ANGLICANS & QUAKERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1336, 13 January 1912, Page 14

ANGLICANS & QUAKERS.

A NEW ZEALAND EXPERIENCE. The Rev. Cyril Hephcr, M.A., ono of the Anglican missioncrs who visited NewZealand in 1910, has written an interesting article on "A New Zealand Experience" in the November issuo of tho "Commonwealth" (London). The "experience" was obtained at a town eallod II . We give Mr. Hepher's article in an abbreviated form as follows:— It is a year ago, but tho recollection of it is as vivid as though it were yesterday, aud it needs no effort to visualise its external setting. In a circle of pines and cypresses stands tho wooden church at H , with its prim little pinnacled gothic tower. It is wooden, though tho whito paint disguises it at a ■ distance. Trees and'architecture alike have como from the old world, but the object which draws us to it this glorious spring afternoon of September is sufficiently antipodean. Wo aro going to a Quakers' meeting-in church. It was from the Quaker element in his parish that the request camo to the .vicar to allow the uso of the vestry once a week for "meeting." Ho did not refuse. This being tho Antipodes, it was quito obvious that ho would not. Presently the Quaker circle enlarged itself: the vicar joined tho Saturday "meeting, so did his wife; so, too, which is moro significant, did the Theosophists. It mi■grated with Episcopal permission from vestry to church. So that sunlit afternoon in September, with tho breath of spring in the.air, and a gentle breeze from tho Pacific rustling through the trees, I joined tho little group, and we entered tho whito church. Within tho senses wore rested in tho cool soft light. Wo knelt without a word; presently some rose' from their knees and sat down. Wo were but a handful. There was no sound of vocul prayer. No leader at faldstool, or altar, but "meeting" had begun. I cannot put into words what happened, but some aspects of the experience I must tiy to express. First there came very quietly tho sense of a Presence. Tho work of prayer grew strangely easy. Wo wero not resolutely fixing our thoughts upon a friend in a far country; we were listening to Ono Who was thero in tho church—speaking. Tho still air seemed to vibrate with his Presence that could bo felt.' God was speaking fo us, not in words, or voices, but in that speech which doos not need to bo uttered, yet if I may say so bold a thing, it was not what He was saying that mattered so much, as that He was thero and wo with Him. That was enough. Then, again, one perception that grew as'the minutes slipped by .unnoticed was the sense of fellowship. - Wo in that church wej-e no longer isolated individuals. It was unquestionably a corporate act in which wo were engaged, or rather a corporate experience that had come to us. Afterwards 1 came to understand 1 that this, manner of prayer depends on fellow-, ship of mind and creates what it depends on. ' The Quakers, end their meeting by shaking hands in silcn:e. The symbol of fellowship cannot bo repressed. If their experiences are like ours at this meeting I can perfectly understand the significance they set on their simple sacramont of friendship. They enter tbeir meeting, too, in tho spirit, of unanimity. One idea is dominant in overy mind; that of waiting upon God, waiting for the moving of the Spirit. I found, too, that the Theosophists attached the greatest importance to unanimity. The little circle at H- — had been guiding their lifo and action on this principle. None of them had undertaken any new venture unless to all it had appeared right. As 1 try in my mind to. weigh tho expericnco, which I have told very inadequately, but at least without consciousexaggeration, or over-statement, what shall 1 say of it? It was to me a profoundly new experience,, dilfercnt in kind from other times of realisation of the Presence, in tfcat it was, as I think, the psychic approach to tho spiritual world. To many tno word psychic is a sufficient condemnation. My reply is, that the God Who made the spiritual made also the psychic, and that , there can bo no function or capacity of our nature which is not for holy uses. Iu that littlo community of elements so divided as Quaker, Theosophist, and Evangelic il Churchmanship, this silence had proved a unifying forco of extraordinary pow-jr. Later I audc further proof of that force. i My next mission was in tho parish of one who had been brought up in the extremist wing of Protestantism within tho Church. Attcrwards, ho told mo how bonified he'was when his Bishop interfered with the forerunner's arrange-, monts, and sent mo to him instead of a missions belivod to be more of his own type of churchr>anship. Wo were indeed polos apart, as far as any two men need wish to bo within even the most comprehensive of Churches. But daily during that mission we had our "quiet meeting," and day by day we grew into closer fellowship. I am perfectly . certain that without that uniting silence in each day, tho mission could only have en-led in disaster. As it was, I shall never forget its climax in the thanksgiving Eucharist, sung at sunrise, in a church filled with eager people who had driven in, many of them, miles; the altar decked with arum lilies, nay, tho whole cast end a bower of them: the kneeling men and women singing with tears of joy tho last triumphant mission hymn. But that ending was tho direct fruit, so I know, •of tho. daily half-hour of silence. Is thero no possibility here? If littlo groups of ministers and priests, Nonconformists, Churchmen, Komans, could thus meet, a solvent of our divisions would surely ba set ; n operation. Dr. Dcarmer dcolares with truth that tho Quaker peril is to dospiso Sacraments. Let me hasten to add .that at n— the head of a family of friends told me as he drove mo to the station, that ho had definitely decided to soelc. Confirmation, and that every single Theosophist in the same village signed a request, with the promise of persona] attendance, for tho Eucharist to be celebrated duritig the week. Dr. Hodgkin, a most eminent Northcouiitry Quaker, with his daughter, made a journey to Australasia to visit their communities there. They came to H in the May preceding my visit. They attended the. meeting in church, and Miss Hodgkin, on lier return, described her experience in an articlo in tho "British Friend," under tho title of "A Friends'' Meeting in Church." I give a liberal extract: — "The most impossible things happen out here, and happen in Iho simplest way. Still, it was rather a shock last Saturday evening to lie told to got ready to go to a Friends' meeting in a church. Meeting, in church, on Saturday evening, in the Antipodes! It sounded at first almost like a game of consequences gone wrong. I rubbed my eyos and wondered if I were dreaming; but, from "the first momcut, I liked tho dream. All the same, meeting on Saturday evening gives a big shako in our Quaker ruts and grooves — the forms of our formlessness, of which wo aro hardly, conscious till such a shako occurs. Wo shook hands with ono another, and then moved on all together up tho narrow churchyard path, under tho massed shade of the giant cypress trees that doopencd stilly moro the twilight of the short May evening. It was only fivo oclock, but dark as it is with us at "that time in November. The church, of course, is built entirely of wood, liko all the other buildings iu country places out hore. The outside is painted white, and seemed to shi no by its own light boliind the gathered gloom of tho cypresses as wo approached it. Inside, it was lighted only by ono small hnnging lamp. Wo all took °' lr r S( -^. s in the nave—a little company of, 1 tluilk, eight or nino men and fivo women. Tho deep shadows of tho woodwork enwrapped us, and meeting began. 1 t was aPiieiids* meeting, but it was more. \ye were in church, but it was more. Tho atmosphere was different from anything I have ever known. The two forms of worship seemed to unito in a reality beneath and behind and above all forms, as two substances, unitod, form a third, different from either, yet including both. And as I looked up, the fading daylight still shono through tho halo of tho Central Figure in ''i® window a t cas { an( ] iliurixin(ited it With a last faint gleam of light. Jlion I understood. Our littlo separate folds woro forgotten. Wo wore all ono flock, following tho ono Shepherd."