PART I THE ESSENTIALS OF QUAKERISM BY WILLIAM C. BRAITHWAITE Introductory Words

 It is with great diffidence that we from England venture to speak to the American Yearly Meetings. Our circumstances and the problems we have to face are often so different that it would be presumptuous¹ in us to feel that we had advice on matters of detail that would deserve very great attention from you. But when it comes to our common history and to the common inheritance we have in the principles and faith of the Society of Friends, we may speak freely.

 

We represent the main body of those who call themselves “Friends.” The Yearly Meetings from which we come connect by continuous history with the first Quaker Churches of two hundred and fifty years 12ago. Of course when we compare ourselves as we are now, with the first Friends, we find great differences, as great undoubtedly² as exist between the New Englander of to-day and the Pilgrim Fathers. We should find much to astonish if we could peep in at one of those first London meetings held in the summer of the year 1655 at the Bull and Mouth, the great “tavern-chapel” in Aldersgate, in which you could then crowd a thousand people standing³. I fancy these meetings may have been rather like some of your pioneer meetings in the West. But the pioneers of the London work, Howgill and Burrough, would find modern Quakerism, whether in England or in the Middle West, a strange thing. It takes a wise man to recognize his own great-great-great-great grandchildren. They have an inheritance that connects them up with their ancestor, but their environment is so different that on the surface they seem to have been changed into another type of man. At bottom, however, we shall find that the inherited type will continue.

 

“For never Pilgrims’ offshoot scapes control13

 Of those old instincts that have shaped his soul.”

(Lowell, “Fitz Adam’s Story.”)

In other words, the inner life of a religious movement remains⁴, although the expression of that life will greatly vary under changing conditions of time and place.

1 presumptuous   

adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的

参考例句：

• It would be presumptuous for anybody to offer such a view.任何人提出这种观点都是太放肆了。
• It was presumptuous of him to take charge.他自拿主张，太放肆了。

2 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

3 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。