When one looks back upon the past 250 years and attempts to estimate the value of Friends to the Christian life of England and America, there are certain outstanding features which at once arrest attention. 66Amongst the chief contributions which the Society has been successful in making hitherto to the Christian life of England and America are the following:  
1. At a time when religion was in danger of becoming, to a large extent, formal, ceremonial and external, the early Friends succeeded in calling the attention of their own generation to the necessity for a vital, inward experience. They undoubtedly helped many besides those who actually joined with them into a clearer understanding of the inwardness of the Christian gospel, and into a personal experience of the living and indwelling Christ.
 
2. The Reformation and post-Reformation period was marked by that intensity of religious conviction which so often leads to intolerance and religious bigotry. Even those who had suffered persecution themselves followed the very example one would have expected them to avoid as soon as the opportunity occurred. That our spiritual forefathers had an immense influence upon that age, in bringing about a greater spirit of religious toleration, cannot be 67doubted by any who read carefully the religious history of that time.
 
3. From the day that William Penn entered into treaty with the Red Indian Chiefs till the day when John Woolman made his protest against Negro Slavery, and on till John Greenleaf Whittier thrilled the nation with the songs which called to love and brotherhood, Friends have consistently stood for an attitude of sympathetic understanding of other races. Nowhere perhaps has this been more publicly and more deservedly acknowledged than by the action of President Grant in handing over to Friends the mana............