Friendly Heritage: Letters from the Quaker Past (review)

60QUAKER HISTORY die sources Dr. Cadbury used (including a table of "Letters, Notes, etc., Written by Woolman in England"), and a map of die places Woolman visited. In one respect die present volume is out of date: it was published just before the appearance of The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1971), the only complete and accurate edition of Woolman's Journal. Hence it states that MS. R3 (in the Rutgers University Library) and MS. T (a version of the sea voyage) have not been collated with die final holograph of die Journal. These collations were made and die results set forth in the Oxford University Press volume. Also, the author's references to die Journal are necessarily to the inadequate Gummere and Whitney editions. However, it will not be difficult for the reader to locate die corresponding passages in the Oxford volume. The present reviewer highly recommends Dr. Cadbury's study, which is now available at the Friends Book Store in Philadelphia. Adrian CollegePhillips Moulton Friendly Heritage: Letters from the Quaker Past. By Henry J. Cadbury. Norwalk, Conn.: Silvermine Publishers. 1972. A Friends Journal Book. 342 pages. $9.95. This volume includes Letters from the Past, Numbers 1-240 (1941-1969), written by Henry J. Cadbury under the pseudonym, "Now and Then." The Letters appeared in The Friends Intelligencer and continued in The Friends Journal when it was established in 1955. Henry Cadbury wrote his first letter while he was m England in 1941 on a mission, accompanied by D. Robert Yarnall, for the American Friends Service Committee. They tried, widi die assistance of British Friends, to persuade the British Government to lift its blockade so that food could go through to children in German-occupied Europe. Aldiough they were unsuccessful in this mission they did learn a great deal about die Second World War, relief work, and die British people's endurance under trial by fee. Henry Cadbury wrote in his first letter: "It was a welcome accident that die legitimate duty of viewing typical areas of destruction justified one in visiting also the grave of George Fox, standing amid die desolate ruins that surround Bunhill Fields." In diis same letter, on diis same momentous visit to England, Henry Cadbury slips out from "the august Meeting for Sufferings ... to steal an hour with the ancient worthies in die Quarterly Meeting records." Widi this first letter, "Quaker Memories in Days of Blitzkrieg," written under peculiar and extraordinary circumstances and in London, Henry Cadbury started on a project which has now continued for over thirty years. As "Now and Then" he stood in the present and looked back, not like Lot's wife becoming rigid and lifeless, but bridging die gap between the past and the present. All of diese 240 Letters follow this pattern. A British Friend living in Paris was imprisoned for alleged anti-Nazi activity. Letter 11, "In French Prisons," deals with him and also a Friend imprisoned in the Bastille as eaily as 1657. Letter 18, "A Quaker M.P. on the War," refers to a Quaker BOOK REVIEWS61 speaking in die House of Commons in 1941 and then to John Bright, many years earlier. Letter 26, "Jones Lauded for Quicker Work," gives Now and Then a chance to seize on the misprint to say "in what sense can we apply 'quicker' to Quakerism? It too, at its best, has been before its time, living ahead of schedules." Aldiough not really a philatelist himself, Henry Cadbury devoted some spare time to hunting stamps for an older brodier's enthusiasm as a collector, and was always on the lookout for special stamps. A number of the Letters are concerned with stamps. Letter 61, "The Stamps of Quakerism," mentions Quakers whose faces have appeared in this manner. There are later letters which deal with stamps depicting Susan B. Anthony, Herbert Hoover, Norman Morrison, and others. Letter 237, "Stamps and Friends," has more to say. It is impossible to list all the topics this versatile scholar has covered. A random jotting of titles should be enough to arouse any reader's interest: Letter 120, "The Son of Westtown's Father...