‘In the manner of Friends’
11th of 2th mo., 2010
Quakers will sometimes describe something as done in (or after) the manner of Friends. This means just what it sounds like it means: that the activity in question is performed in a distinctively or traditionally Quaker fashion. Most often, this phrase is used of worship or marriage, since in both these areas, Friends’ practice is noticeably different from that of other denominations; but it is occasionally applied to many other sorts of activities as well.
This phrase appears to originate in the first half of the 19th century. The earliest occurrences I have found are in the Journal of the Life, Labours, and Travels of Thomas Shillitoe (1839), for example in vol. 1, p. 68:
A company of very poor persons at West Houghton, about ten miles
from Warrington, were in the practice of meeting together for religious worship after the manner of Friends, towards whom my attention was turned, with an apprehension of duty to sit with them on First-day in their usual meeting.
The earliest application of this phrase to marriage that I know of is in Life of William Allen, (1847), vol. 1, p. 303, where he describes an interview with the king of Norway, in which the subject of legal recognition for Quaker marriages was discussed:
We spoke of the Friends in Norway, and he told us that the affair of marriage had been before the council, and it was concluded that, provided it was performed after the manner of Friends, and registered, it should be lawful, and that he would protect not only the Friends there at present, but those who might join them in future.
The phrase was used early on for other practices as well, such as shaking hands at the end of a meeting, as in this 1842 report quoted by John Wilbur in A Narrative and Exposition of the Late Proceedings of New England Yearly Meeting pp. 90–91:
We hereby certify, that at the Monthly Meeting of Friends, held at Hopkinton, on the 22d of 8th month last, while the report of the committee in the case of John Wilbur, was in the hands of the women’s meeting, we saw Rowland Greene and Thomas Anthony,
then sitting at the head of the meeting, shake hands after the manner of Friends when breaking up a meeting; but just at that moment, before there was time for others to follow, the women returned the report, and the meeting remained some time longer together.
Stanley Newman uses the phrase to describe the procedure by which a minister requests the approval of a meeting before setting off on a religious journey, in Memories of Stanley Pumphrey (1883), p. 100:
The time was now approaching when after the manner of Friends, this important prospect of service should be thrown before the meetings with which he was connected, for the serious consideration of his fellow-members.
Before closing, perhaps I should say something about the phrase communion after the manner of Friends, used nowadays for waiting worship — predominately, I think, by Orthodox Friends. This has been around since at least the early 1960’s. The earliest attestation I have found is in Cecil Riney’s (1964) USC dissertation The Emergence and Development of a Ministry of Music in the Society of Friends, where it appears as part of a sample “Order of Service” on p. 167.
Another relatively early appearance in print is on p. 229 of D. Elton Trueblood’s (1967) biography Robert Barclay. It is clear from this quote that the phrase was already in reasonably widespread use at that time:
One consequence of this interpretation is that some Friends in the twentieth century now speak of their meetings as “Communion after the manner of Friends.”
This is part of a larger passage in which Trueblood expands on Barclay’s explanation of communion as an inward, spiritual partaking of the blood and body of Christ, not an outward, ceremonial practice with bread and wine. This conception of communion can certainly be traced back to early Friends, but referring to our worship as “communion in the manner of Friends” is, as Trueblood points out, a modern innovation.
