Chronique de la vie Quaker française de 1750-1938 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS39 Holland than of those prisoners destined for banishment who were captured by the Dutch and finally landed in two shiploads in Holland in 1666. Obscure though the reference is to Jane Wilkinson in Holland in 1654 or 1655 (pp. 17, 20Of.), it is perhaps not the earliest reference to a Quaker there. An English reference in 1647 (!) to women from beyond seas called Quakers has still not been explained. As for the first idea of spreading Quakerism in Holland (p. 17), Dr. Hull could have referred to a specific statement in Fox's printed Epistle 337 addressed thither in 1676, in which he says, "The Lord hath a great people to come out of those parts, which I saw in 1651." Since in his account of subsidiary preachers of Quakerism in Holland William Hull mentions the travels of John Stubbs to the near east and of George Rofe to America, he might well have included at least references to the fuller unpublished manuscript accounts of these journeys in London and Philadelphia respectively. On p. 201 it is a slip to say that Elizabeth Hooton was the first to preach Quakerism in America, and on the same page Swarthmore Account Book is not the proper name for the Fund for the spread of Truth there quoted. On p. 194 the last date should be, I suppose, 1666, and not 1660. I note also perveted (58), Kroese (256), Toldery (258). One omission in the bibliography I mention because of its American interest : A Call from Death to Life, by Marmaduke Stephenson, the Boston martyr, was printed with other papers in Amsterdam in Dutch, not only in the edition of 1663 (219, note 471) but also in 1662 (Thysiana 3280). This volume is uniform in paper, type, and binding with the other volumes in the series and like them is provided with numerous illustrations . In reproducing manuscripts (opposite pp. 116 and 180) my own preference would be to use positive photostats rather than negative, and in transcribing them either to retain the abbreviation ? for per-, por-, pro-, etc., or to resolve it in full. On page 99, "burned several good wholesome Prayers" must be a misreading of "Papers" in the original. Henry J. Cadbury. Chronique de la vie Quaker française de 1750-1938. By Henry van Etten. Paris, Société religieuse des Amis, 12, rue Guy-de-la-Brosse, 1938. 316 pp., 43 illustrations. 22 francs; obtainable at Friends Book Store, 302 Arch St., Philadelphia, 80 cents postpaid. 'THERE is only one person who could have written this book and that is Henry van Etten. Happily, he has done it. He has reviewed all of the available material, written and oral, relating to the life and religion of the Cévennes group in the South centered at Congenies,—Camisards, Inspirés, Gonfleurs, Trembleurs, and finally Quakers,—down to the last survivor of the Brun family still living at an advanced age in Nîmes. In the nineteenth century the two hundred members of this group 40 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION consisted largely of the Benezets, Bruns, Rabinels, Majoliers, and their ramifications. The romantic story of the discovery by London Friends of this similar group and the setting up of a regular Friends' meeting at Congenies in 1788 is now readily accessible for all who can read French. The strange rôle of Jean de Marsillac in this story, both in France and America, is told at length but cannot be fully explained. Henry van Etten has told some of this story, in briefer form, in an article "Quakerism in France" published in the Bulletin 26 (1937) :35-38. Through marriage and emigration to avoid military service, the Congenies group passed out of existence early in this century, leaving their meeting house and beautiful little graveyard behind them. It was that great missionary soul, Christine Majolier Alsop (1805-1879) and Justine Dalencourt (1838-1928) who kept the spark of Quakerism alive in France for many years. The latter, beside her noble work for women and girls, maintained a meeting in her Paris home for over thirty years. She thus formed a rallying point for the host of young English and...