seek out new membership, but it welcomes everyone, in the spirit of Emanuel Swedenborg's observation that "All people who live good lives, no matter what their religion, have a place in Heaven." Without attempting to define the teachings of Swedenborg (1699-1772), who was quite able to speak for himself, it can be approximated that Heaven plays a central role in this belief system, and predestination does not. Although the ceremonial features of this religion are very similar to the Episcopal Church, its main emphasis is on good works as a way of attaining the reward of Heaven. In some ways, that is an unexpected position for a noted scientist like Swedenborg to take, since generally scientists lean toward Calvinism, with the mechanistic view that if God is all-powerful, then human free will must be impossible.

cross

There are at least four divisions of the Swedenborgian religion, but the Bryn Athyn branch is most notable in the Philadelphia region. A very wealthy adherent of Swedenborg named John Pitcairn bought a large tract at Bryn Athyn and gathered the local church to live around a perfectly magnificent cathedral and church school. It is hard to think of any church in the Philadelphia region which approaches the magnificence of the Bryn Athyn cathedral. It has a special character that it was conceived and built during the crafts movement of the early twentieth century , with imported European workmen deliberately organized like medieval craft guilds. The central features of this workmanship reflect and then project the belief in personal individuality within the whole religion. No two windows, or doorknobs, or carvings are the same in the cathedral, reflecting the wish for each workman to devise his own unique creation and show the way of personal responsibility to the faithful. This cathedral is one of the things in the Philadelphia region most worth visiting, but to appreciate its quality you have to know what you are looking at.

Everybody in this church is unexpectedly hard to characterize. The Pitcairn Foundation was such a successful investor that it formed a mutual fund for others to share in its good fortune. Its central philosophy is to invest only in corporations which have been dominated by a single family, preferably the founding family, for at least fifteen years. There are about six hundred eligible corporations, and recent management scandals in the newspapers illustrate the Pitcairn's exactly knew the dangers of handing your assets over to a hired manager. This family-centered investing approach consistently yields better than the S & P 500, which in turn beats ninety percent of investment managers. You sort of get the idea you know where this family is coming from when you meet a courtly, meek, retiring but friendly person, who can say, "My mother is the only person I ever met who looked perfectly at home seated under a sixty-foot ceiling."

Two other famous Swedenborgians illustrate the unusual individualism of this religion. Helen Keller, the deaf blind girl who overcame her handicap by going to Radcliffe and becoming a successful author and lecturer, for one. The other would be Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845), whose real name was John Chapman. Grammar school legends would have this bearded, barefoot vegetarian adopting a life of poverty like St. Francis, but in fact he was an extremely shrewd businessman who died rich. He developed the business plan that American settlers would be going West into what was then the Northwest Territory, and having a tough time getting enough to eat the first year or two. So, he anticipated the paths of frontier settlement, and went ahead among the Indian tribes, planting apple trees. When the settlers arrived in the region, he sold them young apple trees and showed them what to do with them. Apples grown from seed are not the tasty morsels we know today, but tend to be rather shriveled and bitter. So Johnny showed them how you make cider, and if you let it sit around a while, hard cider. The settlers would use the pulpy squeezing for compost, and he would be back to collect the seeds from them so he could continue his business plan in the next county. In short, he showed them how to drink the apples. He also let the Indians pick the apples, so they liked him, and spared him the common troubles of the frontier.

If you are going to boil apples, you need a pot, and Johnny often carried his like a hat. He wasn't a nut, at all, he was a showman. In his back pack, he was also carrying a Bible. And in his head, he carried a motto,"All religion has to do with life, and the life of religion is to do good."

Franklin Declares Independence a Year Early

Joseph Priestly

Joseph Priestly became a close friend of Benjamin Franklin almost as soon as they met. Priestly was an Anglican clergyman who broke loose and formed the Unitarian Church, and meanwhile his scientific discoveries also entitle him to be called the Father of Chemistry. It would be hard to be sure which of the two was the more brilliant. In July, 1775, Franklin wrote the following letter to Priestly, which makes a trenchant case that the American colonies should, and would, break away from England. Since some legal authorities, following Lincoln's lead, maintain that Jefferson's manifesto "informs" the United States Constitution, it might be well to begin referring to this letter as an even clearer statement of the mind set of America's founding leaders.

General Thomas Gage

" Dear Friend,

"The Congress met at a time when all minds were so exasperated by the perfidy of General Gage, and his attack on the country people, that propositions of attempting an accommodation were not much relished; and it has been with difficulty that we have carried another humble petition to the crown, to give Britain one more chance, one opportunity more of recovering the friendship of the colonies; which however I think she has not sense enough to embrace, and so I conclude she has lost them for ever.

"She has begun to burn our seaport towns; secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind. She may doubtless destroy them all; but if she wishes to recover our commerce, are these the probable means? She must certainly be distracted; for no tradesman out of Bedlam ever thought of encreasing the number of his customers by knocking them on the head; or of enabling them to pay their debts by burning their houses.

"If she wishes to have us subjects and that we should submit to her as our compound sovereign, she is now giving us such miserable specimens of her government, that we shall ever detest and avoid it, as a complication of robbery, murder, famine, fire and pestilence.

"You will have heard before this reaches you, of the treacherous conduct to the remaining people in Boston, in detaining their goods, after stipulating to let them go out with their effects; on pretence that merchants goods were not effects; -- the defeat of a great body of his troops by the country people at Lexington; some other small advantages gained in skirmishes with their troops; and the action at Bunker's-hill, in which they were twice repulsed, and the third time gained a dear victory. Enough has happened, one would think, to convince your ministers that the Americans will fight, and that this is a harder nut to crack than they imagined.

"We have not yet applied to any foreign power for assistance; nor offered our commerce for their friendship. Perhaps we never may: Yet it is natural to think of it if we are pressed.

"We have now an army on our establishment which still holds yours besieged.

"My time was never more fully employed. In the morning at 6, I am at the committee of safety, appointed by the assembly to put the province in a state of defence; which committee holds till near 9, when I am at the congress, and that sits till after 4 in the afternoon. Both these bodies proceed with the greatest unanimity, and their meetings are well attended. It will scarce be credited in Britain that men can be as diligent with us from zeal for the public good, as with you for thousands per annum. -- Such is the difference between uncorrupted new states, and corrupted old ones.

"Great frugality and great industry are now become fashionable here: Gentlemen who used to entertain with two or three courses, pride themselves now in treating with simple beef and pudding. By these means, and the stoppage of our consumptive trade with Britain, we shall be better able to pay our voluntary taxes for the support of our troops. Our savings in the article of trade amount to near five million sterling per annum.

"I shall communicate your letter to Mr. Winthrop, but the camp is at Cambridge, and he has as little leisure for philosophy as myself. * * * Believe me ever, with sincere esteem, my dear friend, Yours most affectionately."

[Philadelphia, 7th July, 1775.]

Quakerism and the Industrial Revolution

Richard Arkwright

had a lot to do with manufacturing cotton cloth by religious dissenters in the neighborhood of Manchester, England in the Eighteenth Century. What needs more emphasis is the remarkable fact that Quakerism and the Industrial Revolution both originated at about the same time, and in about the same place. True, the industrializing transformation can be seen in England as early as 1650 and as late as 1880. The Industrial Revolution thus extended before Quakerism was even founded, as well as long after most Quakers had migrated to America. No Quaker names are much mentioned except perhaps for Barclay and Lloyd in banking and insurance, and Cadbury in candy. As far as local history in England's industrial midlands is concerned, the name mentioned most is Richard Arkwright, whose behavior, demeanor and beliefs were anything but Quaker.

It is instructive, however, to examine the nature of Arkwright's achievement.

Karl Marx

He seems to have invented nothing, stealing the patents and ideas of others freely, while disgustingly boasting about his rise from rags to riches. Some would say his skill was in organization, others would say he imposed an industrial dictatorship on a reluctant agricultural community. He grew rich by coercing orphans, convicts and others he obviously disdained into long, unpleasant, boring and unwelcome labor that largely benefited him, not them. In the course of his strivings he probably forced Communism to be invented. It is no accident that Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto while in Manchester visiting his friend Friedrich Engels, representing reasonably well the probable attitudes of Arkwright's employees. What Arkwright recognized and focused on was that enormous profits could flow from bringing piecework weaving into factories where machines could do most of the work. Until his time, clothing was mostly made by piecework at home, with middlemen bringing it all together. The trick was to make clothing cheaper by making a lot of it, and making a bigger profit from a lot of small profits. Since the main problem was that peasants intensely disliked indoor confinement around dangerous machines, the industrial revolution in the eyes of Arkwright and his ilk translated into devising ways to tame such semi-wild animals into submission. For their own good.

Charles Babbage

The Quakers in the region, however, taught that it was an enjoyable experience to sit indoors in quiet contemplation. Their children were taught to submit to it at an early age, and their elders frequently exclaimed that it was a blessing when everyone remained quiet, enjoying the silence. Out of the multitude of religious dissenters in the first half of the Seventeenth century, three main groups eventually emerged, the Quakers, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists. Only the Quakers taught that silence was productive and enjoyable; the Calvinist sects leaned toward the idea that sitting on hard English oak was good for the soul, training and discipline was what kept 'em in line.

babbagemaq.jpg

The Quaker idea of fun through day dreaming was peculiarly suitable for the other important feature of the Industrial Revolution that Arkwright and his type were too money-centered to perceive. If workers in a factory were accustomed to sit for hours, thinking about their situation, someone among them was bound to imagine some small improvement to make life more bearable. If such a person was encouraged by example to stand up and announce his insight, eventually the better insights would be adopted for the benefit of all. Two centuries later, the Japanese would call this process one of continuous quality improvement from within the Virtuous Circle. In other cultures, academics now win professional esteem by discovering "win-win behavior", which displaces the zero sum, or win/lose route to success. The novel insight here was that it has become demonstrably possible to prosper without diminishing the prosperity of others. In addition, it was particularly fortunate that many Quaker inhabitants of the Manchester region happened to be watch makers, or artisans of similar trades that easily evolved into the central facilitators of the new revolution -- becoming inventors, machine makers and engineers.

The power of this whole process was relentless, far from limited to cotton weaving. When Charles Babbage sufficiently contemplated the punched-cards carrying the simple instructions of the knitting machines, he made an intellectual leap to the underlying concept of the tabulating machine. Using what were later called IBM cards, he had the forerunner of the stored-program computer. There were plenty of Arkwrights getting rich in the meantime, and plenty of Marxists stirring up rebellion with the slogan that behind every great fortune is a great crime. But the quiet folk were steadily pushing ahead, relentlessly refining the industrial process through a process of welcoming the suggestions of everyone.

Sacred Places at Risk

Old St. Joe's

When William Penn invited all religions to enjoy the freedom of Pennsylvania, he created a home for the first churches in America for many existing religions, and furthermore the founding mother churches for many new religions. Regardless of the local congregation, there is obviously an effort to preserve the oldest churches of the Presbyterian, Methodist, ,United Brethren, African Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, Mennonite, and many other denominations. While the founding church of Roman Catholicism was obviously not in Philadelphia, St. Josephs at 3rd and Willingwas for many decades the only place in the American colonies where the Catholic Mass was allowed to be openly performed. Philadelphia now has over a thousand church structures within the city limits, and more than a thousand more in the suburbs. However, many church buildings find themselves stranded by the migration of local ethnic groups to other locations, and a decision must be made whether to demolish the relic, or sell it to a new population who have moved into the neighborhood with a new religion. There is often discomfort with selling an old church to a commercial enterprise, but even that happens. The resulting bewilderment and dissention among the surviving parishioners is easy to imagine as they face these choices, or fail to face them, and it is readily imagined that the establishment in 1989 of Partners for Sacred Places filled an important need.

First Presbyterian Church

The Executive Director, Robert Jaeger, recently described to the Right Angle Club how the Partners operate. First of all, the Constitutional separation of church and state makes it very difficult to seek funding or even advice from the Federal government. Pennsylvania has been less hesitant than most states in this regard, but even here the issue of fund-raising is a central issue. One only has to look at the Aztec and Mayan religious sites in Mexico to grasp that there are circumstances when the parishioners of a religion may have completely died out, but their monuments justify state assistance. Private, nondenominational philanthropy seems the easiest route for a society to take in avoiding the obvious political and legal entanglements of seeming to assist one denomination more than others.

And then there are architectural issues;, can the building be saved at a reasonable cost, is it truly a unique or outstanding piece of art, can a reconstruction go ahead in an incremental way, are the necessary stone or other materials any longer obtainable, do the workman skills exist? In addition to these issues which are commonly presented to a congregation, there are issues they probably have never considered. As congregants move from center-city to the suburbs, they become commuters to church, largely out of touch with the local community and its activities. A survey conducted by the Partners suggests that 81% of the activity which takes place in church buildings on weekdays is conducted by and for non-members of the church; if the two groups lose touch with each other, opportunities are missed, and eventually there may be unnecessary friction. On the other hand, those non-religious activities probably escape the legal prohibitions against government assistance, and may suit themselves as vehicles for indirect government support. The approach has so much promise that Partners for Sacred Places has devised a computer program on their website which provides a way for congregations to assess their assets, and their problems. In fact, the organization conducts extensive training programs for church preservation, and has been forced by the size of the demand to exclude churches that are clearly failing beyond reasonable hope of recovery by their church membership.

The Partnership was originally founded by consolidation of the New York and Philadelphia organizations, to make a stronger national effort. But now things are going the other way. New chapters are springing up in Texas and California. Partners for Sacred Places is obviously proving to be a good idea, effectively managed.

Tree Huggers: Delaware Valley College

Doylestown, PA

At the time when Philadelphia and New York were both occupied by the British during the Revolutionary War, a backwoods highway connected the thirteen colonies. Doylestown is 35 miles due north of Philadelphia City Hall, at the point of intersection of this variant of the Ho Chi Minh Trail with the trail which Philadelphia Tories took in their flight to Kingston, Ontario. No doubt there were some interesting conversations in Mr. Doyle's tavern at the crossroads.

Doylestown is also on the invisible border between the hegemonies of Philadelphia and New York, where descendants of German and Quaker farmers make a cautious contact with the distinctly non-Quaker artists and writers fleeing south from New York. James Michener and Pearl Buck once represented Philadelphia in the cultural stew with New Yorker expatriots, Somehow in this interface, a place is found for the Delaware Valley College, which started life in 1896 with Jewish founders of the National Farm School. The original