PREFACE

Gerald K. Hibbert was a prominent Quaker scholar and educator, serving at various times as director of a settlement at Leeds, as Headmaster at Ackworth School, and as Reader in Quaker Studies at Woodbrooke. He was born in 1872, to Methodist parents and received a classical education at private schools and at Jesus College, Oxford.

After graduation he worked at the personal secretary to Thomas Bayley, a Liberal M.P. He also taught classics, continued his own education, and directed the Bible school for Bayley's large Baptist congregation. He became a Quaker ca. 1909 through the influence of his first wife, Wilhelmena Tyson.

Hibbert was a frequent speaker and prolific writer; these few pieces serve only as a brief introduction to him. As they demonstrate, one of his greatest concerns was prompting Friends into a deeper knowledge and understanding of Quaker life, both intellectually and experientially.

Current Conservative and Evangelical Friends will probably find some faults with particular aspects of Hibbert's theology (for that matter, so does the present editor, particularly the way he deals with the "sacraments.") This material is produced not to endorse every aspect of what he thought, but to prompt us consider the questions he raised and in the hopes they will help prompt us to respond to the call he left to leave behind the superficial and come to a more substantial appreciation of God as revealed by Jesus. "Are we allowing God to have His way with us? Or are we fencing and shirking, keeping back part of the price? Do we fear the consequences of full surrender to Him, and so miss the one thing that matters most, the finding of the pearl of great price?

"To ask this question is to answer it. We know it is the source of all our weakness--we do not make the full surrender. Nor further words are needed. But what a year this might be in the annals of our Society if each one of us could face up to the call of God, "My son, my daughter, give me thine heart!"

Gerald Hibbert died September 30, 1957, at the age of 85. These pieces come from the 1930's and include a separate pamphlet, several articles written for The Friend (London), and two chapter from the study guide he edited for Faith and Practice. I have added references for some of the Biblical quotes, and changed a few English spellings but otherwise have made not changes in the material.

Peter Sippel

Warminster, PA 18901