s
seeming inactivity led to spiritual action. Out of this chrysalis what a
life was born! God found them in the silence. Blessed and renewing
experiences came to Friends, experiences which enabled them to be agents
of the divine spirit in every situation of human life. It is instructive
because it points us, of this day, to a religious practice that is
effective. It is reassuring because from it we may have sound hope that,
if we rightly and faithfully engage in this and other inward practices,
we may reach and even surpass the high level of religious experience
and service attained by Friends in the days when the Quaker movement
really moved. In our present-day lives and meetings there can be
soul-shaking events. The Light can invade us. Truth can take hold of us.
Love may gather us. Above all, God himself may become real to us as the
supreme Fact of the entire universe.

We of this modern age are inclined to be more lenient in our views of
the earthly man. We are disposed to consider him a moderately decent
fellow except when under the active power of evil. This makes us more
tolerant, less intense. It makes us more likely to indulge our fondness
for the earthly world and its things and pleasures, less moved to seek
God and His Kingdom. Nevertheless if we examine our experience we shall
recognize characteristics of the earthly man that are similar to those
seen by the early Friends. The outside world has changed considerably in
three hundred years, but man's constitution is much the same now as then
in all essential respects.

The earthly man, whether we regard him as good, bad, or indifferent, is
evidently an exile from God's kingdom. Our body-minds, namely our
everyday persons, are out of touch with our spiritual natures most of
the time, hence out of touch with God. We, as ordinary people, are not
by inclination turned towards God, but, on the contrary, are turned away
from Him. Day in and day out we do not even think of the possibility of
loving God and doing His will, but think of ourselves, and are bent to
enact our own wills, have our own way. Whether we, as earthly men, can
truly pray and worship is a question about which there is likely to be
disagreement. But who will deny that when we are absorbed in our
affairs, as we are most of the time, we do not pray or worship?
Recognition of these several facts will lead us to a position similar to
that of the early Friends, and point us to the same needs as regards