In all these Yearly Meetings, First-day Schools are conducted with zeal and efficiency, exerting a wide evangelical influence. In a number of the Yearly ^Meetings these are under the direct care of the so- ciety, and made the subjects of annual statistical re- ports. Thus, in Indiana Yearly Meeting, there are 115 such schools, with 710 teachers, and G953 pupils, of whom 2307 are over twenty-one years of age. In the Yearly Meeting of Western Indiana there are G3 First- day Schools, with G170 pupils, and 411 teachers. North Carolina Yearly Meeting has taken the lead in the es- taljlishment of a Normal First-daj' School, the benefit of which has been verj'^ decided.
There are in England and Ireland several educa- tional institutions of merit under care of the society. In this country Friends have three colleges, viz., Haverford College, Pennsylvania ; Earlham College, Pichmond, Ind. ; and W//iitur College, Salem, Iowa. There are also large boarding-schools under the care of different Yearly Meetings, the most noted of which are those of West Town, Pa., Providence, R. I., Union Springs, N. Y., and New Garden, N. C. (W. J. A.)
FKIENDS (No. 2).— I. History.— T\\& origin of the Religious Society of Friends dates from about the mid- dle of the 17th century. George Fox, the chief in- strument in the divine hand liy whom it was gather- ed, was born in Leicestershire, England, in tlie year 1624. His parents were pious members of the Na- tional Church, and from his childhood he was relig- ioush' inclined. When about nineteen years old he was led by a sense of duty to seek retirement from the world, and he spent much time in reading the holy Scriptures, with meditation and praAer. In the j-ear lfi47 he began to appear as a preacher of the Gospel, and he found many prepared to receive his message of love, calling them awa}' from a I'cliance upon all rites and ceremonies to the word of divine grace, or Spirit of Christ, as the efficient cause of salvation. Converts in large numbers were soon gathered, who met togeth- er for divine worship, waiting upon God in silence, or engaging in preaching, prayer, or praise, as they be- lieved themselves prompted by the Spirit of Christ, their ever-present teacher. The persecutions endured bj' the early Friends, both in Europe and America, were exceeding!}' severe, and were chiefly on account of their absenting themselves from the Estalilished Church, refusing to paj' tithes, openly attending their own religious meetings when prohibited b}- law, and declining to take oaths of any kind, or to engage in military service. " Between the years 1650 and 1689, about fourteen thousand of this people suffered by fine atid imprisonment, of which number more than three hundred died in jail, not to mention cruel mockings, buft'etings, scourgings, and afflictions innumeralde."
It has been estimated that, at the death of George Fox in the year 1600, the number of Friends in Europe and America was al)out 75,000, and that 10,000 of these inhal)itod the British colonies. They afterwards de- clined in the mother country, and greatly increased in America, where they became most numerous in Penn- sylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and North Caro- lina.
FRIENDS
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FRIENDS
In the vear 1827 a schism took place in Philadelphia Yearl}^ Meetinj^, whicli afterwards extended to most of tlie otiier Yearly Meetim^s in. America. The space al- lotted for this article will not suffice to give an intelli- gible account of it (see Janney's Hist, of Friends, vol. iv. The part relating to the separation has been re- published in a small volume by T. Ellwood Zell, Phil- adelphia). At the time of the separation, those who took the name of Orthodox Friends were in the West- ern States the more numerous; but in the Atlantic sea-board States they were less numerous than those who are by some called Hicksites, but who persistently refuse to acknowledge any other name than that of Friends or Quakers. It is of this branch only that we now treat.
II. Doctrines. — We hold the doctrines of the earl}' FViends, as expounded in the writings of Fox, Penn, Pennington, and Barclay. A committae which repre- sents Philadelphia Yearh' jSIeeting has recently so far approved of a " Sum mar}' of Christian Doctrines," from which the following abstract is taken, as to order its purchase for distribution :
The Scriptures. — The Religious Society of Friends, from its rise to the present da}', has always maintain- ed its belief in the authenticity and divine authority of the holy Scriptures, referring to them for proof of its ])rinciples, and acknowledging them to be the only fit outward test of Christian doctrines. We do not call them the Word of God, because this appellation is applied by the writers of the Scriptures to that Eternal Power by which the worlds were made; for " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
We assign to the Scriptures all the authority they claim for themselves, which is chiefly expressed in the following texts: " AVhatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have liope" (Rom. xv, 4). " The holy Scriptures are able to make wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. iii, 15-17). "All Scrip- ture given by inspiration of God is profitable for doc- trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in riglitffousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (Barclay's Apolog;/, prop, iii, § 5).