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66Quaker History Their ability to influence andpreach to non-Quakers disappeared for a time. This book is a well-written account of a fundamental component of eighteenth century Quakerism. Furthermore the abundance of detail and the number of women studied illuminate the lives of a number of heretofore unknown Quakers. Her appendices, notes, and graphs provide a wealth of information for anyone interested in pursuing related topics. In recapturing their stories ofcourage and spiritual assurance, Larson has written a book with appeal to specialists and the general public with interests in colonial history, the history of women and the family, and the role of religion in western culture and history. Her strong narrative, readable style, and provocative subject make this book a welcome addition to any library. Margaret Morris HavilandWesttown School Witnessfor Humanity: A Biography ofClarence Pickett. By Lawrence McK. Miller. Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1999. xvi + 368 pp. Illustrations , notes, and index. Paper, $20. Clarence Pickett is one of the genuine peace heroes of the twentieth century. It is important to memorialize his life and the actions in which he was engaged. His own autobiography, ForMore than Bread, focused onhis twenty-two years as executive secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, but since his long life embraced many other activities, we should welcome this fuller account of his eighty-one years. Lawrence McK. Miller does a good job of chronicling the events of Clarence Pickett's life. Because of his unassuming and modest nature, Pickett himselfwould probably have welcomed an account ofhis life that equatedwho he was with what he did. However, the reader ofthis biography will perhaps at times be frustrated to see the acts celebrated with a fragmentary sense of the actor behind them. Pickett left five thousand single-spacedpages ofajournal and countless letters, butMiller's treatment ofthem never gives us much insight into the inner life ofa man who, in spite ofthe clarity ofhis vision, had to face many conflicts about choosing which path his life should take. To be sure, two ofthe characteristics of Pickett's life were a steadiness of vision about the nature of genuine peace and a steadfast desire to see Quaker faith applied to the pressing social problems of his day. He never skirted controversy ifit involved these principles. His courageous positions on the Friends Peace Testimony caused him problems in his pastorate in Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1 9 1 9, and his beliefin interracial understanding and his open criticism ofthe conservative drift in the Society ofFriends made his Book Reviews67 final years at Earlham College (1922-29) ones in which he felt more and more isolated. Yet he continued to speak with clarity andpassion such as in these words from his 1928 article, "What Worries the Quaker": The fact that war debauched personality, that race prejudice and modern factory systems do the same thing, were not deep-seated convictions with great numbers ofFriends__ Too many Quakers are CaIvinists__ The Puritan Calvinist often speaks throughthe modern Quakerministry with its doctrine of selfish salvation, its appeal to materialism, and the support ofcapitalism. . . . Whatwe miss in this biography is a full account ofthe shaping forces behind such words. The secret to Pickett's success as a peacemaker lay not only in his ability to speak with clarity, but also in his ability to show respect for his adversaries, especially in his role as executive secretary for the American Friends Service Committee, 1929-1950. What makes his life doubly worth reading about for those who seek a model for a genuine peacemaker is not only his steadfastness to truth and compassion for his adversaries, but his ability to look at the structural character of violence and evil. He saw the economic and political problems caused by the Versailles treaty in creating the problems ofNazi Germany, and the excesses of capitalism in creating the wrenching poverty in the coal mines in the South. He proposed a way of combatting structural violence by developing a "quality of spiritual life which simply makes it impossible for those who are members of this fellowship to support a society based on destruction ofother lives" (p.246). As Miller traces Pickett's career with the AFSC, which was marked...

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