noon attended the funeral of Vincent G. Stubbs, a very impressive
occasion. He was a man well known and highly esteemed and
a large number of the citizens of the town were present.

Tenth month 1. Attended the meeting at Fawn Grove this
morning; another large meeting and a very satisfactory season.
Returned after meeting with S. and M. Clements, and in the after-
noon went to the home of George and H. Jennie Eicholtz to tea,
and then to Cambria to deliver a temperance address in the Meth-
odist house at that place, but under the auspices of the Philan-
thropic Committee of Deer Creek Monthly Meeting.

2d. Having closed our work within the limits of Nottingham
Quarterly Meeting we returned to our home to-day with sheaves
of peace, feeling we had accomplished the labor assigned us
to our own satisfaction, and we trust to the honor of God. We
were everywhere received with much cordiality, and many ex-
pressions of thankfulness that we had been among them, both in



400 Autobiography of John J. Cornell

the social and religious way were given, affording us all the out-
ward evidence needed that we were ahout our Master's work.

After our return home we were somewhat closely occupied in
the needed preparation for our approaching yearly meeting, which
was held the latter part of the Tenth month, and the first two days
of the Eleventh month. This was felt to be a refreshing season.
Unity and harmony prevailed and nothing was elicited to break
the harmony. This makes the one hundred and third yearly meet-
ing it has been my privilege to attend.

The week following the Yearly Meeting we attended the Quar-
terly Meeting at Fallston, in Harford county, Md. On First day
I had considerable service of a somewhat close nature from the
text, " My people have committed two great evils, they have for-
saken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out to them-
selves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water," which
seemed to leave a deep impression on many minds.



CHAPTER XVII.

Essays and Sermons.
No. i. — Written for Conference at Asbury Park in 1902.

What is the greatest need of the Society of Friends ?

In considering such a subject I am aware that there will be of
necessity a variety of views offered, each of which will have some
intrinsic value, and, that in consequence it may be difficult to
decide which of them is the most important, so I desire it to be
understood, that, while I have had a wide opportunity to ob-
serve what may be considered defects in our system of organiza-
tion I would by no means imply that the conclusions I have
reached are the only correct ones.

I would say first : We need more individual consecration of
heart and life to our religious principles, and I mean by this, that
while we all recognize that a consistent fidelity to the law and
guidance of the Divine Spirit, as unfolded in each heart, is need-
ful to be observed to conserve our happiness and peace as the
individual, we are not always as thoughtful as we -might be in
the observance of the law from the same source in the direction of
our actions towards and in the meetings, which are so necessary a
part in the maintenance of our religious organizations.

It is here that there is much need of improvement. Each mem-
ber should consider himself or herself bound to do their part in
the performance of the varied duties which are demanded to sus-
tain the organization, each being willing to do such a part as they
may be fitted for, in accordance with their experience and ability,
first by a regular and steady attendance of the established meet-
ings, being careful to so arrange their secular business where it is

26



402 Autobiography of John J. Cornell

possible so that it will not interfere with that which ought to be
regarded as a solemn obligation.

In the attendance of meetings for religious worship, to endeavor
to realize that they have something to give, as well as to hope
they will receive. This may be done by a reverent, devout con-
centration of the mind upon the object for which such meetings
are held, that of offering true worship to the Heavenly Father,
by seeking to learn what He would have us do in the direction of
our own lives, or in extending an uplifting influence over others,
and seeking for a willingness to enter any service the Divine
Spirit may call us into.

In the disciplinary work of the Society, to be willing to give
expression to the thought we have in relation to any business that
may come before the meeting, always with the willingness to
cheerfully submit our views to those of our brethren and sisters
if they do not coincide with us. Being willing to accept such re-
sponsibilities in carrying on the order of our organization, as our
friends believe we are fitted for even while we feel our own
inability, and not shrink from the responsibility the appointment
imposes, yet, when our friends who are often the better judges
of our fitness for the service, desire it, we should comply, and as
we seek under a sincere consecration of heart the Divine guidance
we will find the ability with His help to perform it, while we may
in our own judgment have distrusted it.

Such a consecration on the part of each member will lighten
the burdens which are now often borne by the more willing mem-
bers by dividing the responsibilities, and because of our interest
aroused through the performance of the service make the labor
lighter and tend to deepen our love for the organization.

Secondly. We need more of the social intermingling among
us. Under the present conditions of our social and business life
we are apt to become so absorbed in our own interests, be they
commercial or for pleasure, that our time is so taken up that
we overlook this social obligation, and are often unaware how
powerful our influence for good would be to those less favored



Essays and Sermons 403

than ourselves, whose responsibility in caring for those dependent
upon them leaves them less leisure than some of us who are
more favored have at our command. The frequent interchange
of these social calls often enlivens the overburdened heart and
brings a cheer which enables them to bear their burdens with less
of suffering, and I do not know of any one thing that has a
greater tendency to keep alive and strengthen the bond of religious
fellowship and encourage to a faithful maintenance of our testi-
monies more than this social relationship. By it we manifest the
real love we have for and interest we take in our associate mem-
bership.

I am aware, that to carry out this idea, it will demand on the
part of the many of us much sacrifice of selfish interests, but the
compensation is so ample that we will find ourselves well repaid
for all it may cost us. Some of us know well how much the heart-
felt sympathy extended to us amid the sorrows and other difficul-
ties with which our lives have been saddened, has done to uplift,
cheer, and encourage to renewed efforts. And this to me is one of
the great objects of our religious organization, to be mutual
helpers and encouragers of one another, in serving our Divine
Master through our faithful performance of all of life's duties that
belong to us individually, and to aid us in being helpers of each
other. By such a manifestation of mutual interests through this
frequent social mingling and uplifting help, we will manifest to
the world around us, with whom we commingle, that our simple
form of worship, our ideals of duty under the direction of the
Divine through the light of Christ within the soul, without any
ritualistic form or a o remonious profession of religion, meets
the needs of human life, aids each other in overcoming the tempta-
tions that beset us, come they from what source they may, puri-
fies and sweetens our life here, and gives the soul the sustaining
assurance of a welcome in the abodes of the blest when our life's
fitful season on earth shall close.

Thus the life of each member so consecrated becomes a living
witnesss, not only to the truth of the basal principle of our So-



404 Autobiography of John J. Cornell

ciety, but to its beneficial effects upon the human family, and will
lead to a seeking on the part of those outside our fold tounderstand
the source from which a life so manifesting its relation to the
Divine by its loving interest in its fellows derives its power and
strength.

In the pursuance of the service I have felt required of me dur-
ing the past year, in this social intermingling with Friends, in
looking up those unable by invalidism to mingle with their friends
in meeting, and visiting those who appear to be lukewarm in their
interest for the Society, I have been more than ever convinced that
this frequent social commingling is one of the greatest needs to
rightly carry forward the work of the Society. By this means we
may exert a powerful influence to allay any jealousies that some-
times arise, and which are made the excuse for not more steadily
attending the meeting, and the feelings by which we sometimes
misjudge the motives of those who differ from us in judgment,
would be corrected and allayed, as we come to understand each
other better, and thus the harmony of the body, as a whole be
maintained, and through these means be rendered more attractive
to those who are seeking a religious home, and thus induce them
to connect themselves with us.

Thirdly. We need a more consecrated ministry that is capable
of presenting our fundamental principles in a clear, connected,
logical manner, which at the same time will carry with it an
evidence of its true and deep spiritual dependence upon the Divine
Spirit for its authority.

In this day of high and general intellectual culture, or education,
a rambling, disconnected discourse without point or logical con-
clusion tends to discourage rather than encourage an entrance into
our Society, and while I make this statement I am fully conscious
of the diversity of gifts and of conditions to be met in our relig-
ious assemblies, yet I am a firm believer that our God is a God
of order, and when He gives a servant a message to deliver, it is
ihe duty of that servant to fit himself or herself to deliver it so
that it may be understood, and attract to us rather than repel



Essays and Sermons 405

from ns. We want to rid ourselves of the thought that under
Divine inspiration God gives the minister every word he or she is
to deliver, for I have not found this to be true, and I believe
because of a supposed reliance upon it many a right message has
failed of its intended effect through its improper delivery.

The truth as I understand it, is, that when the Divine Spirit
reveals to the chosen instrument the message to be delivered, He
gives the thought or truth to be spoken, and the minister expresses
it in the manner or language he is accustomed to use. If educated,
to deliver his thought in a clear, connected and logical manner, it
will be so delivered, but if not so educated it will often be given
in a rambling, disconnected manner and thus fail to meet the con-
dition for which it was intended ; so I believe one of the great
needs of the Society is a more cultured ministry, but one that does
not depend upon intellectuality for its authority or direction, but
only for its manner of expression, and whose dependence for its
message and guidance and power upon its close spiritual connec-
tion upon the Divine Christ within the soul, a ministry that evi-
dences that it comes not from the head but from the heart. Such
a ministry will appeal to the heart, or affections and will bear the
evidence of its Divine authority, and will reach and touch the
better feelings of the hearers, and tend to draw them to the source
from whence it had its origin. This does not necessarily imply
that all those called to such a ministry will be of equal power or
influence. A few words, clearly and fitly expressed, may reach
some hearts that might not be fed by a longer and more doctrinal
discourse. While there are those who may have a special mission
to make plain the principles we regard so vitally important for
the welfare of man, and hence may have a more extended mission
than others, yet these need the same reliance as those who have
the lesser one.

There is need, too, when any give evidence of having received
such gift of the larger mission, when under an evidence of the
Divine requirement they may be called to go outside of our or-
ganization, to bear testimony to others of the truths of the



406 Autobiography of John J. Cornell

simple religion we have embraced, that some means shall be
devised so that they shall not while thus laboring in the interest
of and for the benefit of the Society at large, bear all the financial
burden that in this day such a service imposes. I do not feel my-
self able to suggest such a plan as can be carried out unostenta-
tiously and without compromising our vital principles or the feel-
ings of the minister himself, or which may avoid arousing the
jealousy of those who may not have such a service required. Nor
do I feel that it would become me, in my position, to make such
a suggestion if I could, but I hope in the wisdom that may be
granted you in your deliberations you may be wisely led in reach-
ing your conclusions in so important a matter.

John J. Cornell.

No. 2. — " Conscience and the Inner Light."

I understand that the conscience is the standard by which each
man judges for himself what is right or wrong for him to do,
such standard being formed from the evidences which come to
him, either from traditionary teaching, or from the direct revela-
tion of the Divine Spirit which is the Inner Light enlightening
the mind of man by impressions made upon his inner conscious-
ness. It shows him what would be in the Divine sight right for
him to do or leave undone, and by this means the conscience be-
comes enlightened by the Inner Light, but is not that light itself.
It is the effect of that light upon the mind of the man.

The first standard of right or wrong which we form is the result
of our education and environment, that which we are taught by
our parents, guardians, or teachers, or by our contact with our
fellow men, by observing how they conduct themselves in their
intercourse with each other. But when we are enlightened by
the Divine Spirit or Inner Light our standard of right and wrong
will be such as to meet the highest ideal of men in meeting Divine
approval, whether it accords with our previous education or not.
Under the educated conscience, as received from the source indi-
cated, we make our standard of right and wrong conform to that



Essays and Sermons 407

instruction. Under the enlightenment of the Inner Light we
make it conform to the revelations received from this source and
this may or may not conform to the traditions received through
our education. Perhaps the best illustration of the distinction I
have endeavored to make is found in the life of the Apostle Paul.

Paul, educated by Gamaliel, was learned in the Jewish laws and
traditions and the plain, simple, ethical teachings of Jesus came
in direct conflict with those teachings. He, under the standard
of right and wrong, had formed from and through his educa-
tion, verily believed he was doing God's service in standing
by and seeing Stephen stoned to death without raising any pro-
test, and by persecuting the Christians. But when he was met
by the Divine Spirit, the Inner Light, which was above the bright-
ness of the sun at noonday, he, by that illumination, was given
to see that his standard of right was incorrect and that another
course of life was demanded of him. His standard would no
longer admit of his persecuting the Christians, but required that
he should espouse their cause and become one of its most earnest
advocates.

So that instead of the Conscience and the Inner Light being
identically the same, the Inner Light is the revealer to the human
soul of what the standard of judgment should be, and the con-
science is the standard formed by obedience to the illumination of
the Inner Light.

It may be asked that, if this be true, why does not this Inner
Light require of each, into whose heart it shines, the same duties
and requirements. To this may be answered, aside from the
moral duties which it requires all to obey, its demands are in
accordance with the nature and environment of different minds
and their capacity to receive and observe — just as the light of the
outward sun with its concomitant heat has a different influence
on material things in accordance with their composition, as it
softens wax and hardens clay. So the Inner Light makes re-
quirements in accordance with temperaments and capacities, all
tending however to the same end, that of blessing the individual
life by doing good to and for others.



408 Autobiography of John J. Cornell



Sermon Delivered by John J. Cornell on First-day Evening,
ioth Month 29, 1905.

Perhaps there is no subject that is of more vital importance or
in which we have a deeper interest than that of man's salvation,
nor is there one upon which there is a wider divergence of
opinions, and it seems to be my duty this evening to consider it
from the standpoint of the Evangelical, Church and that of the
Friend as I understand them. I differ from the evangelical idea
in four points in particular and which are considered cardinal with
them.

First is that of the Trinity , or three Gods in one God, which is
to me mysterious, incomprehensible, and unable to be understood.
In the new revision of the Bible the text, " There are three which
bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost or Spirit," has been eliminated, it having been found not to
be in the original text, but an interpolation of some monk in the
nth century, and hence not reliable as the original Scripture, and
yet I recognize these three as attributes of God. The Father rep-
resenting the creative power of God. The Word as that attribute
of the Divine by which He holds communion with man and
through which He reveals to man by impressions on his inner
consciousness a knowledge of the duties He may require of him
to perform, and that knowledge of Himself and His relations to
man needful for the man to know. The Holy Ghost or Spirit is
that attribute of Deity which rewards man for his obedience to
duty and the consecration of his life to the Divine service. Such
a Trinity is not incompatible with reason and does not appeal to
human credulity for its acceptance.



Essays and Sermons 409

Second. According to the definition given by the Young Men's
Christian Association, to be evangelical, one must believe in the
infallibility of the Bible, to which I cannot subscribe. Some thirty-
five years ago, as I was sitting in my home one evening absorbed
in meditation, there came to me suddenly, like a flash of lightning
from a clear sky, a revelation such as some of you know have
been made to me in a remarkable manner, in which I heard with
my mental ear this : " If thee ever finds the original manuscripts
of the Bible thee will not find the first two chapters of Matthew
and Luke in them." To say I was startled but faintly expresses
my feelings, but so clear was the impression I could not doubt
though I had no means of confirming it. Nor was it until during
the summer of 1900 that I was able to obtain any such confirma-
tion. I then met with a work by Emma Hardinge Brittain, in
which she gives description of thirty-two different religious sects
who have the same mythology that their Avator or Saviour had
been miraculously conceived and born of a virgin, and some two
or three years afterward I found in the Literary Digest an article
from a work published by Harnack, the great German Biblical
scholar, in which he said unqualifiedly that the two chapters of
Matthew and of Luke which refer to the genealogy and miracul-
ous conception and birth of Jesus were not in the original manu-
scripts, but had been interpolated therein by the Romish priests
in the fifth century to make it conform to the mythology of the
Asiatic religions, and thus I found the revelation of thirty years
previous confirmed. Again, when I read the account of Jesus
coming to the fig tree and not finding any fruit thereon, though it
was not the time of year for it to bear, that he cursed it because it
had no fruit upon it. This is so in contradiction to almost all his
other teachings and the character of his life that I cannot believe
but there has been a mistake in the translation or in the under-
standing of the writer. Again, when I read the text, " If any
man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father and mother,
and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple " (Luke 14: 26), it seems to be



4io Autobiography of John J. Cornell

so inconsistent with nearly all his former teaching that I must
conclude some mistake has been made either in translation or in
understanding what Jesus did say. Such errors as these, with
the strong conviction, the revelation before referred to, make the
idea of an infallible Bible for me at once inconsistent and im-
proper.

Third. The statement as to what constitutes a believer in the
Christian religion from the evangelical standpoint is, one must
believe in Jesus Christ as the saviour of the world who became
sin for us, or as Paul put it, " Him who knew no sin, He made to
be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of
God in him." This to me is inconsistent, incongruous, and irra-
tional from the standpoint of the Evangelical Church itself, for it
involves the idea that Jesus Christ, one of the parts of the Triune
God, did controvert the law of God, as it could only be by the
transgression of law that He could sin, and yet He was without
sin. I therefore cannot accept this thought as truth, nor as having
any effect upon man's salvation. I look upon Jesus as the Mes-
siah or Anointed of God to bring to the Jews and through them
to mankind in general a higher dispensation and a clearer knowl-
edge of God than had prevailed in the world prior to his coming,
but Jesus the man was not and is not the Saviour, but Christ the
Spirit incarnated in Jesus and in every other man since and before
his day, was and is the Saviour, and this Christ was not born of
woman nor crucified by man.

Fourth. In the statement of the Young Men's Christian Assoc-
iation, " A belief in the atonement made by Jesus through his
death by crucifixion on Mount Calvary." This to me involves the
thought that when a soul passes from this mortal life, at some time
in the future, at the judgment day, it is to appear before the
throne of God, who sits thereon as a stern, unrelenting judge,
while at his right hand sits Jesus, and at his left the recording-
angel with the book of life as presenting the acts of the soul when
in the human life, and Jesus interceding with the Father to pardon
the sinner because of the atonement he made bv his death on



Essays and Sermons 411

Mount Calvary, and as He is successful in his plea, the soul is to
be admitted into heavenly joy. With such a thought comes an-
other. What kind of a Heaven can that be to a conscious soul
which knows it is not worthy and can only claim an entrance there-
in through the suffering and atonement made by another and inno-
cent party. To me this is irrational and falls far short of our
real needs. I look upon the crucifixion of Jesus as an atrocious
and wilful murder brought about by the jealousies and machina-
tions of the high priests in instigating the mob to influence the
Roman authorities to put him to death, and in no wise the plan and
direction of the Divine Mind, though permitted as many untoward
events in human life have ever been permitted. In this presenta-
tion of what I understand of the method and result of man's sal-
vation from the evangelical standpoint I am not actuated by any
spirit of controversy, but to bring in stronger contrast what seems
to me to be a more simple, consistent, and rational method, and
one which just as effectually accomplishes the result desired.

The methods which I have thus described look to the accom-
plishment of a salvation in another life from the effects of sin and
transgression in the present life, the ultimate goal of which is
being saved from being cast into eternal torment in the future life.
But I regard the salvation which is more important for man to
experience as a preservation from the commission of wrong and
omission to do the right in this present life, and to aid man in
reaching such a salvation God sends His Son or Grace or Christ