DEMOCRACY AND RELIGION

A Study in Quakerism

Chapter I

THE REFORM OF THE REFORMATION

Has Religion anything to do with Democracy ? Thegreat majority of our contemporaries are promptto deny this question. On the continent of Europethere is even felt a contradiction between bothpowers : democrats are usually secularists, devoutpeople are frequently reactionaries. Neverthelessthe names of Lincoln and Gladstone forbid such aconclusion.

The same question applies to Quakerism.

Has Quakerism anything to do with Democracy. ?Has it any bearing upon Politics at all ? ManyQuakers both of to-day and yesterday, indeed, theso called " Quietists " of Quaker history haveanswered this question in the negative. Yet thenames of George Fox and William Penn in theseventeenth century, of John Bellers and JohnWoolman in the eighteenth, of William Allen andJohn Bright in the nineteenth, and of PresidentHoover in our own day, are enough to remind us thatQuakerism has in truth much to do with Politics,

II