The Eighth German Yearly Meeting

136 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION garb of early days, using costumes of grandmothers and great-grandmothers . Henry C. Pickering, clerk of the meeting, presided, and after welcoming the guests, asked the serious question : "Are we building as well for our children as the early Quakers built for us?" Marion H. Longshore read a paper on "Neshamina Meeting, 1683-1700," and John H. Wood one on "18th Century Progress." George W. Row read a poem written and read by his father, the late Washington Row, at the anniversary exercises held at Middletown in 1893. Rufus M. Jones followed with an address on "The Future of Quakerism ." George Fox, he said, was "not only a Quaker—he was an 'earthquaker .' " The telephone and the radio are effective because of their transmitters, and Quakerism, too, must transmit its ideas and ideals to other groups. The Society, he said, started out with a world-wide mission, but Friends soon settled down to doing "their own little work in their own little way." They not only built fences bull-strong, pig-tight, sheephigh , around their farms, but they zealously fenced in their own beliefs and customs and were content to live apart. We know now that we cannot live in detachment and no man can live unto himself, for his life is like the other half of a return ticket—not good if detached. The great experiment is still far from triumphant. The last speaker was Lucretia M. Blankenburg, 88 years old. She told of the experiences of her uncle, the late Joseph Longshore, and his brother in the temperance movement one hundred years ago, and of their arrest and fine for holding a meeting in favor of this reform. She urged Friends to use their influence along the line of temperance. THE EIGHTH GERMAN YEARLY MEETING The German Yearly Meeting held at Bad Pyrmont, Germany, from July 29 to August 1, 1933, seemed to the Editor, who was privileged to attend, a historic occasion in at least two ways: it was the first meeting to be held in the new meeting house; and it seemed to contain a promise of a great future for German Quakerism. The Editor asked Hans Albrecht, clerk of the meeting , to prepare a history of the meeting house for the Bulletin, but the manuscript could not be completed in time, and readers must wait for it until the next issue. The impressiveness of the immediate occasion may have promised a future for the Quaker movement in Germany that, in the history of Germany as it THE GERMAN YEARLY MEETING137 actually unfolds, will fail to materialize—but certainly Germany seemed ripe for the Quaker message, and the Quaker body ready to be faithful bearers of that message. Corder Catchpool, of London and Berlin, long a resident of Germany representing British Friends, records the following impressions of the Yearly Meeting in the London Friend of August 11, 1933, page 701 : English Friends who in considerable numbers attended the German Yearly Meeting at Pyrmont a week ago must have been frequently reminded of a special Yearly Meeting of their own, held at a time of national crisis some years ago. There was the same tensity of feeling, the same doubt and anxiety; but also the same eagerness and sense of quiet exhilaration. Definite decisions on one striking and predominant issue were not called for at Pyrmont, as was the case in London in 1916; but under the surface of moderate calm there flowed strong undercurrents of feeling. If the issues at stake were for the most part of the future, and far-reaching rather than immediate and limited, they were certainly no easier to face on that account. Friends were present whose homes had been searched, who had lost their posts, who would shortly be facing trial, or who had already been through prison. Probably all had relatives or friends who had suffered under some phase or other of the Revolution. It had been uncertain almost up to the last whether Y. M. would be allowed by the authorities, and this perhaps accounts for the comparatively few visitors from abroad. The U. S., Holland, and Czechoslovakia were represented, in addition to...