It cannot be affirmed too positively that the true Friend is one by spiritual convincement. He has discovered and submitted to the appearance of Christ in his own soul. And as this inward manifestation of the Son of God comes to all, unlike His outward which was confined to the Jews, there is no one who might not become through obedience to the light a child of the light, a friend of Christ, a true member of His holy and catholic church, and a worshiper of the Father in spirit and in truth.
And yet there may be at the back of some minds a feeling that the Quaker way is only intended for a limited number who have been carefully educated for it. We hesitate to encourage all and sundry to attend our meetings with their prolonged silences, because we fear they could not understand them and yield to the temptation to take lower ground in order to make the meetings more interesting to them. Our Lord certainly did not shrink from directing such an one as the woman of Sychar to that inward and spiritual worship which we Friends profess to have returned to out of the "will worship" so largely prevailing in Christendom. And our early Friends had no notion that theirs was a partial message suited only for certain mystical temperaments, but boldly directed all--professors and profane, Protestants, Catholics, Mohammedans, Jews, even pagan Indians, to that holy and pure light in their inward parts which brings the saving virtue of Christ nigh to every man in the time of his visitation.
We need a revival of this witness in our day. We need more confidence in our message and faith in our mission. We need a clearer vision of Christ as God's final and complete "Word" to man--to all men everywhere--the solution of every problem and the healing of every ill, sufficient for both time and eternity, like the tree of life in the apocalyptic vision blooming both on this side as on that side of the river.
The truth is both narrow and universal. George Fox constantly exhorted Friends:" Keep your habitation in the Truth," and at the same time: "dwell in a universal spirit," so that one might "answer to that of God in every man." It is by holding these complementary principles that the Society of Friends will be able to maintain a well-balanced and effective witness in the world. And in this there will be a revival in power of primitive Christianity. For there is nothing more exclusive than Christ's religion. It asserts His absoluteness and will not tolerate a rival. Again there is nothing so all embracing and so adaptable to all classes, nations, races, climes and generations. The future belongs to Christ and to those who have held on with that tenacity begotten of a Divinely wrought persuasion to the finality and universality of His holy faith in the midst of the many lo heres and lo theres.