But he never
recanted.
A reviewer of the old dispute and separation made the following
comments on them in a paper ten years ago: "It was in America, where
there had been no persecution worth mentioning since Mary Dyer was
hang'd on Boston Common, that about fifty years ago differences arose,
singularly enough upon doctrinal points of the divinity of Christ and
the nature of the atonement. Whoever would know how bitter was the
controversy, and how much of human infirmity was found to be still
lurking under broad-brim hats and drab coats, must seek for the
information in the Lives of Elias Hicks and of Thomas Shillitoe, the
latter an English Friend, who visited us at this unfortunate time, and
who exercised his gifts as a peace-maker with but little success. The
meetings, according to his testimony, were sometimes turn'd into mobs.
The disruption was wide, and seems to have been final. Six of the
ten yearly meetings were divided; and since that time various
sub-divisions have come, four or five in number. There has never,
however, been anything like a repetition of the excitement of the
Hicksite controversy; and Friends of all kinds at present appear to
have settled down into a solid, steady, comfortable state, and to be
working in their own way without troubling other Friends whose ways
are different."
_Note_.--Old persons, who heard this man in his day, and who glean'd
impressions from what they saw of him, (judg'd from their own points
of views,) have, in their conversation with me, dwelt on another
point.
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