strength, and...thy neighbour as thyself... On these commandments hang all the law and the prophets. In the course of our discussions we have several times recalled St. Augustine's statement: Love God and do as you like. This is a statement of the greatest freedom, but also of the deepest obligation. In so far as we love the good and know the mind of God we do not need rules and moral codes to guide our conduct. This offers, however, a freedom of action and judgment that we might grasp at too easily, assuming that we know our own minds and the mind of God. In fact it demands a disciplined search.

All attitudes to sexuality are biassed by the individual's own upbringing, experience and desires, and it is difficult to be objective. The attitudes of professed Christians tend to have a definite bias-not necessarily good-that is to be explained in the light of Church history. The group was therefore obliged to impose on itself a discipline that would enable each member to examine himself and to discriminate between habits of feeling and thought acquired from church and society and those that sprang from experience that was sincerely examined and assimilated. We have sought to act on our faith that the light of God is at work within us all and will, if quietly but energetically sought for, make this discrimination possible and lead to a unity of awareness.

Those who have written or spoken about sexual matters as professed Christians have too often given the impression that their sexual path has been smooth; that, apart from a hint of solitary difficulties in adolescence, it has fallen into line with Christian principles. This is a false impression. What may outwardly fall in line with principle may not inwardly be good. Distinguished members of the Church sometimes have to seek humbly for advice in sexual matters. A devotion to high ideals may co-exist with sexual incapacity and marital frustration: idealism can be accompanied by a startling insensitiveness to immediate human need.

All this applies to Quakers as to others, but there are certain historical characteristics of the Society. of Friends that ought specially to lead to a clear and wholesome understanding of the significance of the sex relationship. The Society has maintained throughout the three hundred years of its history the complete personal and material equality of the sexes. It has an attitude to authority that enables it always to say in the words of John Robinson's farewell to pilgrims setting off for the New World: "The Lord has yet more light and truth to show forth"-and on every conceivable question. For Friends, God's will for man can never be circumscribed by any statement, however inspired; the last word has never yet been spoken on the implications of Christianity, and every religious expression is open to critical examination. Quakerism involves a continuous search; and, because it is a genuine and not a formal search, it may lead to surprises and unexpected demands. Lastly, Quakerism has never accepted a distinction between the sacred and the secular. Sometimes the Society may have failed to achieve this synthesis. When this has happened, it has been through human weakness and not through any departure from the conviction that such a distinction is wrong. In sexual matters the unity of the sacred and the secular involves this implication: that the mattachine REVIEW

sacramental quality of a sexual relationship depends upon the spirit and intention of the persons concerned, not upon any atmosphere or circumstance provided from outside.

Quakerism was not a Puritan movement, though it did pass through a phase in which many activities that we associate with the gayer side of life were rejected. For us today, to say that every experience can be sacramental does not mean that it is equally serious and joyless, and the members of the group have not approached their work in this spirit. The nature of our investigations has often been sobering; we have had to hear of tragic casehistories, squalid conditions, outrageous miscarriages, of justice; and much of what we have thought and written has therefore been deeply serious in content and feeling. But at the same time we have recognised that sexual experience does not need to be sober in order to be deep; on the contrary depth and commitment are precisely the conditions for freedom-for the carefree and delightful, for humour and gaiety.

We do not claim that our views represent the views of the Society of Friends as a whole. But it can be said that the Society has recognised recently that love cannot be confined to a rigid pattern:

"Marriage is to be taken seriously, but not always in grim earnest; its problems take perspective from fun, adventure and fulfilment, and joy and sorrow are mingled together. We rejoice in success, but we must also be glad that we can console each other in failure... For some, there is a monogamy so entire that no other love ever touches it; but others 'fall in love' time and time again, and must learn to make riches of their affection without destroying their marriage or their friends. Let us thank God for what we share, which enables us to understand; and for the infinite variety in which each marriage stands alone."* Some Friends were disturbed by this statement, fearing that it condoned extra-marital relationships, but one of those primarily responsible for the drafting made it clear that the reference to falling in love was intended to be "a statement of observed fact" and that the statement about "making riches of their affection" recognises that "there is a problem; that it involves responsibilities to others beyond themselves; and that there may be various ways of tackling it-not the same way for everybody".f

It has been the tradition of the greater part of the Christian Church to lay down firm rules as to conduct, to fix a definite pattern as to what is "moral" or "sinful" but to be humanely tolerant of the waywardness and sinfulness of the ordinary man, offering him a ready opportunity for contrition and atonement. It might be claimed that there is practical wisdom in this. The group, however, felt compelled to question the whole basis of judgment as to what is right and what is wrong. We shall have reason to say that sexuality, looked at dispassionately, is neither good nor evil-it is a fact of nature. But looking at it as Christians we have felt impelled to state without reservation that it is a glorious gift of God. Throughout the * Christian Faith and Practice in the experience of the Religious Society of Friends, 1960, Sect. 493.

↑ Wilfred E. Littleboy, The Friend, 23.2.62, p. 219.