Memoirs of Charles J. Darlington. Vol. I: Farm and School, 1894-1911; Swarthmore College, 1911-1916 (review)

Book Reviews115 Memoirs of Charles J. Darlington. Vol. I: Farm and School, 1894-1911; Swarthmore College, 1911-1916. Published by the author's family. 1966. xix, 254 pages. $1.50. (Copies can be obtained from the Friends Book Store, 302 Arch St., Philadelphia, Pa., 19106 or from Esther Rosenberg, 609 Hillborn Ave., Swarthmore, Pa., 19081.) Having been closely associated with Charles Darlington from the time he graduated from Swarthmore College and after he came to live in Wilmington, Delaware, where I had been born and raised, I was greatly interested in reading the first volume of his Memoirs, which cover that part of his life when I did not know him. Although our families had belonged to the same Quarterly Meeting and I was well acquainted with the section of the country where Charles Darlington had grown up, we had never met. But from the time he came to Wilmington to live we were thrown together in many activities in the Society of Friends and I grew to appreciate the great value of his friendship and the service he was rendering to the neighborhoods in which he lived and to the life and outreach of the Society of Friends. One is impressed with the "recollections" which Charles Darlington had stored up in his mind and the fluidity and detail with which he was able to express them. There was never any doubt in my mind about his mental ability and scholastic aptitude, as was evidenced by his success in school and college, but it is fortunate for posterity that he had the concern to write down his "recollections" when he was not too old. There can be no doubt about the high spiritual qualities of Charles Darlington 's ancesters and their loyalty to the Society of Friends, but if one wants to draw conclusions from the "meeting attendance" habits and "religious experience" of his immediate forebears with relation to Charles' tremendous concern and service which he felt and rendered in the later decades of his life, one is likely to be disappointed. In his youth, the local meeting for worship was small in attendance and lacking in the power of the spirit. Undoubtedly, he attended school meetings for worship, but when he was a student at Swarthmore College he rarely went to the campus meeting for worship on Sunday morning. On the other hand, those who knew him in the latter part of his life certainly will testify that he was active in meeting for worship and was led by the "spirit of the Lord." The first volume of the Memoirs is a book well worth reading, and I am anxious to get my hand on the second volume. Media, PennsylvaniaWilliam Eves, 3rd Rambling Recollections ofNinety Happy Years. By Levi T. Pennington. Privately printed in a numbered edition, on sale by the author at 1000 E. Sherman St., Newberg, Oregon. 1967. 187 pages. $5.00. It is extraordinary for a man of ninety to write a book, but then, Levi Pennington is an extraordinary man, and at ninety-two is working on his third book of poetry. ...