Democracy an£> IRelioion.

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Chapter IV

THE MISSION OF QUAKERISM IN THEPRESENT DAY

Not in politics and not in economics lies the finalarbiter of our time. Politics and economics aredependent upon belief. Shall we succeed in over-coming the spiritual decay which threatens us withsocial chaos ? Shall we succeed in permeatingpolitics and economics with the spirit of freedomand solidarity which are both rooted in thespiritual ? Unfettered by history we must givemeaning to our life and time out of our owndeepest experience. But however desirous thegeneration which experienced the world war maybe of severing itself from history, we all stand uponthe soil of the Western tradition which our fore-fathers have cultivated. If we forsake this, weare in danger of losing ourselves in the void.

It is in this sense that Quakerism, which isneither a political nor a social movement, seeksto prepare the way for the reform of both. Itseeks to make a superconfessional synthesis of ourCatholic and, Protestant heritage by spiritualisingboth or, as Carl Heath puts it, Quakerism desiresto be " more protestant than the protestants, morecatholic than the catholics."