The danger for any spirit-inspired religion is individualism carried to excess. In the seventeenth century, this was seen amongst those called Ranters. Friends, too, ran this risk. What preserved them was the discovery of 'gospel-order', the setting up of meetings for church affairs where individual insight was tested against the insight of the gathered group. A series of meetings for church affairs, some local, some regional or national, had developed from 1654 onwards, though it was during the years 1667-1669 that George Fox journeyed throughout the country, creating from a series of ad-hoc meetings a regular structure of monthly and quarterly meetings as part of a yearly meeting for the whole nation.
A letter 'From the women Friends in London' in 1674 described the tasks of women's meetings:
Dear sisters ... our services are: to visit the sick and the prisoners that suffer for the testimony of Jesus ... relieving the poor, making provision for the needy, aged and weak, that are incapable of work; a due consideration for the widows, and care taken for the fatherless children and poor orphans ... for their education ... and putting them out to trades... Also the elder women exhorting the younger in all sobriety, modesty in apparel, and subjection to truth ... and to stop tatlers and false reports and all such things as tend to division amongst us, following those things which make for peace and reconciliation and union; also admonishing such maids and widows as may be in danger ... either to marry with unbelievers or to go to the priest to be married ... that we may answer our duty herein, we meet every Second-day ... that none may stand idle ... for our services still increase many ways. But chiefly our work is, to help the helpless in all cases, according to our abilities.
Next: 19.56
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