The Trail of Life in the Middle Years (review)

90 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Douglass; William Boen (or Bowen) of Rancocas, New Jersey, who was convinced of Quakerism by John Woolman ; Paul Cuffe, a sea captain, of Westport, Massachusetts; Richard Cooper, born in Barbados, a member of Little Creek Preparative Meeting in Delaware; Miles Lassiter of Randolph County, North Carolina; James Alford of Philadelphia; Robert Purvis of Philadelphia. There is further brief mention of the Negro Quaker community established at Helena, Arkansas, from 1866 to about 1890. In this group Daniel Drew, Morris Brown, Arthur L. Crump, Calvin M. Kerr, Chandler Paschall, Duncan Freeland, and others, were recorded as ministers. Other Negro ministers were Noah C. and Cora E. McLean of Ohio Yearly Meeting, William Allen of Indiana. The article is abundantly documented with references to minutes, journals, and other original sources; and represents a scholarly and valuable contribution to the literature on Negro and Quaker history in this country. Copies can be bought from the Friends' Book Store, 304 Arch Street, Philadelphia, or from Pendle Hill, Wallingford, Pennsylvania , for 25 cents. It may be noted that the article was recently awarded a prize as the best contribution to Negro history during the current year. Henry J. Cadbury would be glad to hear of cases of Negro membership which have escaped his attention. He may be addressed at 7 Buckingham Place, Cambridge, Mass. T. K. B. The Trail of Life in the Middle Years. By Rufus M. Jones. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1934. vi + 250 pp. $2.00. TT'S A RATHER tidy honor to occupy a place on the book shelf¦*¦ between the sprightly "Memorials of Rebecca Jones" and the slim little "Journal of Richard Jordan," but there, in right ordering, can now be found Rufus Jones's The Trail of Life in the Middle Years. To be sure, his bright blue cover hardly comports with Becky Jones's somber black, or with the durable calf in which Richard Jordan defies time and innovation. But therein lies just the difference. This is a modern Friend's autobiography. Its tone and method are as different from the Memorial, the Journal, or the Narrative of the ancients, as the bright blue is from the black cloth or the drab calf bindings. In memoirs of old, the misspent youths of the staid journalists usually occupied about two pages, and were then passed over with relief, to get at the solid portion of the "Life." Rufus Jones has been wiser. Years ago (1902) he gave us that exquisite story of his boyhood, A Boy's Religion from Memory, recently (1931) rewritten as "Finding the Trail of Life." Just before it came The Trail of Life in College (1929) and in 1934, the subject of this review. Whether or not he ever gives us the fourth volume, for which we wait, his wiser choice has already shown us the importance of the early years. BOOK REVIEWS91 How vastly richer would that marvelous and unique collection of Quaker memoirs and journals be, in their range of religious experience over three hundred years, if youth and adolescence had been recorded faithfully , instead of having been sloughed off with grudging mention,—of which the less said, the better. In these Middle Years are the ripe experiences and the realization of the gift of leadership (modestly enough appreciated) that came to a great teacher, philosopher, and preacher. Those years also coincided with a great awakening in the Society of Friends. Though this book does not say so, the two chief instruments in that awakening were Isaac Sharpless and Rufus Jones. Their students in Haverford College, a generation ago, deeply realize, in weighing as history, the implications of that Quaker awakening that both men (p. 13) were "ready for them and, at least in spirit, matched with the call of the hour." The most pleasing feature of this book is its certainty without a dogmatic attitude (p. 160 : "No battles of the spirit are ever won 'for good and all'"), and the realization (p. 32) that "Quakerism in its essential meaning was a movement and not a narrow sect." And especially is this text gratifying in its exposition (again very modestly) of the peculiar service which...