Yes! It’s okay to think about Valentine’s Day again.

And so . . . Coming Wednesday: A Quaker Valentine Story
Watch This Space . . . .

Meanwhile, some items of research data on Quakers and love:

In the mid 1820s, President Andrew Jackson rewarded a Philadelphia supporter by appointing his son Richard a secretary to the U.S. ambassador to England.

From London this handsome young man wrote home that he had attended a palace ball and had even danced with the princess Victoria.

When his mother read this part, she looked up in alarm and said, “Oh, I do hope Richard won’t marry out of meeting!”

There was a small, plain-garbed group of Conservative Friends in Harrisonburg, Virginia, living in a region well-salted with other plain-dressed church folk: Mennonites, German Baptists and, of course, Amish.

In these groups, the women typically wear a small bonnet, in keeping with Paul’s injunction in First Corinthians 11:10: “A woman ought to have a veil upon her head, because of the angels.” (Because of the WHAT of the angels was not made clear.)

One day a plain Friends was found standing in a feed store beside an old Mennonite farmer. The Mennonite looked him over carefully, then asked, “Who do you worship with?”

“The Quakers,” came the laconic answer.

“Oh, yes, hm, good,” the Mennonite elder allowed.

After a short pause he asked, “Do you meet in homes?”

“Yes, we do,” was the reply, as the Harrisonburg Friends did not then have their own meetinghouse.

Following another weighty pause, the old farmer nodded. Then he asked what was clearly for him a key question: “And are your women covered?”

The Quaker thought for a moment, then answered simply, “Mostly.”