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BOOK REVIEWS43 are accustomed to play cricket with the boys of Bootham. Upon one occasion one of the Ampleforth Old Boys met one of the Bootham Old Boys, and the latter began to relate the story of how the Ampleforth boys used to be held up at Bootham as the model of behavior and politeness. "You were nothing like as sick of it as we were," replied the Ampleforth Old Boy, "we were completely fed up with being told over and over again by our masters that the Bootham boys were the best and politest boys in the world." W. W. Comfort. Jones, Rufus M. The Faith and Practice of the Quakers. London: Methuen and Co.; New York; Geo. H. Doran and Co., 1927. Pp. 181, cloth. This volume is one of a series under the general editorship of L. P. Jacks. The series is entitled, The Faiths, Varieties of Christian Expression. Rufus Jones opens his volume with a chapter of Introduction. It is a broad survey and a penetrating analysis of the religious problem in the world today. It does not assume that there is one religious panacea for all kinds and conditions of men. "We should as individuals belong, if possible, to a religious group, a spiritual family, that best fits our needs and aptitudes. We should not all be fused and merged into one uniform mould in one vast structure. We should have our denominational homes and we should worship where we find ourselves in most sympathetic accord with Others." The author then proceeds to describe the kind of denominational home and spiritual atmosphere that Friends attempt to provide. The second chapter is a splendid survey, in brief compass, of "The Rise of Friends and their Spiritual Background." Following this are studies of Quaker contributions to religion and life : the central spiritual message, views on the sacraments, simplicity of life, the peace message, humanitarian service , and Quaker education. A reviewer is tempted to quote beyond the bounds of one small Bulletin. In explaining the Quaker quest for the development of the inward life the author says : "The Quakers felt convinced, and still are convinced, by their own experience that this tiny rill of our own individual life somehow, somewhere is conjunct with the Ocean of Spirit, whose tides flow back upon us and let us feel the sea-beat of the eternal reality .... There are rivers, like Abana and Pharpar, 'Rivers of Damascus,' which never reach an ocean and never feel a tide. They flow out into the sands of an arid desert and are lost in the marshes which their own waters make. There may, of course, be human lives like that, which connect only with the shallow cistern of their inland exits. The Quaker does not believe that. He holds a working faith that we all touch a deeper life and are within hail of 'that immortal Sea that brought us hither.' " Never, I think, can the inner meaning and purpose of a Friends' meeting for worship be set forth in more convincing and stirring phrases than the 44 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. following: "There is a moved and overbrimming state of mind. It is not exactly 'thinking', not perhaps quite 'meditation.' It is what the old Friends used to call centring down .... At the best, there is a corporate sense of overbrooding presence, a feeling of awe and wonder, and a straining forward of spirit to join cooperatively with the invading Life and Spirit. It is a mystical group-experience of a mild and unecstatic type. Each helps all, and all help each. Healing, vitalizing currents seem to flow from life to life. . . When one is in Damascus, he often hears the currents of invisible submerged rivers running underneath the streets of the city, and somewhat so one feels in these meetings at their best a tide of living Spirit flowing underneath the hushed and gathered group." A Friend is likely to feel that the Quaker method of procedure in meetings for business is too much idealized (p. 65 f.). Perhaps too it should have been noted that in most parts of America Friends have departed from the original Friendly method. Yet every...

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