uperiority of a conscience void of offence over written scripture
or formal ceremony--the character of being in essence the _broadest_
creed of Christendom. Injudicious retention of customs which had grown
meaningless had, he felt sure, brought down upon the body that most
fatal of all influences--contempt. "You see it in your own Church," he
said. "There is a school which, by reviving obsolete doctrines and
practices, will end in getting the Church of England disestablished as
it is already disintegrated. You see it even in the oldest religion of
all--Judaism. You see, I mean, a school growing into prominence and
power which discards all the accumulations of ages, and by going back to
real antiquity, at once brings the system more into unison with the
century, and prevents that contempt attaching to it which will accrue
wherever a system sets its face violently against the tone of current
society." He thought the Conference quite unnecessary. "There needs no
ghost come from the dead to tell us that, Horatio," he said, cheerily.
"They will find out that Quakerism is not a proselytizing religion," he
added; "which, of course, we knew before. They will point to the
fashionable attire, the gold rings, and lofty chignons of our younger
sisters as direct defiance of primitive custom. I am unorthodox
enough"--and he smiled as he used that word--"to think that the attire
is more becoming to my younger sisters, just as the Society's dress is
to my dear mother." That young man, and the youthful sisters he told me
of, stood as embodied answers to the question I had proposed to myself.
They were outward and visible evidences of the doctrine of Quaker
"development." The idea is not dead. The spirit is living still. It is
the spirit that underlies all real religion--namely, the personal
relation of the human soul to God as the source of illumination. That
young man was as good a Quaker at heart as George Fox or William Penn
themselves; and the "apology" he offered for his transformed faith was a
better one than Barclay's own. I am wondering whether the Conference
will come to anything like so sensible a conclusion as to why Quakerism
is declining.

CHAPTER XXII.

PENNY READINGS.

Who has ever penetrated beneath the surface of clerical society--meaning
thereby the sphere of divinities (mostly female) that doth hedge a
curate of a parish--without being sensible of the eligibility of Penny
Readings for a place in Mystic Lond