History of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada (review)

BOOK REVIEWS41 he has misled several historians of mysticism by making Boehme far morenegative than he actually is. Like Boehme, however, Law complied with the outward rules of the Church to the very end. William Law and Eighteenth Century Quakerism comes as fulfillment of a fervent prayer of long ago. Christopher Walton, collector of mystical literature, advertised widely throughout England about the middle of the last century for an able and understanding writer who would turn his unique collection of documents relating to Law into an " adequate biography ." Unsuccessful in this search he himself printed a large part of the collection, including many strange " theosophic " writings, in a vast medley of over 700 pages of very fine print. To one who has groped in the dark depths of this rare volume and read the high hopes expressed in the advertisement which forms its introduction Walton's prayer seems at last to have found an answer in the sympathetic and scholarly work of Stephen Hobhouse.1 Howard H. Brinton Richmond, Indiana Dorland, Arthur Garratt. History of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada. Toronto: The Macmillan Company, Ltd. 1927. Pp. 343. $5.50. As justification for this volume the author presents the fact that no one has before attempted to trace the history of the Society of Friends in Canada. He points out that early Canadian Friends " were pioneers in the field both of material and religious endeavor; and though it is difficult to estimate such a thing with exactness, they have left their impress on the life and thought of the young Canadian nation." After the manner of the true biographer and historian, Arthur Dorland laments the paucity of original sources in the way of personal or biographical material. He reminds us that Canadian Friends were a simple agricultural folk, who wrote few letters and kept fewer diaries; that they were too busy living to keep a record of how they lived. As a result the limited amount of old manuscript records that were available had to be liberally supplemented by the records of visiting Friends from England and the United States, who recorded their impressions and whose journals form both a unique and a valuable contemporary record of conditions in Canada during the pioneer period of Quaker settlement. Had our friend not frankly admitted the handicap under which he worked in compiling this history, it might easily have been overlooked by the reader, for the book throughout gives ample evidence of wide and thoroughgoing research. This book is indeed a history of Friends in Canada, but it is much more than that. In the first chapter a comprehensive view is given of the 1 The editor must again express regret that such volumes are not published with an index. Norman Penney has kindly sent a MS. copy of an index which he prepared. But a printed index of only two or three pages would have added value to every copy of the book. 42 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION organization, discipline and distinctive testimonies of the Society of Friends as a whole. It offers effective background for the more detailed consideration of western American Quakerism, a background that is not only necessary for the general reader but also helpful to the Friendly one. Furthermore , preliminary to his treatment of the various distinctive phases of Canadian Quakerism, Arthur Dorland gives the general American background . Thus a broad perspective is continually established, on the basis of which Quaker developments north of the Canadian border are the more readily understood. For example there is an excellent chapter on the American background of the Quaker migration to Canada showing the general motive forces dominating the westward movement of Quakerism beyond the Alleghenies, which began shortly following the Revolutionary period. Likewise a discerning chapter on the religious separation of 1828 in America precedes that on the separation of that year in Canada. Regarding this latter development the author says : " If in these pages, religious separations among Friends appear to have been unduly stressed, it is only because they had such a far-reaching influence on Quakerism, and also because an understanding of these separations throws considerable light on the development of religious thought on...