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After a few years on hiatus The Conservative Friend has return to print in a hybrid format. The goal is to publish two issues a year which will be post on this site. Then these two issue will be printed together on paper as an annual volume.

A PDF/print version of Issue 59 is available for viewing and download

I know I am as He created me; I know you only see the one that dies: The self I am is not the man you see. There ís One who is God the Only Free; There ís One who is God the Only Wise. I know I am as He created me.

Early on in our journey as Friends, most of us who were not acquainted with Wilberite Yearly Meetings did not have the preparation to live in the life and power of our beloved Lord. We did not understand our need to truly relate to the Lord. At best we treated Him as a super politician or, even more repugnant, we attempted in our human power to coerce the Lord to satisfy our earthly desires. When we indulged in prayer, it was for the purpose of cajoling God to fulfill our wants, even though, more often than not, they were at variance with the Lord's will.

...the Society of Friends from the first, found it needful to adhere to greater purity of manners than other professors had done, in order to be more perfect followers of his example, as well as of his doctrine of the strait and narrow way which leads to life; believing indeed the verity and truth of his sayings; and that his doctrines of the cross are unequivocal; and finding by practice too, that the bearing of his cross patiently and honestly, did in very deed, work to the mortifying of the deeds of the flesh; hence as a people we have seen more clearly than others the necessity of “always bearing about in the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” “For we which live, are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:10-11).

There is this growing trend in the U.S. in the number of people who identify as “spiritual but not religious.” The Pew Research Center’s 2024 Religious Landscape Study reported that 83% of adults in the U.S. believe in God or a universal spirit, and 79% say there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, but a smaller share (64%) say religion is “somewhat” or “very” important in their lives, and just 33% go to church at least monthly. So it seems that while there is a large majority of people who believe in some aspect of God and see something of value in the concept of spirituality, few seem to be finding it in religious organizations or in attending churches.

Deep within there is a place Beyond the reach of time and space, Where worries pale and demons flee Confronted by Eternity.

Christians have the Spirit of Christ. [Robert] Barclay says that although Jesus is no longer with us in His flesh, He teaches and instructs us inwardly thorough His Spirit, and that the only means of knowing God is the revelation of God though Jesus’ leading us. Barclay [in Apology for the True Christian Divinity] understands this as the essence of Christianity.

When you come to your meetings, both preachers and people, what do you do? Do you then gather together bodily only, and kindle a fire, compassing yourselves about with the sparks of your own kindling (Isa. 50:11) and so please yourselves, and walk in the light of your own fire, and in the sparks which you have kindled, as those did in the Time of Old, whose portion it was to lye down in sorrow? Or rather, do you sit down in True silence, resting from your own will and workings, and waiting upon the Lord (Lam. 3:25, 26, 28), fixed with your minds in that Light, wherewith Christ has enlightened you, until the Lord breaths life in you, refresheth you, and prepares you, and your spirits and souls  (John 1:9), to make you fit for His service, that you may offer unto Him a pure and spiritual sacrifice?