Benjamin Furly and Quakerism in Rotterdam (review)

BOOK REVIEWS33 BOOK REVIEWS Benjamin Furly and Quakerism in Rotterdam, by William I. Hull, Swarthmore College Monographs on Quaker History, Number five. Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 1941. xvi+314 pp. 15 illustrations. $3.50. PROFESSOR William I. Hull of Swarthmore College, in writing about William Furly and the Quakers in Rotterdam, has added an excellent companion volume to his earlier book, The Rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam. In doing so he has not only added to a better understanding of Quaker history on the continent of Europe but he has also made a significant contribution to the history of the United Provinces during the seventeenth century. When one attempts to deal with a subject as limited in scope as the history of a small sect in a single city the danger of getting lost in details is a very real one. If Professor Hull had yielded to this temptation I should not have considered his present volume of great value, but he entirely avoided this mistake. In spite of the wealth of detail, in spite also of the fact that necessarily names are mentioned scarcely familiar to the average historian, we are not left with the impression that the Quakers in Rotterdam are a group of curious people of little influence, whose only merit appears to be that they provide a historian of the year 1941 with an occasion to prove how many insignificant facts can be dug up if one only has the patience to dig. Quite the contrary is the case. After reading Dr. Hull's book we are convinced of the fact that Quakerism, quite independently of the number of people who adhere to its principles, by reason of the very nature of its teachings, was a world influence from the very start. Benjamin Furly, in Professor Hull's story, is not a local figure, mildly interesting; but through his relations with men of wide renown he becomes a participant in a movement which exceeded the narrow limits of the city of Rotterdam and indeed those of the United Provinces. We need but mention the names of George Fox, Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, and John Locke to convince us of the fact that we are dealing with a movement of very wide range indeed. Furly's home becomes the pied-à-terre for visitors from all countries, particularly England. Furly's fortune, but above all his character and reputation, lend substance and even respectability to a belief and practices very different from those familiar to the average member of the Dutch Reformed Church in the seventeenth century. On the whole the inhabitants of the city of Rotterdam were willing to maintain friendly relations with the Quakers. When the latter refuse to register their marriages the authorities go more than half way to meet their religious objections. There is, to be sure, a mild persecution partly fostered by the Calvinist ministers, but the matter does not get very far because Dutch tradition is against religious intolerance. Indeed, in the chapter on the "Half-baked" Quakers (page 185), a mistaken translation Vol. 31, No. 1. Spring 1942 34FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION from the Dutch quite misrepresents the situation. The English translation reads : "... some of the bell-wethers were confined for a time in the mad-house and afterwards whipped." The latter half of this sentence in the Dutch reads, "en daarna geslaakt wierden." Slaaken does not mean to whip but to release. It follows that the sentence should be translated : "some of the bell-wethers were confined in the mad-house but afterward released." This changes the meaning entirely and goes far to prove that the persecution was the reverse of serious. It is interesting to note that the Lowlands have known a threefold reformation : the Anabaptist, the Lutheran, and the Calvinistic. Calvinism had won the day but the Anabaptist tendencies had never quite disappeared . The notion of the "inner light" was not foreign to the Dutch mind even though this identical expression was not used. When Grotius and the Armenians contend that the use of our individual powers of reasoning should lead to personal convictions rather than to universal explanations of truth, as in a creed, they are not so far removed...