Category: Biographies
Elias Hicks was a much misunderstood man in his own time, and the lapse of eighty years since his death has done but little to make him known to the passing generations. His warm personal friends, and of them there were many, considered him little less than a saint; his enemie...
Elias Hicks was a much misunderstood man in his own time, and the lapse of eighty years since his death has done but little to make him known to the passing generations. His war...
2. CHAPTER I.The Hicks family is English in its origin, authentic history tracing it clearly back to the fourteenth century. By a sort of genealogical paradox, a far-away ancestor of the apo...
3. CHAPTER II.At the age of seventeen Elias became an apprentice, and set about learning the carpenter's trade. His mechanical experience during this period receives practically no attention...
4. CHAPTER III.There are many evidences in the Journal that Elias Hicks appreciated the moral and spiritual advantages of his environment after he took up his residence at Jericho. He confesse...
5. CHAPTER IV.Probably the first official public service to which Elias Hicks was ever assigned by the Society related to a matter growing out of the Revolutionary War. Under the new meeting-...
6. CHAPTER V.In the fall of 1799 a concern to visit meetings in Connecticut was followed. The trip also took in most of the meetings on the east bank of the Hudson as far north as Dutchess C...
7. CHAPTER VI.On the 20th of Third month, 1828, Elias Hicks laid before Jericho Monthly Meeting a concern he had to make "a religious visit in the love of the gospel, to Friends and others in...
8. CHAPTER VII.To construct from the published deliverances, and personal correspondence of Elias Hicks, a statement of his theory and practice touching the ministry is desirable if not easy....
9. CHAPTER VIII.The village of Jericho, Long Island, is about 25 miles east of New York City, in the town of Oyster Bay. It has had no considerable growth since the days of Elias Hicks, and now...
10. CHAPTER IX."My wife, although not of a very strong constitution, lived to be the mother of eleven children, four sons and seven daughters. Our second daughter, a very lovely promising chil...
11. CHAPTER X.In the long absences from home, which the religious visits of Elias Hicks involved, as a matter of course many of the domestic burdens fell heavily upon his wife. In so far as h...
12. CHAPTER XI.John Woolman was the mouth-piece of the best Quaker conscience of the eighteenth century on the slavery question. For twenty-five years before his death, in 1772, he was pleadin...
13. CHAPTER XII.Elias Hicks had very definite ideas on a great many subjects. While in many respects he was in advance of his time, at other points he was conservative. At any rate he was not i...
14. CHAPTER XIII.Elias Hicks had ideas of the future life, salvation, rewards and punishments, sometimes original, and in some respects borrowed or adapted from prevalent opinions. But in all co...
15. CHAPTER XIV.No biography of Elias Hicks could be even approximately adequate which ignored the division in the Society of Friends in 1827-1828, commonly, but erroneously, called "the separa...
16. CHAPTER XV.Transferring the story of the opposition to the ministry of Elias Hicks to Philadelphia, it would appear that its first public manifestation occurred in 1819. During this year h...
17. CHAPTER XVI.Between the trouble related in the last chapter and the culmination of the disturbance in the Society of Friends, in 1827-1828, there was an interval of four or five years. This...
18. CHAPTER XVII.We have reached the point where it would seem in order to consider the matter contained in some of the sermons preached by Elias Hicks, in order to determine, if we can, what th...
19. CHAPTER XVIII.One of the marked incidents during the "separation" period was the controversy between Elias Hicks and Anna Braithwaite,[144] and the still more pointed discussion indulged in b...
20. CHAPTER XIX.In Fifth month, 1828, a year after the division had been accomplished in Philadelphia, a most remarkable round of experiences took place within the bounds of Nine Partners and S...
21. CHAPTER XX.The first day after his arrival in America, Thomas Shillitoe[171] attended Hester Street Meeting, in New York. He tells that "it was reported that he had come over to help the F...
22. CHAPTER XXI.The "separation" was accomplished in most meetings in the East by the withdrawal of the orthodox party, after which they set up new meetings for worship and discipline. In a min...
23. CHAPTER XXII.A letter dated Solebury, Pa., Sixth month 21, 1828, told of some experiences on his last western trip. It was addressed to his son-in-law, Valentine Hicks. On the journey from J...
24. CHAPTER XXIII.Few men in their day were more talked about than Elias Hicks. The interest in his person and in his preaching continued for years after his death. While the discussion ceased to...
25. CHAPTER XXIV.Many statements which have come down to us from the generation in which Elias Hicks lived, warrant the conclusion that he was a natural orator. He possessed in a large degree wh...
26. CHAPTER XXV.During the series of visits, reported in the twenty-second chapter, Elias was ill a number of times, and was forced to rest from his labors. On the return trip from central and...