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Friends United Meeting |
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May 2000
Quaker Strongholds
It seems to me that nothing but silence can heal the wounds made by disputations in the region of the unseen. No external help, at any rate, has ever in my own experience proved so penetratingly efficacious as the habit of joining in a public worship based upon silence…There used, after a while, to come upon me a deep sense of awe, as we sat together and waited-for what? In my heart of hearts I knew in whose name we were met together, and who was truly in the midst of us. Never before had his influence revealed itself to me with so much power as in those quiet assemblies.
And another result of the practice of silent waiting for the unseen presence proved to be a singularly effectual preparation of mind for the willing reception of any words which might be offered "in the name of a disciple." The words spoken were indeed often feeble, and always inadequate (as all words must be in relation to divine things), sometimes even entirely irrelevant to my own individual needs, though at other times profoundly impressive and helpful; but, coming as they did after the long silences which had fallen like dew upon the thirsty soil, they went far deeper, and were received into a much less thorny region than had ever been the case with the words I had listened to from the pulpit.
In Friends' meetings also, from the fact that every one is free to speak, one hears harmonies and correspondences between very various utterances such as are scarcely to be met with elsewhere. It is sometimes as part-singing compared with unison. The free admission of the ministry of women, of course, greatly enriches this harmony.
From Quaker Strongholds, 1890, by British Friend Caroline Stephens, in Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings, edited by Douglas V. Steere, Paulist Press, 1984, pp. 249-250.