Messages

  • The immediacy of the Divine

    “There is that near you which will guide you. O! Hearken unto it, and be sure ye keep to it.”

  • A foundational experience of Quaker spirituality

    “And when all my hopes in them, and in all people was gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, Then, O! Then I heard a voice, which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’: and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.”

  • Quaker Quotes to Memorize (with guest editor Max L. Carter)

    Jan 19-25, 2026: This week’s messages are guest edited by Max L. Carter. He is a member of New Garden Friends Meeting in Greensboro, N.C. He retired in 2015 after 45 years in Quaker education, the last 25 at Guilford College as the William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies.

  • Mary Dyer, after being sentenced to death

    “If you neither hear nor obey the Lord nor his servants, yet will he send more of his servants among you, so that your end shall be frustrated, that think to restrain them, you call cursed Quakers, from coming among you by any thing you can do to them; yea verily, he has a seed here among you, for whom we have suffered all this while, and yet suffer; whom the Lord of the harvest will send forth more laborers to gather (out of the mouths of the devourers of all sorts) into his fold, where he will lead them into fresh pastures, even the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

  • The love I bear

    “The Love I bear to the Souls of all Men makes me willing to undergo whatever can be inflicted on me.”

  • Imagine the darkness of 1650

    “Imagine yourself back in 1650 England. For much of the year, it’s dark by 4 PM. Imagine walking to another Quaker’s home for an evening meeting for worship. Maybe the moon is full or maybe it’s absent. Maybe the moon is shining, but maybe its light is obscured by an overcast sky. Perhaps you carry a candle or an oil lantern, but its light isn’t very bright and it doesn’t extend very far. It’s very dark. It’s that darkness that’s key to understanding a major difference between how early Quakers related to the Light and how we do today.”

  • To our persecutors: I seek the welfare of your souls

    “You Magistrates of the City and County of Gloucester, who have been active in this unchristian work of Persecution against an In­nocent People, if this should come to your Hands, I entreat you to read it with Moderation, and take Counsel in time, for as I have sometime said to some of you, Good Counsel will not hurt you, or any Man. Oh, that I may prevail with you to take Counsel of the Lord, and obey the Light of his Son Christ Jesus in your own Hearts, that will teach you to do as you would be done by, and not to continue in such an unchristian frame of Mind, still to Oppress the Poor…”

  • Quaker heroines in prison

    “The English Fryar [in the prison] was wrath, and shewed us his Crucifix, and bid us look there. We said, ‘The Lord saith, “Thou shalt not make to thyself the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow to them nor worship them, but I the Lord thy God only.”‘ 

  • How to flourish under persecution

    “Our Society originated, grew stronger, and flourished under persecution, and the members were united in the strong bonds of mutual love and affection, which qualified them to deeply feel for each other, and made them willing to share in each other’s sufferings. In this state nothing but force or ill health kept them from their meetings.”

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