July 1/15, 1973 FRIENDS JOURNAL
Quaker Thought and Life Today
Contents
Quaker Sociology—Robert F. Tatman 356
A Tribute to Howard H. Brinton—Elizabeth Gray Vining, Wilson, Philip H. Wells, Elizabeth Brinton,
Edwin B. Bronner and Douglas Steere 357
Bicentennial of Luke Howard—Nuts' and Their 365
There Was an Old Man with a Beard—Noah Vail 365
On the Essential Differences Between Friends—R. W. Tucker,
Tom Abrams 166
Poetry by Richard F. Tirk, Jack Too'1l and PoU van no Sedz jot
Reviews of Hooks 369
Letters to the Editor 170
Friends Around the World. 173
Reports by Rosemary M. Elliott and Robert A. Martin, Jr.
Announcements and Coming Events 376
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July 1/15, 1973 FRIENDS JOURNAL
The First Word The Darkness of Watergate;
The Light of Howard Brinton
MY READING MATERIAL and therefore my thoughts have been dominated recently by two Quakers. One of them, Howard Brinton, is physically dead but spiritually he will live forever through the impact of his light-filled, illuminating life. Some reflections by others about that life are shared with readers in this issue of the Journal.
To me, some of the clearest of Howard Brinton's insights are in Quaker Education in Theory and Practice, a Pendle Hill pamphlet first published in 1940, and reprinted every nine years since. Particularly timely are some of his views on democracy. "A democratic society in order to function," he said, "must respect human personality as sacred, inviolable and capable of genuine self-sacrifice. These are Christian doctrines. Democracy cannot work merely on a basis of sweet reasonableness and a general pooling of self-interests. There is no such thing as a successful secular democracy. English democracy was born out of the struggle for religious freedom in the seventeenth century. The American democracy was founded by persons who came out of that struggle and who did not distinguish between their religion and their democracy."
I came across those words while reading and thinking about another, even more immortal Quaker, Richard Nixon. As Watergate deepened and became murkier, Howard Brinton's words, written more than three decades earlier, continued to shed light on this latest example of just how far America has come since it was founded.
"As long," Howard had said, "as we can draw on the accumulated reserve of Christian power stored up during an intensely religious era, so long will our American democracy prove workable. Only religion can overcome selfishness sufficiently to enable men and women to work together without compulsion . . . (Yet) it will be truly said that there is a power other than religion which enables men to work together with sufficient unselfishness to create a cooperative society. That power is patriotism
But patriotism is more likely in the long run to lead toward authoritarianism than toward democracy . . . there is a Higher Power than the state which can and will judge . .
Elsewhere, he also said true peacemaking was "a positive power by which an inner appeal is made to the best that is in man, rather than as an external pressure by forces from outside him."
As I read those words by one Quaker and compared them with the actions of the other one, it was all too sadly obvious how much closer to Richard Nixon and to Watergate than to Howard Brinton and to Pendle Hill the American way of life really is in 1973.
The dollar and what it can do, not human personality, is sacred in modern America. As a result, there is absolutely nothing inviolable. Self-sacrifice is rare; self‑
FRIENDS JOURNAL July 1/15, 1973
service is much more common. The basic power of our national policy is negative, not positive, and with few exceptions, it is the worst in man, not the best, to which America appeals. When these appeals not surprisingly fail to meet the needs of developing peoples, external pressure is applied through political, economic and, if need be, military forces.
And religion essentially has absolutely nothing to do with the process by which national decisions are made. That is how far we have come from the days when America was founded by persons "who did not distinguish between their religion and their democracy."
And we can't blame Richard Nixon for that. Instead, I suggest that we Americans, especially we "religious" Americans and particularly we American Quakers, take a long look at ourselves and ask some hard questions. How sacred do we consider each human personality? How capable are we of genuine self-sacrifice? How closely do we relate religion to not just democracy but our entire way of life? And do we indeed "appeal to the best that is in man?"
If even a few of us would consistently ask these questions of ourselves and then try to honestly answer them in and through our own lives, religion would begin to become alive and well in America, rather than continue in its insipid and irrelevant way. But because we are not consistent and honest, we must share in the darkness of Watergate even as we share in the light of Howard Brin‑
ton that continues to point toward a better way. JDL
Shortly after the above was written, Martha Dart shared with us what she called "a poem-prayer-hymn" by G. K. Chesterton that had been read at the General Conference of Friends in India in early May. It seems, Martha said, to speak very clearly to the United States at the moment." It does, indeed.
o God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry;
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide;
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.
From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen;
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men;
From sale and profanation
Of honor and the sword;
From sleep and from damnation,
Deliver us, good Lord!
Tie in a living tether
The priest and prince and thrall;
Bind all our lives together,
Smite us and save us all;
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith, and free,
Lift up a living nation,
A single sword to Thee.
355
Quaker Sociology
by Robert F. Tatman
HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED "Quaker Sociology"? The rules are simple: list all the different Friends you can, and classify them according to their various characteristics. It's fun, and any number can play—(even attenders.)
First there are the Spirtual Friends. For them, the worship experience is paramount. They are usually some‑
what confused by and sometimes contemptuous of those
Friends who prefer to work in the world. There arc many different kinds of Spiritual Friends: the Children of Fox,
who see themselves as rekindling the spark of Original
Quakerism; the Oriental Friends, who discipline themselves with yoga or Transcendental Meditation and who
sit in meeting meditating on the Whichness of What; the Philosophes, who spin marvelous webs of airy logic on the slim base of a split hair; the Biblical Friends, who know their Bible inside and out, backwards and forwards, and who are always ready with an apropos quote.
No Spiritual Friend, of course, can get along with the Activist Friends. These are the ones who see the meeting
for worship as a waste of precious time, choosing instead
to seek God on the picket line or in prison. Their mission is to Save the World, and they go about it relentlessly—
and God help any Friends who don't drop what they're
doing and follow them. Here, too, there are many different types: the Nonviolent Sociologists, whose woridview is
expressed in a scenario and who are forever running
situation analyses and scaling options to determine whether an action would be counterproductive (tactically speaking,
of course); the Politically Active Friends, usually liberal
Democrats, who like the American Way of Doing Things and who would like it better if they were running it; the
Friends With a Helping Hand, who collect old clothes and canned goods for the Poor People in the Ghetto, and who look forward to the one day a year when the Poor People come out to meeting for worship and a nice pot-Luck; the Communal Friends, who live in (what else?)
communes, sharing all the work and the child care and the vegetarian meals (for Communal Friends never eat
meat). Everyone, they say, should be a Communal Friend, because it's radical, ecologically sound, cheap, and healthy (not necessarily in that order; cheap usually goes first).
Then there are the Historical Friends. These are the ones of impeccable pedigree. Their ancestors were con‑
vinced by George Fox or Margaret Fell, and while maybe
those ancestors were poor working folk, you sure couldn't tell it by looking at their descendants. Their main interests
lie in maintaining old buildings and old records, so that everyone can know that their pedigrees are impeccable, and that their ancestors were convinced by George Fox or Margaret Fell .
And we can't forget the Committed Friends. (This is
Robert F. Tatman, a member of Merion, PA, Meetings, works with the Philadelphia Fellowship Commission.
not to say that the other Friends aren't committed, but these Friends are COMMITTED.) Simply defined, a Committed Friend is one who serves on so many committees that he or she (usually she; Quaker committees are mostly female in membership and mostly male in leadership) runs the serious risk of being "committeed to death." The Society of Friends couldn't function without them. In a very real sense, they are the Society of Friends, for no one else ever comes to meetings. Of course it isn't really possible to divide up Friends—or any group—so neatly, although the temptation to do so is very strong. Most of you will have recognized yourselves in more than one of the categories, and others will have occured to you. Go ahead and make your own contributions to Quaker Sociology. As you do, you will realize that all of these Friends need nurturing. All of them need encouraging. All of them need each other, for they are all necessary to the life of the Society of Friends.
The Society of Friends is remarkably diverse. I seriously doubt that anyone can spell out all the ways Quakers take action. Yet all of us—Spiritual and Acitivist, Historical and Committed—find our great strength in the direct and personal experience of God that lies at the heart of Quakerism. Just as American society as a whole is grappling with the question of pluralism, so is the Society of Friends. And perhaps—just perhaps—we are a little further along on the way to understanding what true pluralism means. One way to understand the diversity and beauty of Quakerism is to engage in this little game called Quaker Sociology. Once we Friends come to understand and appreciate the full spectrum of religious experience in our Society, we will have begun the more difficult task of understanding and appreciating the full spectrum of cultural and political experience in the nation at large.
James Nayler Entering London
No, no, he had not thought himself to be the Christ of the Gospels; no, he had not thought London to be Jerusalem.
Then why, Friend James,
did you ride a donkey into London town? The Anglicans and Presbyterians laugh.
Confused, James Nay/er bowed his head and begged
forgiveness of the Society of Friends.
And then in him the inner Light burned low
which was his passion, utter and entire.
Could the Light betray him? Or betray Itself?
The vessel was insufficient for that Light;
his doubt and theirs would now turn down the wick.
Gentle my reader, do not pause to examine the wording incidental to this recital.
Mount your white donkey and set out straightway for a thousand Jerusalems plotting crucifixion.
JACK TOOTELL
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HOWARD H. BRINTON 1884-1973 through whom the Light shone."
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Surrounded and Lifted Up
by Elizabeth Gray Vining
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DURING the Christmas holidays in 1936 at a Meeting Workers Institute at Pendle Hill, I met Howard Brinton for the first time. The seeds of all my later knowledge of him were there in that week.
I was a recently convinced Friend and I had just discovered the mystics. Howard Brinton and also Rufus Jones, though briefly at that institute, were to illumine both Quakerism and mysticism for me and to show me how they fitted together.
At that time Howard gave a series of lectures on the sources of Quakerism, which he traced not only to John and Paul, the great European mystics and spiritual reformers, but also to the religions of the Orient. He had spent the previous spring and summer in China and Japan, where he talked with the great roshis and meditated with the monks at a temple in Kyoto. For the first time I heard of Zen.
Howard Brinton in 1936 already had the aureole of white hair that distinguished him to the last, a face luminous with wisdom and serenity and the unselfconscious simplicity that is the mark of the best mystics. He had, too, the mystic's fellowship with animals, although it was not till later that he came to meeting for worship with a baby rabbit in his pocket. His sense of fun surprised and delighted me when I saw him take part in the skits and songs of Log Night at the end of our week of study and worship. I did not then understand the deeper significance of Log Night: how by laughing at itself Pendle Hill seeks to produce not fanatics sure of their rightness but "humble truth-seekers who do not take themselves too seriously."
In 1969 and 1970 1 taught a course at Pendle Hill, which I called "Certain Mystics", in which I included both Rufus Jones and Howard Brinton, Before I lectured on Howard 1 had a long and memorable talk with him about his life and thought. There is room for only a highlight or two. His first piece of writing, at the age of twelve or thereabouts, was a collection of original poems entitled Extracts from the Thought of Howard H. Brinton. Studying under Rufus Jones at Haverford, he was led to Jakob Boehme who, he said, was his "favorite mystic, for he showed how to combine the affirmative and the negative ways." His comment on the six years he spent teaching at Pickering College, Ontario, was a rueful "I think I was just the same when I left there as I was when I went there." His work for the American Friends Service Committee in Germany provided him with a car to drive and a chance to take lovely young Anna Cox through the Riesengeberge to visit Boehme's grave.
He took his Ph.D. in physics and philosophy and his thesis on Jakob Boehme was later published as a hook, The Mystic Will. At Earlham he taught physics, but when he and Anna Cox Brinton went to Mills College, he taught religion and philosophy. "I thought there was plenty of physics in the world but not enough religion."
Howard and Yuki plant a tree. Photograph by Brad Nichols
The Mystic Will was followed by a distinguished list of books and pamphlets, chiefly on Quakerism. His last four pamphlets, soon to be published in book form with the title, The Philosophy of Quakerism, were written when he could no longer see to reread the sources he knew so well. The unique character of Howard Brinton's work on Quakerism lies to some extent in his sources: the little-read Epistles of George Fox and some three hundred Quaker journals. Over a period of years he and Anna Brinton together made an exhaustive study of the journals. He saw their Quakerism as mystical, with other elements.
"Quakerism," he wrote in Ethical Mysticism, "is derived from the ethical teachings of Jesus, the Christ-mysticism of Paul and the Logos- and God-mysticism of John." He defined mysticism many times, but perhaps his simplest definition is in Friends for Three Hundred Years: "a religion based on the spiritual search for an inward, immediate experience of the divine. . . . Quakerism is peculiar in being a group mysticism, grounded in Christian concepts." "By ethical mysticism," he explained, "I mean that type of mysticism which first withdraws from the world revealed by the senses to the inward Divine Source of Light, Truth and Power, and then returns to the world with strength renewed, insight cleared, and desire quickened to bind all life together in the bonds of love."
There are no spiritual ladders or stages to be found in Howard Brinton's mysticism, nor is the mystical journey mapped. But he does write of aridity and he does give advice as to how to meet what he calls "the dark forces of the soul." They "cannot be removed by direct attack. To fight them is to give them the only strength they can possess . . . It is not through a struggle to possess the Light but rather by permitting the Light to possess us
35 July 1/15, 1973 FRIENDS JOURNAL
that inner darkness is overcome." (The Quaker Doctrine of Inner Peace) He was very sure that insights received in retirement were to be carried out in service to others. "The negative journey to the Light was always followed by the positive journey to the needy but good world." (Friends for Three Hundred Years) And again, "A religion is better understood by what it does than by what it thinks."
Though Howard Brinton wrote about mysticism with the authority of direct knowledge, there are in his books no accounts of his own experiences. He was reticent about himself. But in his later years he did say to Dan Wilson that perhaps he should have revealed himself more, and he did tell me one afternoon, sitting in his
through whom the Light shone.
garden while students who had come to his regular Tuesday afternoon lecture drank tea all around us, of an experience he had had in England.
"Do you know Glastonbury Tor? It stands up high—the ancient Isle of Avalon above what used to be a marsh. I climbed up there once years ago--it's quite a climb—and when I got to the top I had the most impressive experience of my life. I felt surrounded and lifted up."
In his last years, after Anna Brinton's death, he used to come with Yuki Brinton's help, leaning on two sticks, to meeting for worship in the Barn at Pendle Hill. I see him now: with his white hair and frail, spare body, he was like a beautiful, translucent shell through which the Light shone.
Great and Humble Teacher, Warm Friend and Wise Counselor
I REMEMBER seeing him for the first time in the autumn of 1937. It was at the morning meeting for worship in the Pendle Hill Barn. Only during the previous summer had I discovered the Religious Society of Friends while serving in the American Friends Service Committee's Peace Caravan program. My literary introduction to the Quaker way of worshiping had come through reading his Swarthmore Lecture, Creative Worship. Though the meeting room was filled that morning with the Pendle Hill family, plus us sojourners for a peaceworkers roundup, my eyes were drawn at once to the man who had to be the author of that deeply convincing book. There he sat, back straight, head lifted, eminent eyebrows crowning closed eyes. He appeared to be listening, unafraid for whatever truth was to come purely out of the quiet. When he spoke, simply, briefly, clearly, I felt we were in the presence of a Friend, authentic as his writing. Quoting from Pascal's Pensées, "When we encounter a natural style we are always astonished and delighted, for we expected to see an author, and found a man."
During his nearly forty years at Pendle Hill, Howard Brinton came to be known by seekers from around the world as a teacher of the religion he lived. Characteristics of the Quaker Journalists, whose religion he was so devoted to portraying in contemporary terms, were predominantly his own as well. Though he didn't keep a Journal, as such, I believe Pendle Hill has been his living autobiography.
He lived as simply as he spoke. In younger years he had worked as skillfully with his hands as with his mind; in later years he expressed wonder that he hadn't followed the way of the manual more than of the intellectual.
He could laugh and play heartily, as evidenced particularly at Hallowe'en parties, Pendle Hill log nights, and with his grandchildren. Children and animals always seemed to feel at ease with him, and he with them. Never to be forgotten were the joyous family reunions, with Howard, Anna, their four children, spouses, and all sixteen grandchildren overflowing that humble little cottage, to which Howard and Anna had retired from Upmeads, in 1952. They had named it Matsudo (translated "Pine
FRIENDS JOURNAL July 1/15, 1973 by Dan Wilson
Door"), and had lived there for the rest of Anna's life; Howard's, too, except for his last few months. He and Yuki Takahashi Brinton had moved recently into one of the new apartments to make way for a new highway, the "Blue Route."
Mats udo had provided a special treat, once each week, tea being served by Anna before Howard's lectures there. How like them to take, in their usual unruffled stride, the awful announcement, some years ago now, that the highway was to come right up to the front door. Anna had commented, "We'll use the back door," and Howard, "We'll not be living to see it."
In his presence could be felt the unusual degree to which he had been blessed with the inward peace, reverenced
He could laugh and play heartily. Photograph by Takao Akiyama
Image
HOWARD H. SRINTON 1554-197'
by him both as end and means, though in his modest way during one of our last visits, he commented, sadly, "I should have been less preoccupied with watching my mind. I could have revealed more, the depths of feeling in my heart."
Throughout my own twenty years of sitting almost daily with him, in the Pendle Hill meeting for worship, I knew him as a great and humble teacher, warm friend and wise counselor.
The Father of Pacific
by Phillihp H. Wells
HOWARD BRINTON has often been spoken of affectionately as the father of Pacific Yearly Meeting. During one yearly meeting at St. Mary's College I was sitting next to one of the Christian Brothers when Howard was introduced to make some remarks from the platform. Brother Girard leaned over and asked me, "Is he your pope?" Throughout the life of the yearly meeting he was an active participant, being present often, especially in the last ten years when he attended almost every year. While he never served in any office, he participated fully in the sessions.
Howard and Ann Brinton came to Mills College to teach in 1928 and stayed until 1936 when they became directors of Pendle Hill. They participated in Berkeley Meeting and the College Park Association, which included the Friends meetings in the San Francisco Bay area. In April, 1931 they called together Friends and friends of Friends from California, Oregon and Washington for a two-day meeting at their home in Oakland. At that meeting the Pacific Coast Association of Friends, forerunner of Pacific Yearly Meeting, was formed. Howard also was the first editor of the Association's Friends Bulletin, and the earliest issues were mostly his writing.
Even after Howard and Anna moved to Pendle Hill they continued to be interested in Friends on the West Coast. In the early 40's the number of Friends and Friends meetings in the West had increased, and there was a greatly felt need to unite them in a yearly meeting. Howard was always ready with wise counsel. It had been many, many years since a yearly meeting had been set up independently and not by an existing yearly meeting. Some Friends in the American Friends Fellowship Council (later the American Section of the World Committee) were very doubtful. Rufus Jones was especially concerned that we might offend California and Oregon Yearly Meetings of Friends Church. Howard labored with them patiently and helped us in our contacts with them until they all felt easy. Neither yearly meeting was troubled by the appearance of a new yearly meeting uniting the independent unprogramed Western meetings.
In August of 1946 at a meeting of the Pacific Coast Association in Pasadena, attended by Howard and Anna Brinton, a yearly meeting was decided upon and the usual officers were appointed. The f011owing August we met at Palo Alto as the first session of Pacific Yearly Meeting. The Pasadena meeting had been especially enriched by
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Photograph by David I. Russell
Hoard and Anna at Pacific Yearly Meeting, 1968
an education conference held just before it, at which Howard was the resource leader. Howard also helped by directing Friends in Victoria, Vancouver and Mexico City to Pacific Yearly Meeting, so that we became an international yearly meeting.
During the 1950's, other concerns kept the Brintons from attending yearly meeting, but as Howard and Anna grew older they gradually became more regular attenders, partly because they could also visit their son, Edward, his wife, Desiree, and the grandchildren at La Jolla. It thus became a special dividend at yearly meeting to see and hear Howard and Anna as they spoke to the business of the meeting.
After Anna's death his devotion to the yearly meeting did not waver. He came to the 1971 session at McMinnville, Oregon, with a special concern to help Friends more clearly understand Quaker theology and its foundations in the writings of John. His enthusiasm sparked a renewed interest in the study of John and the Bible in many monthly meetings.
Yuki came with him and cared for him so carefully that he was able to be quite active. And again last year he and Yuki came to yearly meeting. Although he was feeble, his spirit pervaded the gathering. He was alert to all that went on, and he gave his approval to the next steps of growth that saw the grouping formed in his home 41 years before divide into three yearly meetings now. Who can foresee how much growth will eventually take place?
During all these years, the presence and writings of Howard Brinton have been a unifying and insipiring influence for Friends everywhere, but particularly for us in the Pacific Coast region.
360 July 1/15, 1973 FRIENDS JOURNAL
through ,vho, the tigk
Family Occasions: Memories That Linger On
by Elizabeth Brinton
IT WAS NOVEMBER, and a familiar voice on the phone said "Of course we want everyone again this year." And so brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren and cousins of assorted ages would be gathering for another Thanksgiving dinner in Howard and Anna Brinton's home at Pendle Hill.
When our parents were no longer living, Howard's strong feeling for family solidarity, his real interest in each individual member, as well as his cordial invitations (backed wholeheartedly by Anna) made their home the natural gathering place for our particular branch of the Brinton family.
Howard was the oldest of our generation, but as the family gathered around the dinner table, his were the jokes we enjoyed the most, his stories the ones asked for year after year. Who among us will ever forget his account of attending a very conservative meeting in the Middle West, years ago, and being preached at because he was wearing a necktie and his suit coat had the conventional collar? Howard's imitation of the elderly Friend's quavering voice—to the last cadence-.--was perfect, and his grandchildren were as entertained as we were.
One of the Thanksgiving dinner pictures, taken some years ago, shows Howard holding out a plate well filled with turkey. It portrays his hospitable sharing of food but symbolically it speaks of other things he shared with us, over the years.
We all knew that he had spiritual depths and religious insights far beyond anything any one of us could attain. We looked up to him with respect for his towering intellect and his literary ability and appreciated the place of prominence he held in the Religious Society of Friends. In spite of his achievements, however, he never talked down to any of us and his quiet simplicity made us all feel at ease with him.
Howard's July birthday meant another family gather-ing—usually an outdoor picnic. Part of the fun, which he entered into wholeheartedly, was the "crowning" ceremony when some of his grandchildren placed a wreath on his head—a green wreath they had made of honeysuckle or some trailing vine. Before the picnic was half over, the wreath was always askew, usually caught in a bushy eyebrow, but he always wore it bravely to the end of the meal, much to everyone's delight.
One year, a very young grandchild gave him a birthday present of a ball of wire twisted into an odd, complicated
shape. His grandfather looked at it carefully and said in
the kindest voice, "Thank you very much, I never saw anything like that before." None of the rest of us had
either! Howard had told the exact truth and the giver of the gift ran away, pleased that something he had made for his grandfather had been so well received.
During his growing-up years in Chester County, Howard
FRIENDS JOURNAL July 1/15, 1973 Image
