Tag: quakers

Reflections for 12th Month, 2024

Elizabeth Fry is known as the “Angel of Prisons”.

Quaker Elizabeth Fry, born in 1780 in Norwich, England, is known as the “Angel of Prisons”.

Born into a prominent Quaker family, the Gurneys, she married Joseph Fry in 1800 and had eleven children.

When Fry visited Newgate Prison in 1813, the conditions she saw there horrified her. She started trying to help the very next day, bringing food and clothing for the prisoners.

She was so invested in her work, she even spent the night in some prisons and invited others to stay with her so that they could experience the conditions for themselves.

Fry funded a school in the prison for children who were imprisoned with their mothers. She also implemented a system where rules were proposed and then voted on by the prisoners.

She was instrumental in getting the 1823 Gaols Act in place which attempted to implement protections for female inmates.

Although the Gaols Act did not result in widespread improvements in prison conditions right away, it did have the immediate and significant result of having female inmates held separately from men.

In addition to her prison ministry, Fry also worked to help the homeless, and campaigned for abolition of slavery in European colonies.

After she died in 1845, Elizabeth Fry refuges were established in her honor. The refuges provided temporary shelter for women recently released from prison.

Quakers are still very active in prison reform today. The Friends Committee on National Legislation and Friends General Conference both have active programs. The FGC website says their goal is “Reforming the Modern Prison System With Quaker Values in Mind.”

Reflections for 10th Month, 2024

The first meeting house specifically for Quaker worship was built in 1670.

Quakers generally believe that worship can – and should – take place anywhere and everywhere.

It isn’t unusual for meetings for worship to take place outdoors or in people’s homes.

But partly due to the growth of the Religous Society of Friends, and partly due to the discrimination Quakers often encountered in the early years, they started to create buildings specifically for holding meetings for worship.

From the beginning, Quaker meeting houses were simple and more closely resembled residential houses than churches or cathedrals. The architecture and construction of many meeting houses try to emphasize the Quaker testimonies of simplicity and community.

This quote from George Fox shows that he felt the buidings were not the priority:

“The Lord showed me, so that I did see clearly, that he did not dwell in these temples which men had commanded and set up, but in people’s hearts… his people were his temple, and he dwelt in them.”

The first meeting house specifically for Quaker worship was built in 1670 in Herftord, England. The Hertford Meeting House was actually visited by Fox, and amazingly is still in use today.

American Quakers weren’t too far behind. The Third Haven Meeting House was built in Maryland in 1682 and is the oldest Friends meeting house in America.

Today there are Quaker meeting houses worldwide – including in Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America, in addition to Europe and North America.

Reflections for 9th Month, 2024

Quakers aren’t the only group with a history at Pendle Hill.

Perhaps the most famous, and certainly the most interesting, geographical location associated with Quakers is Pendle Hill, rising to an elevation of 1,827 feet just east of Lancashire, England.

In 1652, George Fox felt that God led him to climb Pendle Hill. There he had a vision of many souls being saved. 

He wrote:

“As we travelled, we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered.”

This vision inspired Fox, and he went to the town of Sedbergh and ended up preaching to more than 1,000 people. 

Although it hadn’t been named yet, the Religious Society of Friends had begun.

Pendle Hill is still a significant place for Quakers. Many groups hold pilgrimages there every year. The U.S. based Quaker Council on Education will be climbing it as part of their trip to England in June, 2025.

The Pendle Hill Area Quaker Meeting is an active meeting in the area. 

And the Pendle Hill conference and retreat center in Pennsylvania is named after Fox’s place of inspiration.

But Quakers aren’t the only group who have history with Pendle Hill.

In 1612, nine women and two men were put on trial as part of the Pendle witch trials. Ten of them were found guilty and hung.  

Almost fifty years later, in 1661, Richard Towneley and Henry Power conducted experiments with a barometer that proved what is now called Boyle’s Law, which relates pressure, volume, and temperature with regard to gasses.

And there’s a Bronze Age (3300 to 1200 BC) burial site near the top of the hill.

But perhaps the most creative story regarding the hill has to do with the Devil. There’s a local legend that says he was gathering rocks in an apron. (I was not aware that the Devil wore an apron.)

When he went to throw one of the rocks at a nearby castle, the apron string broke and the rocks he had gathered fell out to form Pendle Hill.

Maybe a pilgrimage is in order.

Reflections for 8th Month, 2024

Mary Fisher was a dedicated Quaker activist in the late 1600s.

In our Reflections last month we told the story of Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, who became the first Friends in the British North American colonies, the colonies that would be the beginnings of the United States of America.

It turns out the imprisonment Fisher endured with Austin in Boston was one of the least dramatic and harrowing aspects of her Quaker ministry.

Fisher was born in Yorkshire, England in 1623. She was working as a maid for the Tomlinson family and in 1651 heard George Fox speak to the family. She loved what Fox had to say and became a Quaker, joining the Quaker Valiant Sixty, a group of Quaker activists in the late 1600s.

Fisher was a dedicated activist.

Starting in 1652, she was imprisoned multiple times: for publicly rebuking a church vicar; for the pamphlet she wrote with four other Quakers titled “False Prophets and False Teachers Described”, which encouraged people to leave the church and turn to the Inner Light; and again in 1654 and 1655 for additional offenses against the church.

In 1653, as part of their opposition to organized religion, she and Elizabeth Williams criticized student theologians at Sidney Sussex College. For this they became the first Quakers to be publicly flogged for their ministry.

As we read last month, Fisher and Austin made their trip to the New World in 1656, and they both returned to England in 1657.

But her most amazing missionary trip took place the next year. Here’s how it is described in Wikipedia:

“In 1658 Fisher traveled in a group of six Quakers to the Mediterranean and to visit the Ottoman Empire to expound her Quaker faith to the Sultan Mehmed IV. When their ship reached Smyrna, she asked the English Consul there how to contact the Sultan. He told her this would be unwise, and tricked the party into boarding a ship bound for Venice.

“Realizing this when at sea, Fisher asked the captain to land her on the Morean coast of Greece. She then traveled alone on foot across Macedonia and Thrace until she reached the Sultan, who was encamped with his army at Adrianople. There she persuaded Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, the Grand Vizier, to arrange an audience for her with the Sultan, describing herself as an ambassador of ‘The Most High God’.

“According to her account, the Sultan received her ministry ‘testifying to the Universal Light’ attentively. She then declined his offer of an armed escort and made her way alone to Constantinople and then back to England.”

That’s dedication.

Fisher died in 1698 and her remains were buried at the Quaker burial ground in Charleston, South Carolina, where she had lived with her second husband John Crosse. When those burial grounds were removed in 1967, most of Fisher’s remains were then moved to Court House Square in Charleston.

Reflections for 7th Month, 2024

In Seventh Month of 1656 Ann Austin and Mary Fisher became the first Friends in the British North American colonies.

Today, there are an estimated 80,000 Friends in North America, with most being in the United States.

In 1656 the number of U.S. Friends was zero.

But in Seventh Month of that year, on the 11th to be precise, the Friends population rose to two as Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, two English Quakers, sailed from Barbados and landed in Boston, Massachusetts to become the first Friends in the British North American colonies.

Boston was a very Puritan city at that time, and Austin and Fisher’s arrival was met harshly.

Quakers in the 1600s were against church authority. They fought for equality between men and women and against slavery. These ideas were very radical for the time and did not go over well with the Puritan leaders.

The two Friends were arrested immediately after arriving in Boston.

Their prison cell was boarded up to isolate them, and possibly to try to starve them to death. A Boston innkeeper, Nicholas Upsall, was able to bribe the prison warden with five shillings a week so that he could deliver food to Austin and Fisher.

They ended up spending five weeks in jail. During this time, the women were able to share their new Quaker faith with Upsall and he became a Friend, becoming the first North American Puritan convert to Quakerism.

Austin and Fisher were deported back to Barbados and they returned to England in 1657.

Ann Austin continued her ministry until her death in 1665. Mary Fisher also continued to spread the word, and is one of the Valiant Sixty (a group of early Quaker activists and preachers). The accounts of her mission trip to the Ottoman Empire are truly remarkable, and will make a great subject for a future Reflections post.

Reflections for 2nd Month, 2024

George Fox is generally considered to be the founder of the Religious Society of Friends. Born in 1624 near Leicestershire, England, his radically different approach to religion resulted in him being frequently arrested.

As a young man, Fox traveled extensively around England, and he frequently spent time with clergy, but Fox found little help for his troubles from their traditional views.

During this time, Fox heard an inner voice telling him, “I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.”

This thought would become a foundation of Quaker beliefs.

Fox began to preach in public around 1647, and he began to attract a following. His group was known as “Friends of the Truth”, which then became just “Friends”.

In 1650 Fox wrote that “Justice Bennet of Derby first called us Quakers because we bid them tremble at the word of God.” At that time, the term was meant to be derisive, but it was soon embraced by and still used by Friends.

Two days after preaching in London, George Fox died on January 13, 1690. He is buried at the Quaker Burying Ground at Bunhill Fields in London.