Ohio Yearly Meeting's Podcast

EOF06C The Eye of Faith, A History of Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative. Chapter 6 Part C, Ministry of the Golden Age

• Bill Taber

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Four vivid portraits of conservative Quaker ministry show how conviction, plainness, and silent worship shaped a people under pressure from modern life. We trace their outreach, leadership, and struggles with change as Ohio Friends carry inner continuity toward 1917.

• Elwood Conrad’s solemn preaching on salvation and conscience
• James Henderson’s home meetings, missions work, and presidential visits
• Cyrus Cooper’s rigorous plainness, opposition, and intuitive friendships
• Carl Patterson’s gentle leadership, clerking, and magnetic presence
• Quietism’s strengths and limits within a changing economy
• The hedge of plainness fading while inner bonds endure
• Education, eldering, and the cost of fear of change
• Readiness for war-time testing and reconstruction

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Truth is one and the same always, though ages and generations pass away, and one generation goes and another comes, yet the word and power and spirit of the living God endures forever and is the same and never changes.

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In this podcast we will finish reading Chapter six. Of the new crop of ministers so badly needed to replace the aged and deceased in the eighteen nineties, several of the outstanding ones were not homegrown. The first of these was Elwood Conrad, who lived from 1850 to 1943, whose family were Hicksites, then Episcopalians in eastern Pennsylvania. At the age of 21, he was acknowledged a minister by a New Jersey Hicksite meeting. Five years later, 1876, he joined Ohio Yearly Meeting, the Hickory Grove Quarterly Meeting. He was then living in Iowa, after he had started preaching Christ in the Hicksite meetings. He soon moved to Ohio, where he was not acknowledged a minister until 1890, after the article about the death of ministers, dearth of ministers in Salem quarterly meeting appeared in The Friend. As might be expected, considering the history of his development, he spoke often on the Christian doctrine of salvation through Christ. His ministry is described as being very weighty and able to cause many to feel the awful state of man's condition. He would sometimes begin with the words As we were sitting in the solemn, reverential silence, my mind was deeply impressed, uttered in a very solemn manner. Usually there was no tone, the traditional sing song chat to his ministry, but it would sometimes creep into his supplications. He had been described as a short man. His garb was a grey frock coat, standard collar with lapels, such as commonly worn in those days, drab hat with fairly high crown, such as commonly worn. He did not wear his hat during meeting, as did some other plain friends. Another immigrant minister was James Henderson, who lived from eighteen fifty nine to nineteen forty two, who was born in Scotland and raised among the Conservative Friends at Norwich, Ontario. Members of Ohio's Committee on the Scattered Remnant of Friends visiting Canada in 1883 told him about the boarding school at Barnesville. He attended the school and bought a suit of plain clothing after graduating. Soon he went to Tuneza as a worker, becoming a superintendent in 1889. In 1894, he brought his young family to Barnesville, where he was recorded as minister in 1896. He had first spoken at Tunesa in 1890. He tells of realizing early in his career as a minister at Tunessa that from that moment he would be given the words to speak after he had arisen. After coming to Barnesville, he realized on one occasion that I had so modulated my voice that it, the sermon, had appeared almost like a song, a tendency he did not approve in South. A later reporter notes that as a minister his delivery was loud and plain without much tone. Soon after being recorded, James Henderson began the first of many trips in the ministry, which would make him well known and influential figure in Ohio Quakerism for nearly half a century. Over the course of many years he held meetings in most of the homes and the yearly meeting. He soon discovered the importance of being ignorant of the spiritual condition of those being visited, for otherwise the way would not open for him to speak to their condition. Like the great ministers of the past, he wore plain clothing. His usual garb was a grey frock coat with straight or stand collar, the coat cut away slightly at the neck, the ordinarily detached collar then commonly worn, but no tie and a black hat with moderately low crown. He wore his hat during meeting. James Henderson was another of the great ministers who were led by the Spirit to speak not only in friends meeting and friends family, he had meetings with clergymen and saloon keepers around Barnesville in 1902, and in 1907 he spent a good many days visiting and speaking in the various New York City missions for the Down and Out. Some of his most exciting and original ministry occurred after 1917 and will be mentioned in later chapters. However, in 1913, he held meetings in over 20 neighborhoods around Barnesville. By 1917, he had twice had a religious concern to visit the President of the United States, and he had been able to deliver his message in person each time. And at about this time, his concern to visit Ohio colleges saw him speak in the assemblies or at least on the campuses of 20 colleges and universities. The third immigrant was Cyrus Cooper, who was led from 1860 to 1940, who was recorded a minister at West Grove, Pennsylvania in 1897. Cyrus had felt himself led step by step into being coming a plain friend. The beginning of Cyrus' faithfulness was granted as crazy, queer, and conspicuously different from many others of that day and generation. In the 1880s, he had felt he must withdraw from a literary society maintained by local young friends and feeling that he was under condemnation by the Lord for reading light literature. He shifted to newspaper reading until he found objectionable things there too. Next, he tried classical literature and was gradually led on to read religious books, mostly Quaker ones. He wrote that even his marriage resulted from intimations from the Lord, their earliest ones flashing through his mind in 1885, as he saw a woman he scarcely knew. When the intimations regarding the same woman began again in 1894, he finally arranged to meet her and in two different interviews told her what the Lord had in mind. They were married in 1895. Even before his acknowledgement as a minister in 1897, Cyrus Cooper had made a few unofficial trips. Afterwards, he had frequent concerns to travel. One of his missions at home was the awakening of his brother-in-law and close friend, Harry Moore, who had habitually slept in meeting. Partly as a result of Cyrus' concern and friendship, Harry learned to stay awake and eventually he too became a minister. As Cyrus sat in the quiet before dawn early in 1901, there appeared an impression of a finger pointing to Salem, Ohio. This surprised me very much. He and his wife decided to go to Ohio. They disposed of their house and most furnishings and set out on a journey lasting five months, going by way of Scipio, New York, Canada, Tunesa, New York, and Pittsburgh, Silwickley, Pennsylvania, visiting friends as Cyrus felt led and usually using up most of their savings on the journey. Salem Meeting experienced some growth and the primary school was revived in the years after Cyrus Cooper came. However, he discouraged his brother-in-law, Harry Moore, from moving to Salem by telling him that whatever trials he might have there, that's in Westgrove, they would be tenfold here. Apparently, Cyrus's zeal and conservatism aroused some opposition in Salem meeting. From 1902 to 1908, the Coopers and their infant son lived in Salem and later near Damascus while Cyrus successfully applied his trade. He was an excellent carpenter, and occasionally made short or long journeys in the ministry. By 1908, Cyrus had been followed to Ohio by most of his family, including brother-in-law Harry Moore, who was by now a recognized minister. In 1908, Cyrus felt he should move to Middleton, which he made his home until nearly the end of his life, as in Salem, there was some resistance to Cyrus Cooper and Middleton Monthly Meeting. Though this keenly intelligent, strongly willed prophet generally carried the day. Like most of the ministers mentioned previously, Cyrus Cooper held to a strict interpretation of conservative Quakerism, insisting on a narrowly defined way of life, a way of life which was, in fact, being rapidly abandoned by 1908. Kenneth Morse described Cyrus as a friend of the olden time. Straight collared, frock coat, gray, drab broad brimmed hat, which he wore in meeting, reverse shirt collar, rimless glasses, etc. In spite of his being on the losing side, so far as the externals of Quaker practice is concerned, he did have a remarkable power in Ohio and elsewhere because he obviously spoke with integrity and intensity. Kenneth Morse describes his ministry as intoned and sometimes almost vehement in earnestness. Although Cyrus Cooper aroused opposition in both Salem and Middleton, one complaint was that he did not understand or sympathize with young people. He did not have spiritual intuitive qualities and a gift for friendship. His close and sympathetic friendship with Harry Moore, whom he awakened, has already been mentioned. After consoling the evidence of truth in one of our midweek meetings, Harry and I walked together homeward. As we went along the boardwalk, every blade of grass was a song of praise, and all the leaves of the trees did clap their hands in joy. As we conversed, I was sensible that Harry felt my condition and knew that I had found peace, yet conscious that he had not obtained it. When describing a period when he walked about a mile to his construction work in 1906, Cyrus said, I enjoyed such sweet communion as I went along that it was a trial as someone came by and asked me to ride. He also had a close, intuitive relationship with Walter Edgerton, a minister from Winona, and with William J. Blackburn. And it quotes here, another close and deferring friend, our family physician. While we lived out by Elwood Conrad's, I was away on religious visit and felt an impression come home before I expected. On arrival, the cause was apparent. Finding our son sick with pneumonia. He was a frail child, and it came to a critical stage. Dr. Blackburn came one morning at this juncture and after going through his examination pronounced the baby no better, but added, I feel that he is. So it proved, and from that hour the child recovered. This quality of feeling was also valuable when he was a companion on some religious visits. End of quote. Cyrus later developed a similar relationship with James Henderson, once dreaming about the details of construction of a house James was building at Barnesville, about eighty miles away. He then felt he should go and help James with the construction, which he did, finding the details of his dream to have been accurate. Carl Patterson, who lived from 1873 to 1942, was, like the previous three, not a birthright member of Ohio Yearly Meeting. However, he did come from Quaker Stock, though his father had married a Methodist, and he was educated in the Chester Hills schools, which had friends on the board and teaching staff. He may have been the first college-trained Ohio friend to be acknowledged a minister, while at college he took compulsory military training, from which he was eventually excused when he realized that his conscience would not permit him to undergo bayonet training. Carl remained in Chester Hill, in Chester Hill after his father's death, carrying out his business. Eventually, he married a local Quaker girl, and about a year later he was accepted as a member of Chesterfield Monthly Meeting, which he had already attended a good many times as a boy and a young man. At this time when Pennfill Quarterly Meeting and its Frances were in rapid decline, Carl was soon to feel a need for both spiritual and practical leadership. He had known since 1891 that he would have to become a minister and had often felt the urge to speak in meeting even before he became a member. His first strong leading to speak, which he disobeyed, occurred during the quarterly meeting session which laid down Plymouth Monthly Meeting, about three months after he officially became a friend in 1897. The speed which Carl was used by meeting shows the esteem in which he was held. Two years after joining, he was made assistant clerk of Chesterfield Monthly Meeting and an overseer two years after that. He was made clerk of Pennsville Quarterly Meeting less than ten years after becoming a friend, and 11 years after becoming a friend, he was assistant clerk of Ohio Yearly Meeting. Of course, he held many other significant Quaker offices during this period and for the next 30 years. By 1912, he had become a successful businessman, banker, and beloved local figure whose gentle leadership was recognized by his whole community. Early in 1912, Chesterfield Monthly Meeting acknowledged his gift as a minister. It is certain that sometime prior to this acknowledgement, he had adopted the outward marks of a Quaker minister, modified plain clothing and plain language. However, people who knew him well said that plainness, as distinct from simplicity, was never basic with him and that he may have adopted conservative dress as a concession. One of his contemporaries believes that he was often eldered in the early days and that he often felt a spirit of criticism had hampered his ministry. Carl Patterson, evidently, had the same kind of intuitive sensitivity to people's condition and needed that marked so many early ministers. An incident which occurred during a trip to England, Ireland, and the continent of Europe as the way opened in 1930 is indicative. And we begin a quote: there was a separate coach on the train for those taking the boat and much against the desire of the three young women and middle-aged women, the guard put us in that in the compartment. This older girl had been in America, and I had the feeling that she was in trouble. And after we got on the boat, she was exceedingly nice to us. And I finally told Mifflin that which I did not care to know was the trouble was with this girl. I was used to people telling me, and it made me think that there was something wrong in my reception when they did not. But a while before we landed, she did tell me that the only man, an Englishman, in the world, had married another girl. Another quotation suggests something of his attractive magnetic spirituality. Someone had said that a walk down the street with Carl Patterson was a truly sacramental experience. He had a word and a smile for everybody, especially for the children, who seeing him coming afar off, would leave their play or even their mothers and come running to clasp his hand. Small wonder that such a minister was popular with young friends in Ohio at the turn of the century and for the remainder of his life. Now these are these leading ministers of Ohio Yearly Meeting's Golden Age suggests how persuasive elements of quietism were. Although the efforts of the effects of quietism on individuals were different, some of the ministers like Ann Branson and Esther Fowler were evidently tortured as they struggled to obey the light, which often led them into strange places and to say strange things. Others like Daniel Mott and Carl Patterson were equally concerned to obey the light were remarkably genial and healing to all who came near them. Apparently, all these members knew how to be silent, and they refrained from speaking in meeting unless they felt a clear, inner call to speak. With the possible exception of Carl Patterson, they adhered rigidly to the Wilburite patterns of dress and speech, and in varying degrees they were strict about recreation. In the case of Elwood Dean and Esther Fowler, a surprising importance was placed on appearances by those admittedly spiritual people. Some of them, Cyrus Cooper in particular, were distrustful of too much education. He did not send his son to the boarding school, and he opposed college education as late as about 1938. Although one of the ministers, Carl Patterson, had a few years of college education, and at least six of the ministers had either been teachers or had oversight of teachers, for the most part they were farmers or rural tradesmen. Cyrus Cooper was an excellent carpenter and manager of carpenters, as well as a good store manager. James Hiderson was a surveyor, as well as a farmer. Carl Patterson became the leading banker in his small town. It may be significant that none of the four outstanding ministers who were recognized after 1890 were born or raised within the Ohio conservative Quakerism, which they sought to perpetuate. Elwood Conrad, a convert from Hickson, had migrated to the conservatives. James Henderson of Canada became finally convinced while a student at the boarding school. Cyrus Cooper, an anachronistic conservative from Philadelphia yearly meeting, migrated to more congenial Ohio and was followed by at least six family members, including one minister, Carl Patterson, was brought up a Methodist, though he was surrounded by the genial Quaker influence at Chester Hill. Though some of the greatest ministers at the end of this period were immigrants, suggests that in spite of the energy and initiative, Ohio Yearly Meeting was not able to regenerate its leadership. Although complete statistics from 1874 or 1854 are not available, there is no doubt that for most of this period, Ohio Yearly Meeting was slowly losing members as well as future ministers. Clearly, the golden age of this religious subculture, like all golden ages, had carried the seeds of its own demise. One of the strong elements of that subculture had been in its belief in maintaining an unbroken continuity with the past in terms of language, practice, and spirit. It had preserved large elements of Quakerism, which developed in frontier Ohio and western Pennsylvania. It was also true that Ohio Wilburite subculture idealized and intensified some earlier 19th century Quaker characteristics at the expense of others. At any rate, the American economy and way of life had made it possible for the rural and semi-rural Ohio Wilburite to continue a quiet, orderly in the world, yet not of the world, way of life until after 1900, when it seemed to become increasingly difficult. Before 1900, it still been possible for most friends to arrange their farming or business life so that they might attend midweek meeting, one of the key landmarks of the true Wilburite subculture. The farmer, the self-employed, and friends employed by friends were still able to pace their life so that great drafts of the spirit would continually sweep through them. No doubt most of the leading friends of 1900 could not understand how Benjamin Hoyle had had great openings in the scripture while walking behind the plough. But after 1900, increasing numbers of Ohio friends entered commerce, industry, or the professions became in effect bicultural, gradually giving up the exterior marks, the hedge, as the Wilburites themselves called it, which had effectively kept them a separate and peculiar people. Through the exterior continuities of personal plainness were rapidly vanishing as the First World War approached, the inner continuities, often inarticulate and unconscious, which had developed through Quaker evolution and separation were still strong in those who'd remained in the yearly meeting. They were bound by an almost clan-like fellowship which held them together even though there were strains between the unyielding views of some of the sterner, narrower type of leaders and the broader membership. They were schooled in silence, though the daily Bible readings, followed by silence in most homes, by their meetings for worship and business, and by the period of silence which often began or ended any formal gatherings as well as meetings of their associations. Presumably, most members had experienced more than once the visit of a minister to their home for a meeting with the entire family. Though some might resent or even ridicule the overstrict friend, there was still a mystique of respect. Even yet, for the friends who had trembled under a concern, who had traveled under who had trembled under a concern, such a friend, if his feelings were judged authentic by the meeting, was sure to be provided with companions for his travel and with the assistance in appointing meetings or making visits. The trial of the First World War would soon demonstrate the strength of their inner continuities even in the bicultural friends. It must be noted, however, that the inner continuity also contained some questionable features, or scars from strains and separations. First, there was the editing of personality, which seemed to rob sanctity of joy and humanity. Related to this was an exaggerated emphasis on fear of speaking for God because of the dangers of making a mistake and of being eldered. So great was the reverence for God and the fear of speaking lightly of him, and some friends found it embarrassing to talk to religion even with their parents. While such reverence may produce a strong feeling of worship, it can be self-defeating if it stifles normal creativity and communication. Another form of personality editing was the strong, was strong among those people was the inability to admit or express hostile feelings in useful ways. Another inner continuity almost strangled the subculture's creativity, thrust to remain open to a new growth under the guidance of the spirit. This was the extreme distaste for change, which it's most ludicrous, had religious objections to the adoption of the same time used by everyone in a standard time zone, and its most tragic found religious reasons for poor, harmful or no educational practices. It was this tragic distortion that eldered or discouraged bright young spirits into discouragement or out of Quakerism altogether. Some who mistook the husk for the colonel drove others to abandon not only the husk, but the colonel as well. Still, at the beginning of 1917, Ohio Yearly Meeting was strong. Its younger members were largely loyal to its best ideals, which were soon to be tested by the war and the need for reconstruction which followed. The rural and small town religious subcultures still kept Ohio friends a people apart, so far as the inner continuities were concerned, although most of the young were freely bicultural and were ready to participate quite fully in American life. This concludes the reading of chapter six, Ministry of the Golden Age, 1874 through 1917, in the Eye of Faith, a History of Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative by William P. Tabor Jr. The podcast, The Just Heard, was a production of Ohio Yearly Meeting. It was read by Kent Palmer. The words from our introduction were written by Margaret Fell in sixteen sixty. The music was composed and sung by Paulette Meyer.

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More information at her website WWW Pauletmeyer.com Truth is one and the same always, though ages and generations pass away, and one generation goes and another comes, yet the word and power and spirit of the living God endures forever, and is the same and the changes.