Authority in Church and State (review)

BOOK REVIEWS107 The importance of the " Friendly " element and the subsequent influence of Friends not only in local affairs, but in the wider interests of county and state, were ably dwelt upon by the speaker, himself an example of Quaker accomplishment. He gave brief sketches of the founders of some of the leading families,—Stroud, Foulke, Palmer, Flagler, Stokes, Walton, and others.—(A. Mitchell Palmer's paper was printed in a special edition of the Stroudsburg Record, 7 mo. 31, 1929, and also in separate pamphlet form.) Clarence E. Pickett spoke on the "Contribution of Friends to Present Day Society." He showed what this contribution had been in the past, and outlined for the future a greater appreciation of the spiritual needs of modern life. He urged upon Friends a more international outlook, alluding to the work abroad in Quaker centres created during and since the Great War. He drew a parallel between the religious and spiritual commonwealths , and showed how the Quakers should share in these great fields of human endeavor. The meeting closed appropriately with the reading of Whittier's " Quaker of the Olden Time," by Anna Walton Palmer. The Society is doing a valuable work on a small financial basis and membership, and its fine efforts are worthy of more interest and support. A. M. G. CHANGE IN BY-LAWS The following By-Law was proposed at the meeting of the Board of Directors on Fourth Month 18, 1929, and was passed at the next meeting held on Tenth Month 17, 1929: "At the first meeting of the Directors in each calendar year the President shall appoint a committee of five members to nominate Directors to the next annual meeting." The above By-Law is to take the place of the first sentence in Article III. The second sentence still remains in force, and is as follows : " Other nominations may be presented over the signatures of three members at any Annual Meeting." BOOK REVIEWS Books of interest to Friends may usually be purchased at the following places : Friends' Book Store, 302 Arch Street, Philadelphia. Friends' Central Bureau, 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia. Friends' Book and Tract Committee, 144 East 20th Street, N. Y. C. Friends' Book and Supply House, Richmond, Indiana. 108 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Friends' Book Centre, Friends House, Euston Road, London, N. W. 1, England. When the price of an English book is given below in terms of American money, it means that one of the American book stores has quoted that price. Belasco, Philip S. Authority in Church and State. London : George Allen and Unwin, Ltd. 1928. Pp. 326. This study is by a young English scholar (born in 1904), who is now a lecturer in Political Science at Loughborough College and University College, Nottingham, England. The book is concerned with the protest against the ultimate authority of Church and State made by early Friends in the name of individual conscience. Thus the author deals with basic principles that apply to many problems of the present day. Since the book has already been adequately reviewed in several Friends' periodicals, the Bulletin will merely present extracts from such reviews: " The first part of the book, which describes the political ideas of the Quakers in the seventeenth century, and the third, which is a defence of William Penn's adherence to James II, will most attract Friend readers. More important possibly is the second part, which discusses the nature of authority and its relation to actual power, and traces the way in which, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the authority which had belonged to the mediaeval Church passed over to the modern secular State. When the Church lost its authority, men accustomed to obedience sought a new authority to obey, for ' if matters may be left indifferent to be determined on every man's discretion,' there was not likely to be any united society at all. The growth of national consciousness made for the strength of the State as expressing the authority of the nation. The only way of maintaining a visible Church was to ally it to the only valid authority, which in the sixteenth century was the King."—J. D. Maynard, in...