Category Archives: Quaker History

Re-Re-Re-Inventing The Wheel: 170 Years of “Convergent” Quakerism

As Robin Mohr, the younger Friend who coined the “Convergent” label put it, the idea appeals to “Friends from the politically liberal end of the evangelical branch, the Christian end of the unprogrammed branch, and the more outgoing end of the Conservative branch.”

But what has happened repeatedly is that the “politically (and theologically) liberal end of the evangelical branch” gets lopped off, and those involved either hunker down, or join an exodus.

To All Romantic Friends: Coming Wednesday – A Quaker Valentine Story

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 … Continue reading To All Romantic Friends: Coming Wednesday – A Quaker Valentine Story →

An Indomitable Woman Friend: Five Dead Babies, Spiritualism & Reform

While she was the wife of a prosperous textile manufacturer, all her affluence and “privilege” did not save her first child, born in 1829, from an early death — or the next four after him: all five died, one after another, in infancy or shortly afterward.

As the fifth one faded, Chace penned a rhymed plea

“Oh! no, it cannot, cannot be;
My darling babe will live.
He must not go away from me,
He is the last of five. . . .

And, much and often have I prayed,
That so it might not be;
That in a little coffin laid
This one I ne’er might see.

“Oh! Father, spare him longer yet,
Our lonely home to cheer.
We’ve often said it was for this
That Thou hast sent him here.”

But it was not to be.