Pennsylvania 1681-1756: The State without an Army (review)

SO BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Children of Light, [Studies] In Honor of Rufus M. Jones, edited by Howard H. Brinton. New York, Macmillan, 1938. xii + 416 pp. Illustrated with portrait of Rufus M. Jones. $3.50. ^fT1HE essays in this book," says the Introduction, "have been written by students of Quaker history in honor of Rufus M. Jones . . . , presented on his seventy-fifth birthday as an affectionate tribute of gratitude and admiration. . . ." Historical rather than philosophical essays were invited because Rufus Jones "has contributed more widely than any person now living to the knowledge and understanding of the history of the Society of Friends." The fifteen contributors deal with a wide variety of subjects, and readers will doubtless select one or another according to their special interest. Two deal with William Penn—as a theologian, and as a constitution-maker. Two deal with Edward Byllynge, proprietor of West Jersey—one, by Violet Holdsworth, showing the patient and minute genealogical and historical research by means of which the obscure details of early Quaker history are being slowly filled in ; the other, by John L. Nickalls, telling of the evidence of Byllynge's influence on the first constitution of West Jersey. Two deal with early Quakers' knowledge of foreign tongues, Henry Cadbury telling of their use of Hebrew and Anna Cox Brinton of their Latin writings. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton is the subject of a biographical article, as are Joseph Hewes, the Quaker signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Timothy Nicholson , Candle of the Lord. Space fails to touch upon all the articles ; but mention should be made of the impressive bibliography of the works of Rufus Jones, and of an excellent index, which will make the separate contributions to Quaker knowledge more easily accessible. This is a book for Quaker historical browsing. It suffers the disadvantage of discontinuity, and enjoys the advantage of variety. The names of the contributors insure the quality of the articles. Among the three or four great names of contemporary students of Quaker history that are not represented, one misses most one that could not well have been included— that of the scholar and teacher in whose honor the volume was published. Pennsylvania 1681-1756: The State without an Army. By E. Dingwall and E. A. Heard. London, C. W. Daniel, 1937. 134 pp. 3 s. 6 d. ' I 'HIS convenient study of colonial Pennsylvania was written because the authors felt that the present time, when would-be peaceful governments feel themselves to be irresistibly drawn into war by warlike activities about them, requires a renewed study of the experience of one state that did attempt to maintain itself without an army. It specifically disclaims being a biography of William Penn, but has much to do with Penn's life, devoting one chapter to "The Founder of Pennsylvania" and one to "The Granting of the Charter." A third chapter discusses "The Frame of Government," stressing Penn's view that government is "a part of religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end," and listing Penn's Treaty with the Indians Painting in the State House ("Independence Hall") in Philadelphia, by Benjamin West ARTICLES IN QUAKER PERIODICALS51 its fine essential characteristics as democracy, religious liberty, justice to settlers and aborigines, the absence of a militia even for defense, and the abolition of oaths. Minor regulations are referred to, such as the use of prisons as an instrument of reform rather than vengeance, the limitation of lawyers' fees, and the education of poor children at public expense. Later chapters tell of Pennsylvania as Penn found it and as it grew under his constitution, of his treatment of the Indians (one of the longer chapters), of difficulties in the actual government, of the beginning of injustice to the Indians and its resulting complications, of pressure from the outside due to the rivalry of England and France, which led to the popular feeling that a standing army was a practical necessity; and finally of the withdrawal of Friends from politics in 1756. Thus the "Holy Experiment," markedly successful as long as the Founder's principles were followed, did not succeed in maintaining itself in the world as...