Keep good company and you shall be Leave thy low-vaulted pas:! one of the number.

OF THE

PENNSYLVANIA YEARLY MEETING

OF

PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS,

HELD AT

LONG WOOD, CHESTER COUNTY,

1880.

"Serves best the Father he who most serves man,
And he who wrongs Humanity wrongs Heaven."

ADVANCE PRINT,
KENNETT SQUARE,

· C. D. B. MILLS, Syracuse, N. Y.,

PATIENCE W. KÉNT, West Chester, Pa.,

Clerks.

AARON MENDENHALL, Hamorton, Pa., Treasurer.

MINUTES.

THE TWENTY-EIGHTH YEARLY MEETING OF THE PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS, convened at Longwood, Chester Co., Pa., on the 3rd of Sixth Month, 1880.

At the hour appointed, C. D. B. MILLS, one of the Clerks of the last Yearly Meeting, read the following Call :

This meeting is called in the interest of Truth, Humanity, Religion, and Progress, and it seeks in a catholic and earnest spirit to consider and to study those questions that appertain vitally to human welfare, and in particular those which come nearest and are most pressing in the present hour and time.

It extends cordial invitation to all of whatever name or belief, who feel interest in this behalf, to attend this, its annual gathering, and especially to those whose interest is practical, one that prompts to cheerful labor and service in behalf of the upbuilding of humanity.

The hour is propitious and prophetic, the opportunities are high, and the responsibilities of the gravest. Come, that we may learn in our conferring together, more of the duties and the privileges that are before us. Come, that we may gather in each other's precence fresh renewal, mutual encouragement, strength and inspiration.

The reading of the Call was followed by a few remarks from the Chairman :

I suppose I have no need to spend words in describing the nature and object of this annual convocation. It was commenced, as you well know, twenty-seven years ago the present month. It had its origin with a few earnest men and women, who felt that they ought, they must bear a testimony

against some of the crying wrongs of the time, particularly slavery, finding it so intrenched in the great strongholds, both of Church and State, and witness in behalf of a spiritual, a vital and pure religion.

Courageously this little band stood, and bravely have they fought. Many of them have, during the time, passed beyond the form, and remain with us now in shadowed image, names ever of dear and blessed memory; but most, I believe, lived to see the great crime, against which all righteous souls protested, and wrought and prayed, brought to an end.

The meeting has continued, and the interest, if it may have been in these recent years, less intense, all absorbing and pronounced, as was natural, has, I trust, been not less earnest and real. It is found, and becomes more plain, as I hope, to us year by year, that the need has not ceased to be protestant and progressive. We have still to gird ourselves to stern battle for human deliverance; there are new questions arising, vital issues that press, and the goal is still far and very difficult

to near.

It is well said that truth is always being born, that is, truth as revealed to man,-it is coming into larger and wider manifestation. Every highest and final, as we may have deemed it, proves but an initial; every goal but a stage and step bearing onward to another goal. Far as we may penetrate "Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise."

It is so in all life, in art, in reforms, in civilization itself. I have no need here to specify, for the points of illustration for us will come up, in part, in the course of this meeting.

This convocation, I am glad to say, is gathered in the interest of no special cause or by-end, no sect or party; it seeks to hold universal aims, to search for truth, pure and simple, to be broad, catholic, affirmative, earnest. Refusing to be followers of sect or devotees of any symbol or creed in religion, we do not, therefore, cease to be religious. We stand deeply concerned, we trust, in all that belongs on the higher and spiritual side, to the welfare of man. Refusing to be partisan, we do not cease to be citizens, men and women, intently occupied with the living questions of our time, be they social or