c, I switch it and transfer its momentum to one
of the practices that prepare for worship.

HOW SHOULD WE COME TO MEETING? Reluctantly? No. Burdened by a feeling of
obligation to attend? No. Expecting something dull and tedious? No! If a
meeting evokes only dullness in its members it is a dead meeting and
ought to be laid down. A live meeting evokes life. Just the prospect of
attending such a meeting should quicken us. It were better to come alive
doing housework than to become deadened in a meeting house.

Come with the expectancy that, as you make effort to turn yourself
Godwards, the life deep within you will arise, and meet you half-way,
and call you, and draw you, gather you into God's presence. Come with
the hope that the Teacher within will teach you of spiritual things.
Come with the expectancy that as you meet with other Friends, in this
very gathering you and they will be shaken awake by the impact of God's
power, and made to tremble, and become actual Quakers. Come with the
prayer that one and all may be "brought through the very ocean of
darkness and death, by the eternal, glorious power of Christ, into the
ocean of light and love."

WHAT SHOULD WE DO, IN AND OUT OF MEETING, IN OUR PERIODS OF WORSHIP AND
IN OUR DAILY LIVES? Practice the presence of God. Practice, as far as we
are able, the love of God and the love of man and all creation. But let
George Fox declare it to us, as he declared it to the early Friends and
to people of all ranks and conditions in two continents. "All people
must first come to the Spirit of God in themselves, by which they might
know God and Christ, of whom the prophets and apostles learnt; by which
Spirit they might have fellowship with the Son, and with the Father, and
with the Scriptures, and with one another; and without this Spirit they
can know neither God nor Christ, nor the Scriptures, nor have right
fellowship one with another."

FOR FURTHER READING

Books

AN APOLOGY FOR THE TRUE CHRISTIAN DIVINITY by Robert Barclay

THE BOOK OF DISCIPLINE OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

CREATIVE WORSHIP by Howard H. Brinton

THE FAITH AND PRACTICE OF THE QUAKERS by Rufus M. Jones

THE JOURNAL OF GEORGE FOX

THE LETTERS OF ISAAC PENINGTON

PRAYER AND WORSHIP by Douglas V. Steere

THE QUAKER MINISTRY by John William Graham

THE QUAKER WAY OF LIFE by William Wistar Comfort

THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS by William Penn

SILENT WORSHIP, T