REPORT. 1895. SIXTH-DAY.-Morning Session. The Forty-third Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends convened at Longwood, Chester county, Pa,, on 6th day, 7th of Sixth month, 1895, and continued through the succeeding two days. The meeting opened at 10 o'clock a. M. with the singing of Whittier's hymn: 66 Oh, sometimes gleams upon our sight, Through present wrong, the Eternal right. " The Recording Clerk, Elizabeth B. Passmore, then read the call for the meeting as follows: CALL. The Forty-third Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends will be held at Longwood, Pa., near Kennett Square, on the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central R. R., Friday, Saturday and Sunday the 7th, 8th, 9th of June, 1895. Our predecessors were accustomed to assemble at Longwood to consider the word most needing to be said and to say it; to search for the thing most needing to be done and to do it. It is becoming that we, living in a world still full of momentous issues, should continue the process. Let us then gather in the old but ever new faith, that "Above all things Truth beareth away the victory." FREDERIC A. HINCKLEY, Florence, Mass., AARON MENDENHALL, Hamorton, Pa., Treasurer. Clerks. Frederic A. Hinckley, the presiding clerk, extended the word of welcome to those assembled. "It is one of the privileges of the year, to us to come to this annual gathering as to a sacred shrine. No spot on earth is in itself especially holy, but any spot may become so by the associations which cluster around it. Longwood has thus become such a place to many of us, having been associated with those saintly ones who gathered here in the past years." After this greeting the usual business claimed the attention of the meeting. The clerks and treasurer were reappointed, the several committees formed, etc. The following memorials were then presented and read: THAMAZINE P. MEREDITH. Among our associates who have passed from this life since the last yearly gathering here, we must number our friend Thamazine Pennock Meredith. She died the 29th of 10th month, 1894, far advanced in her 83d year. Rarely if ever till the last two years, has her genial face been missing from these yearly meetings. She signed the call for that first general conference of liberal Friends and others at which the association of Progressive Friends was organized, in the Fifth month, 1853. Her native tendencies were progressive, her environment through life favored such ideals, and she always retained a warm interest in the welfare of this association. With motherly kindness of heart, a cheerful, buoyant spirit, dignity of character, a racy originality of thought and expression, and prudence in criticism, she easily won and held close friendships throughout her life. From their marriage till the spring of 1864-twenty six years she and her husband, Isaac Meredith, made their home at "Indian Deep," a farm on the Brandywine. It was then a secluded spot, a fitting one for a station on the Under ground Railroad; and a grand agency it was, of comfort and hope, for the fleeing bondmen. After the enactment of the fugitive slave law this road did "a heavy business." The times were desperate then, with the slaves, and they moved to the north singly and in companies. Sometimes adult men only. Sometimes by families-parents and children to the infant in arms—or groups of families. Ten, twelve. and once, sixteen in a company, presented themselves for the hospitality of the Meredith homestead. The men, armed with revolvers and knives, and resolute that neither they nor their families should ever again be slaves. The profits to agents on these roads were of the sort "laid up in Heaven." Yet, as on best authority we learn that "the Kingdom of Heaven is within, we know that they received rich dividends from each new operation. For blessed, truly, are they who so serve the least of these their brethren. RACHEL ANNA LAMBORN. Within the past year another beloved friend, Rachel Anna Lamborn, has been taken from us. She was one who greatly enjoyed attending these pleasant annual gatherings, and her interest in their proceedings had never abated. For a short term she served this yearly meeting as its Recording Clerk. Her parents, Jonathan and Martha Lamborn, were amongst the Friends of this community whose devotion to the highest manifest duty was the motive for the establishing of this Longwood meeting. Spiritual insight, deep religious feeling, and justness and generosity to all classes, were part of her nature. "The impression grows more and more strong within me," she once said, "that all the higher phases of our nature and life are the forecast and symbol of the life Eternal. That love, beauty and goodness are divine and everlasting. That these qualities being vouchsafed to us here, proves our relationship to the Divine and the Infinite. I am thankful, also, that more and more I feel with Tennyson : "I will know them when we meet. " Her literary judgment and taste were of a superior order. The companionship and pleasure she found in books and in the best writers gave her a culture and ripeness of thought recognized by all with whom she came in contact; yet her modesty rendered it difficult for her to take a place in worthy positions which she would have graced. "The duty nearest at hand seems always the one for me," she said. A beautiful, true and loving spirit has passed from us, but she has gone in the happy faith that the best here is but a promise that the everlasting love will continue its care in the future. MARY AND ALICE PYLE. the In looking into the dear familiar faces that make up body of the Longwood Yearly Meeting, we are touched with a sense of sorrow and of loss in missing from this congenial company two bright young spirits who had grown from childhood in the love of the broad and liberal principles for which this convention has always stood. The intelligent, responsive faces of Mary and Alice Pyle never failed to add their full quota of cheer and spiritual life to the meeting. Το such we have been accustomed to look as the blossoming promise of a still fuller and richer fruitage for the betterment of humanity than has yet been realized. These earnest young natures are of such value now and here, that we can only match our sense of loss by a sustaining trust and faith in the enlarged and supreme opportunities of spirit life. F. A. HINCKLEY:-The procession to the "Silent Land' is made up of all ages and conditions. There have gone this year those whose alloted period of life seemed finished, as, also, those just entering on to life and its duties and enjoyments. When we are brought face to face with the great mystery of the experience we call death, as when by a sudden change we find our close relation to those nearest us sundered, absolutely, we stand blindly incapable of solving the mystery, yet, we must believe that the Eternal Goodness is ordering all things, and ordering them wisely and well. It is only by trusting in this belief that we can meet these separations patiently. Then we learn to feel that we are already living in the invisible world, are citizens in the "Land of Silence. The audience, led by Cora W. Pennock, joined in singing Longfellow's hymn : "When the hours of day are numbered, " etc. F. A. HINCKLEY then read the following Testimony on RELIGION. Religion is the universal outreaching of humanity towards something better than it has known. Religions are the varying forms which this outreaching takes in different sects, nations and races. There are many religions. There is but one religion. Religion is worship of the Ideal in the Universe of the Unseen, and in the Universe of the Seen. It is the recognition of God everywhere and of man everywhere. The Court of Final Appeal in Religion is made up of the individual heart, and mind, and conscience. The method of hearing and deciding in this Court is that of entire freedom of thought and speech, sceking the truth fearlessly, and speaking it fearlessly in the spirit of Love. Liberty is the way to Religion. Religion is the end which Liberty seeks. Liberty without Religion becomes license. Religion without Liberty can never reach its highest estate. We bear our testimony, therefore, for free Religion and for religious freedom, as the great need and the crowning glory of mankind. CHARLES DE B. MILLS, of Syracuse, N. Y.:-I brought with me now a copy of the proceedings of this meeting in 1858, when Theodore Parker appeared here and gave four sermons on "The Idea of God." Mr. Parker thought reform in men's religious helief to be the most pressing of all reforms. He spent his life attempting to illumine the minds of those whom he addressed. Man has ever striven to form an idea of the Supreme. It is hard for us to separate our ideas of the truth from the truth itself. Religion should be free. Man's conception of God must be in accordance with his idea of what is highest. The spirit of progress is pervading all the religious denominations. In the Presbyterian, in the Episcopalian, in various churches, we find men of advanced thought, who are in the position of the savage who has outgrown idol worship, and is persecuted therefor. As there is no limit to |