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Abridged
from the
"Canadian Yearly Meeting Discipline"
George
Fox, Founder of Quakerism
 During the Puritan Revolution in England,
George
Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the Society of Friends, became
dissatisfied
with the ceremonials, creeds and practices of the existing churches.
After
growing up in a devout family, Fox left home at nineteen and wandered
for
several years like many other restless seekers, questioning his Bible,
ministers,
and anyone who would listen. But he remained unsatisfied.
Finally, as he later recorded in his Journal:
"when all my hopes in... all men were gone,
so
that I had nothing outwardly
to help me, nor could tell what to do, Oh then, I heard a voice which
said,
‘there is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition', and
when I
heard it my heart did leap for joy." The faith of John's gospel he
"knew
experimentally" -- that "the true light which enlightens every man
was coming into the world" even in his day.
To him this was a new revelation. Yet his
finding
reemphasized Luther’s
priesthood of all believers, and drew unconsciously from the
accumulated
experience of saints and mystics. Although the Puritans also
re-emphasized the
power of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of people, Fox believed that his
contemporaries were unwilling to trust the seed, which was another name
used
for the indwelling light. He knew from experience, confirmed by
intensive study
of his Bible, that this Light or Spirit is the source of unity, joining
the
good in each of us to our neighbour's good, and also identifying the
evil
revealed by hypocrisy.
In supreme confidence, simplicity, and
strength of
youth, George Fox began
in 1647 to "proclaim the day of the Lord" in the Midland counties
near his Leicestershire home. He attracted a group of men and women
who, once convinced
that "Christ has come to teach his people himself", joined the joyous
work as publishers of truth or as friends of the truth, Children of the
Light,
or simply Friends. Perhaps they remembered John 15:12-17, where Jesus
called
his followers friends. The unconvinced, however, derisively called them
Quakers
perhaps because they professed to tremble before the Lord or because of
the
actual physical effect of the over powering intensity of their message.
To find
the Light they felt the need for silence which continued in their
meetings for
worship except when someone felt the need to share the light that had
broken
forth.
Back to Top
Growth of Quakerism in England
After five years Fox went to North-western
England
where
he found whole congregations already meeting in silence without
appointed
ministers. He won the household of Judge Fell of Swarthmore Hall, which
became
the centre of the movement. There the sympathetic and influential
judge,
although remaining apart from the movement, protected the Quakers from
the
prevailing hostility against Dissenters. Margaret Fell organized relief
funds
for persecuted Friends and bound them together through the
encouragement of
letters. The Society of Friends was born in 1652, although membership
was not
fixed for some eighty years, and no Quaker has been found to have used
the name
Society of Friends in print prior to 1793.
Their numbers had increased past 40,000 by
1660,
and further group action by
Friends was needed for many purposes. While breadwinners were off on
missions, families
had to be provided for. Likewise, sustenance had to be supplied when
property
became distraint for non-payment of tithes and through other legal
exactions.
Friends' marriages without the office of a priest, which was against
statute
but in accordance with common law, had to be arranged.
In 1653 William Dewsbury advised Friends to
hold
"a general meeting. .
.once in two or three weeks, as the Lord makes way, to see that order
be kept.”
This was what later became the Monthly Meeting. The 1656 advice of a
meeting of
elders at Balby, with which our discipline still begins (see Preface),
asserted
the pre-eminence of "a measure of the light", which should guide all
business transactions.
During the last years of Cromwell's rule,
Friends
emerged from sparsely
populated northern England. They focused on London and other major
cities in
southern England, but also took their message into Scotland, Ireland
and Wales.
Quakers travelled abroad on missionary journeys, one such Friend being
Mary
Fisher, a maidservant, who addressed her ministry to the Sultan of
Turkey and
his court. Their first gathered following in America was in 1655 among
the
Puritans of Barbados.
From these, and similar gatherings in the
north,
emerged a constellation of
monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings. London became the centre but
there was
no formal bond between yearly meetings for over two centuries. In
general, the
need to protect the Society increased the influence of travelling
ministers.
Friends spoke both with their words and with their lives. To a degree
unusual
for their times they practised equality of the sexes, equality of
status,
equality of ages; simplicity of clothing, speech and way of life;
peace, in
withdrawing from the army and in settling disputes among themselves.
Suspected
by the Stuarts as subversives, they published their first peace
testimony in
1660, at the Restoration. These testimonies, inherited chiefly from the
Anabaptist wing of Protestantism, they defended by quoting from the
Bible. For
this behaviour large numbers were jailed, whipped, branded, fined and
deported.
Penalties were uneven according to the temper of the judges and the
locality,
and more severe after the Church of England was re-established under
Charles
II. England was inching toward toleration and becoming less and less
sure of
the effectiveness or value of enforcing conformity; and Quaker
steadfastness
under persecution helped in persuading officials to permit dissenting
practices. Back to Top
Spread to America
In America, the first general or yearly
Meeting
gathered in 1661 in
relatively tolerant Rhode Island. It is apparently the oldest
continuous Yearly
Meeting of Friends. More new Meetings started after George Fox and a
dozen
English Friends visited in 1671-1672. They spent nearly five months
strengthening Meetings in Barbados and Jamaica, landed in Maryland and
passed
through the wilderness to Friends in East Jersey, Long Island and
Newport.
Colonial Rhode Island Friends represent with William Penn and the
Quaker
leaders in the Jerseys and Pennsylvania, the best of political
Quakerism. They
were willing to hold power in order to move the state nearer to the
truth. Penn
advised: "Keep the helm through the storm if you would steer the ship
toward the harbour.
Contact with Indians and Negroes in America
led to
the development of the
first new testimonies based on the principle of equality. Progress was
uneven
and slow between 1683 and the 1750's, when John Woolman began his
mission to
Indians and more especially to Quaker slave holders and slave traders.
With
Anthony Benezet and others he aroused Friends' conscience until slavery
and the
slave trade were abolished in the Society. Concerns for Indians and
Negroes
have continued ever since, although broadening awareness of new
implications
has been painfully slow.
A different, conservative, Society of
Friends
developed in the eighteenth
century. Its first leaders had died by 1700 and its members were
wearied by
proscription and schism. Simplicity and honest dealing had brought them
business success. Refusal to take oaths, as implying a double standard
of truth,
had cost their forebears many a prison term and much loss of property;
but
since 1696 Whig laws had begun to recognize their affirmations. Like
many other
Christians they shunned enthusiasm and were little touched byte Great
Awakening
or the Wesleyan revival. They followed the ways of their forebears,
reasoned
lethargy into virtue, but yet kept their light shining dimly. In
Pennsylvania
they withdrew from government in 1756 rather than administer the
colony's
contribution to the French and Indian War. They kept more to
themselves, bound
their group together with rules, customs and much intervisitation, and
balanced
their birth rate with rigorous disownments.
During the imperial wars between France and
Britain and in the American
Revolution, the peace testimony was repeatedly tested and elaborated.
Rhode
Island and Massachusetts Friends sought peace during King Phillip's and
the
Dutch wars. Most American Friends sympathised with the colonials'
struggle for
the rights of British subjects, but no more than at Charles II's
Restoration
did they approve of revolution. They had strong religious, business and
cultural
ties with England and were grateful for crown favours. Trying to be
neutral,
they were suspected by both sides of being spies and favouring the
enemy, and
were treated roughly. Back to Top
Theological strains
By the opening of the nineteenth century,
two
divergent
tendencies became apparent among American Friends. Both had roots in
early
Quaker thought but had subsisted together without seriously disturbing
the
unity of the Society. One eventually identified with the followers of
Elias
Hicks (1717-1830), was associated with ideas of political democracy and
stressed
the Inward Light as the basis of salvation rather than the atonement
made by
Christ on the cross. Accordingly, when Hicksites referred to Christ as
their
saviour, they meant the Christ within rather than the Christ of
history. The
other was a renewed interest in Evangelical Christianity, which centres
upon the
meaning and influence of events in Christian history and rests heavily
on
Biblical authority as understood by leading ministers. Both reformist
and
evangelical trends reflected influences dominant in contemporary
Protestant
thought. Fortunately in England these tendencies produced only the
small
Beaconite separation. The tension between the two American Quaker
groups,
however, grew steadily more severe until in 1827 a separation took
place in
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Similar separations followed in some of
the
American Meetings, all the groups continuing to claim the title of
Religious
Society of Friends. Eastern Quakerism, weakened by separation, suffered
further
losses by emigration through out the nineteenth century. Proportionally
large
numbers swarmed into the Old North West, Ontario, Iowa, Kansas, Oregon
and
California. Back to Top
Migration to Canada
Arthur Garratt Dorland, the historian of the
Religious
Society of Friends in Canada, has written: "The migration of Friends to
Upper
Canada was simply the fringe of this great westward movement of which
those who
came to this Province constituted the merest fragment." Nevertheless,
the
establishment of Quaker settlements in Canada was invariably by
pioneering
emigrants from America but not, as is often assumed, by loyalists in
the sense
of United Empire Loyalists. The latter were active in their support and
allegiance to the King's party while the former, as was indicated
above, must
necessarily have been neutral as they remained accredited members of
their
parent Meetings. While earlier attempts at settlement had been made in
New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and at Farnham in Quebec,
these
were not lasting, but permanent communities were realised at
Adolphustown on
the Bay of Quinte and at the same time in the Niagara District so that
before
the close of the eighteenth century there were organized in
Adolphustown and in
Pelham the first Monthly Meetings of the Society of Friends in Canada.
These first settlements of Canadian Quakers
continued in attachment to the
parent New York and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings from whence they had
come and,
consequently, the separations which affected the Society in America
produced
similar results among the meetings in Canada, culminating in the great
Schism
of 1828. One group of Hicksite Friends was first organized as Genesee
Yearly
Meeting in 1834. It later became affiliated with Friends General
Conference,
the latter having headquarters in Philadelphia. A second group called
Orthodox
Friends of Canada Yearly Meeting claimed, as their name implied, to be
the
continuing body of Friends after the separation of1828. It was first
organized
as an independent Yearly Meeting in 1867 by authority of New York
Yearly
Meeting, of which it was originally a part. It later became affiliated
with the
Five Years Meeting of Friends (now Friends United Meeting) which has
headquarters in Richmond, Indiana. The third group, called The
Conservative
Friends of Canada Yearly Meeting was organized in1885 following the
so-called
Wilburite Separation. This group was associated with similar
Conservative
Meetings in the United States, of which the principal centre was in
Ohio, but
was supported by and recognised by a majority of Philadelphia Friends.
Terms
referring to the three Yearly Meetings in Canada can be confusing but
those
used hereafter, and which were used consistently through Yearly Meeting
minutes
prior to union are: Canada Yearly Meeting (Five Years Meeting), Canada
Yearly
Meeting (Conservative) and Genesee Yearly Meeting (General Conference).
Back to Top
Peace Testimony and Relief work
Major wars have required Friends everywhere
to
intensify
their search for the spirit of peace in the modern world. Southern
Friends were
sharply tested by Confederate conscription in the American Civil War.
Quaker
experience in Union armies was similar though less severe. In the two
World
Wars larger numbers of Friends have accepted military service, more
especially
so in the United States than in Canada or Britain, but the Meetings
have
consistently upheld the traditional testimony of clearness from war
preparation
and participation. As war has become more comprehensive in its impact
on
citizens individual testimonies have included tax refusal,
on-registration,
alternative civilian service and non-combat ant military service.
Howard Brinton has written that, "Relief
work
undertaken to repair
damages caused by war or conflict is a natural corollary of the peace
principle". To touch briefly on this interesting and important aspect,
it
is also revealed in Friends for 300 Years that relief work outside the
Society
seems to have first occurred during the Irish War in 1690 when Quakers
supplied
prisoners of war with food and clothing. In 1755 the Acadians, banished
from
Canada, were aided by Friends of Philadelphia and, during the
Franco-Prussian
War of 1870, the red and black Quaker Star was first used as a
distinguishing
mark. Today it designates Quaker service of all kinds all over the
world. In
1914 the substitution of relief work for military service began in
England with
the Emergency Committee for the Assistance of Germans, Austrians,
Hungarians,
and Turks in Distress, The War Victims Relief Committee, and the
Friends
Ambulance Unit which took care of men wounded in battle. This Unit was
too
closely tied to the war effort to receive the official endorsement of
the Society
of Friends but the larger part of its members were Friends. These
organizations
were joined by the Friends Service Council, now incorporated into the
Quaker
Peace and Service department of London Yearly Meeting. Soon after the
United
States entered the war in 1917, the American Friends Service Committee
was
formed to assist conscientious objectors and send relief workers
abroad. In
1931, the three Yearly Meetings in Canada decided to appoint
representatives to
a united Canadian Friends Service Committee. A chain of emergencies has
perpetuated some of these institutions until they have become principal
agencies uniting all Friends in world-wide work among those suffering
in the
wake of war. Gradually, however, purely relief functions have been
subordinated
to the goal of reconciliation. Back to Top
Reunification
Rufus M. Jones (1863-1948) threw the whole
weight
of his winning personality into the reconciliation movement within
twentieth
century society. He interpreted modern trends in Christian thought
through his
inspirational and philosophical writings. His research on the history
of
Quakerism connected the Society with its mystical background. Through
diplomacy
and dedication he was instrumental in the organization of the Five
Years
Meeting (now Friends United Meeting), the Young Friends movement, and
the
series of World Conferences held since 1920. Canadian Yearly Meeting
participates in these and in Friends General Conference and in the
Friends
World Committee for Consultation. These broad organizations do not draw
every
variety of Quaker, but they have extended the bonds of unity.
Another result of the conciliatory trend of
the
twentieth century has been
the reunion of branches in the same areas. This movement reached formal
completion
in New England in 1945, just a century after the separation of the
Gurneyites
and the Wilburites. New York and Philadelphia re-united soon after and
the two
Baltimore Yearly Meetings re-united in 1967. In Canada, too, the desire
for
re-union hat been taken to heart by some Canadian Friends prior to
1921and it
grew concurrently with the movement in America. For a number of years
prior to
1928, fraternal delegates had been appointed to attend Yearly Meetings
of the
three branches of the Society of Friends in Canada. In this connection,
fully a
decade before this date, little delegations of Elders from Genesee
Yearly
Meeting were making exploratory visits to those groups from which they
had been
cut off. There were some return visits and a real step forward came
when Fred
Ryon, pastor of Pelham Brick Church Meeting, and his congregation,
invited
Genesee Yearly Meeting to hold sessions in their Meetinghouse in1921.
Business
sessions were open to both memberships and Meetings for Worship were
shared.
The desire for unity was also stimulated in
1928
when Genesee Yearly Meeting
(General Conference) and Canada Yearly Meeting (Five Years Meeting)
held their
annual meeting in joint and concurrent sessions to coincide with a
similar
joint meeting held at the same time by the two parent branches of the
New York Meetings
on the one hundredth anniversary of the Great Separation of 1828.
Meanwhile
other straws in the current gave clear indication of the direction in
which
Canadian Friends were going. In 1933 a number of Conservative Young
Friends for
the first time attended Camp NeeKauNis. Begun originally under the
auspices of
Toronto Monthly Meeting, the camp, beautifully situated on the shores
of
Georgian Bay, soon became one of the major projects of the Canadian
Friends
Service Committee. Prom now on young Friends began to take on
increasingly
important part in the union movement. Young Friends, having worshipped,
worked
and played together at Camp NeeKauNis over the years, were not aware of
any
significant differences which should keep them apart. While the Second
World
War was grinding slowly toward its final phase, an important step was
taken
toward an organic union of Canadian Friends when, in 1944, the Canada
Yearly
Meeting (Conservative) decided to join the other two Yearly Meetings at
Pickering College in joint and concurrent sessions. A Committee on
Closer
Affiliation appointed to consider the question reported in 1954 that,
since
"unity has been a growing power over the years of our meeting together,
we
now accept the desire of Friends for a United Yearly Meeting in
Canada.... We
are now prepared to proceed with ways and means whereby this may be
accomplished." When the minute recording this decision was accepted,
the
Commit tee was further charged "to bring recommendations the following
year for a basis on which to proceed as one Yearly Meeting.
Though the decision in favour of organic
union had
seemed unanimous in 1954,
when the Committee brought in its report the following year it met with
the
first openly expressed objection, principally on the ground that there
could be
no organic union except on some common doctrinal basis. However, the
overwhelming
body of opinion favoured implementing the decision of the previous year
foray
unified organization. The recommendations of the Joint Committee on
Closer Affiliation
were accordingly accepted, including a new name for the united Yearly
Meeting
as, The Canadian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
Pelham
Quarterly Meeting comprising two rural Meetings in which the
Evangelical-Revivalist tradition of the 1890's was still strong,
decided for
the time being to stand aside from the united Yearly Meeting.
A fitting climax to the consummation of
union in
June 1955 was the Meeting
for Worship held on First Day morning in the Conservative Friends'
Meetinghouse
on Yonge Street near the town of Newmarket. (From Arthur G. Dorland:
Recent
Developments in Canadian Quakerism).
The complexion of Canadian Quakerism has
changed
since the end of the war
from a largely rural aspect to that arising from a concentration in
urban areas,
where seekers from many walks of life are attracted together. The
Society in
Canada has also become revitalized by the new vision of many members
and
attenders from overseas and by a new orientation centred on the advance
of
Western Canada where the seeds of new Meetings have taken root and
flourished.
An important difference still exists within
the
Society in the United States.
A large majority of members in Friends United Meeting belong to
Meetings that
developed a pastoral system of programmed Meetings for Worship as a
result of
the Great Revival of the late nineteenth century. Their outreach has
resulted
in strong missionary work among Western Indians, and in Alaska, Latin
America,
Jamaica, Jordan and Kenya. There were scarcely more Friends all
together in
1700 than in the rapidly growing East Africa Yearly Meeting in 1964.
Growth of affection and familiarity among
members
working on common projects
makes it hard to recall today the nineteenth century divisions. The
accepted
variety of outlook in the Canadian Yearly Meeting is the outward
embodiment of
inner unity. As Friends draw closer to each other they are drawn closer
to God. Back to Top
Developments since 1955
In 1955, Friends in Canada took the
momentous step
of becoming a unified
Canadian Yearly Meeting born out of the genuine desire to start life
together
as one family of Friends. They had lived in the tradition of the
separations
which took place in North American Quakerism from 1826 to 1881. By
1955,
separations had been in place for 129 years covering many generations.
Working
together on a unified Canadian Yearly Meeting Discipline (Organization
and
Procedure) was the starting point of life together as one spiritual
family.
(The introduction of revised disciplines from parent Yearly Meetings
was one
cause of disunity in the past.) However, at the time of union in 1955,
it was
recognised and recorded that articulation of the Quaker faith amongst
Canadian
Friends was unresolved and this would-be the underlying longing and
searching
of Friends as they worshipped, witnessed and worked together in the
growing
fellowship of the Yearly Meeting.
Over more than three decades since
unification,
the work on revision of
Organization and Procedure has continued. As Friends have felt led,
each
section has been reviewed or revised by the Yearly Meeting Discipline
Review
Committee, considered by Monthly Meetings and eventually approved by
Yearly
Meeting in session. Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of
the
Society of Friends of London Yearly Meeting continues to be used for
religious
inspiration and reference. This volume, together with Advices and
Queries and
Organization and Procedure, constitutes the Discipline (Church
Government) of
Canadian Yearly Meeting.
The growth of fellowship among members of
Yearly
Meeting in spite of the
great geographical distances, in Half-Yearly Meetings, in committees,
in local
Meetings, in service and witness and the understanding of one another
as
members of the Religious Society of Friends, has enabled Friends to
become a
nation-wide Quaker community. This has been strengthened by a number of
developments. In 1972, several Meetings in western Canada (also
affiliated with
Pacific Yearly Meeting) became fully a part of Canadian Yearly Meeting.
Individual membership has slowly increased
from
603 at the time of union, to
1157 in 1990. A considerable number of Friends are inactive or
non-resident.
Request for membership by convincement is steady but slow.
Approximately one
third of the active members serve on Yearly Meeting committees. Most
Meetings
have a circle of regular attenders. In the smaller Meetings there is
often a
lack of Friends experienced in the life of the Society of Friends.
Approximately 100 members do not live close enough to a Meeting to
allow for active
participation. They are recorded by Home Mission and Advancement
Committee as
isolated Friends.
In all of the 24 Friends' Meetings and 25
Worship
Groups comprising Canadian
Yearly Meeting (1990), worship takes place on the basis of silent,
expectant
waiting upon God in the traditional Quaker way. State of Society
Reports
continue to confirm that "in spite of some despondency, Friends in
their
Meetings are united in cherishing the Meeting for Worship based on
silence as
the true centre of their life together". Rural Meetings, especially in
Ontario, have continued to decline in recent years, some having been
discontinued.
New Meetings and Worship Groups have come into being, especially in
rapidly
growing urban centres across the country, such as Hamilton, Ottawa,
Kitchener-Waterloo,
and Edmonton. The innovative Prairie Monthly Meeting brings together
Friends
from outlying places on the Prairies. In Nova Scotia there is a Meeting
in
Halifax and, most recently, in Wolfville. Older Meetings such as
Toronto,
Montréal, Vancouver, Victoria and Calgary continue to be active. Argent
Meeting
was started by Friends from California in the early 1950s. Twelve
Monthly
Meetings own their own Meetinghouses which facilitate continuing
opportunities
for life together and for outreach.
Toronto Meeting (Canada Yearly Meeting [F])
previously owned a large Meetinghouse
on Maitland Street. The Meeting moved to the present premises in 1946.
Today
Friends are thankful for the inheritance of Friends Howe in the large
city of
Toronto, which provide accommodation for Toronto Monthly Meeting,
Canadian
Friends Service Committee, the Library, and Day Care Centre. In 1971, a
large
Meeting Room was added which enables the building to be the hospitable
centre
for Yearly Meeting committees and a wide variety of community
organizations.
The availability of rooms for overnight accommodation for visiting
Friends is
of great service to the Yearly Meeting, whose Office was located in
Friends
House until it moved to Ottawa in 1989.
The historic decision to hold Yearly Meeting
outside Ontario, first in western
Canada in Saskatoon in 1970, and later in the Maritimes in 1974,
alternating
with Pickering College, Newmarket (which for many years has been the
hospitable
home ground for Canadian Yearly Meeting), has made it possible for
Friends and
attenders from all parts of Canada to become more fully integrated into
the
Society of Friends. To enable Friends to travel the great distances
Yearly
Meeting travel budget has been constantly expanded. Funds left in trust
by
generous Friends in the past supplement the contributions of Meetings
and
individuals.
The Yearly Meeting continues its historic
association with the wider Quaker
community through affiliation with Friends General Conference and
Friends United
Meeting, and membership in Friends World Committee for Consultation
(Section of
the Americas). This participation brings much enrichment of spirit and
of life,
and often challenges Friends' understanding of the Quaker faith. The
three
streams of Quakerism (which united in Canada in 1955) continue in some
areas of
the United States, whilst in some Yearly Meetings unification took
place. In
some Yearly Meetings in the United States there are pastoral Meetings
and
varying theological emphases, and there are also traditional Meetings
based on
silent worship. Evangelical Friends Alliance (now Evangelical Friends
International) was founded in 1965. The appointment of a Yearly Meeting
Continuing Meeting of Ministry and Counsel has deepened concern for the
spiritual
nurture of the Meetings, and for the pastoral care of members. It has
also
tackled contemporary ethical problems with which Meetings and
individuals are
faced.
Canadian Friends Service Committee is a
standing
committee of the Yearly
Meeting. The Service Committee was established in 1931 and represented
the
wider organization of Friends in Canada across the divisions. In 1955,
it
became the service arm of the new Canadian Yearly Meeting. Service
projects
were already in existence in 1955. The strength and experience which
came from
participation in Friends' war time and post-war relief and witness
brought
fresh impetus to the work of the Committee. Younger Friends and
newcomers who
had done Quaker service abroad as conscientious objectors in relief and
ambulance
work, along with Friends from other Yearly Meetings, participated in
the work
with concern and enthusiasm. The concerns, witness and projects of the
Service
Committee over the past 59 years have brought much life into the Yearly
Meeting, at times with challenges and problems to be resolved. Service
projects, peace witness and education have been supported as Friends
have felt
guided and have recognized that Quaker concern is "that leading of the
Holy Spirit which may not be denied. The struggle perhaps has been to
discern
true guidance for projects which express a religiously-based approach
to the
life of our times and which are not solely philanthropic or
humanitarian work.
In 1963, the Service Committee took a bold
step
for the Peace Testimony by
accepting the offer of Diana Wright for the use of Grindstone Island on
Big
Rideau Lake (90 km. south of Ottawa) as a Friends Peace Education
Centre.
Imaginative peace and reconciliation programmes took place there in
which
Canadian Friends attenders and many others concerned about peace
(including a
number from the United States) participated. These programmes included
training
in non-violence, French-English dialogue, Conferences for Diplomats and
Quaker-UNESCO Seminars organized by the Canadian Peace Research
Institute. The
work would hardly have been possible without the service of Murray
Thomson as
Peace Education Secretary (1962 - 1969) and other able and concerned
Friends
who worked on the Island.
In 1980, there was a deeply felt need
expressed at
Yearly Meeting to explore
and to renew the spiritual roots of the Quaker Peace Testimony, to
deepen our
lives as Friends and to be enabled to make a more effective and
religiously
based peace witness in the world. Two years later, the committee
appointed by Yearly
Meeting recommended that concerned Friends (Peace Elders) be released
to
"travel in the ministry under concern for the spiritual and religious
roots of the Peace Testimony". Much dedicated work and travel has been
undertaken
by these concerned Friends. After a great deal of searching and
consideration,
the Yearly Meeting laid down the Peace Elders in 1989, affirming the
practice
of releasing Friends to minister. This retrospect of developments in
the life
of Friends in Canadian Yearly Meeting since 1955 reminds us of the
positive,
often very concrete factors which the Yearly Meeting inherited, which
were
created by the faithfulness of Friends in the past. It also shows us
that
Friends over the years since 1955 have, with God's help, become a
community of
Faith and have themselves continued to build a house of Iivingstones
with their
own contributions to the Glory of God.
Friends have continued to work for the
Kingdom of
God as Jesus commanded,
and which expresses Friends' longing for the salvation of the world.
They have
remained steadfast to this calling since George Fox's vision on Pendle
Hill of
"a great people to be gathered". Over these years, Friends have found
guidance through the Presence of God in worship and, in the inward
experience
of each one, shared in the fellowship of the Meeting, thus being
empowered by
the Spirit of Christ to work for those in need. Becoming a People of
God, we
work together for the transformation of ourselves, and, through that,
of the
world. Though the community of Friends in the world today is
numerically small,
our calling to experience that inward and shared knowledge of God as
the
redemptive meaning of our individual and corporate existence remains as
vital
as it has always been.
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