Later that same year near the village of Kilmore, in Co. Armagh, Margery Atkinson, a widow, 'a tender, honest woman' who 'lived and died in the Lord', began a Meeting for Worship in her house. And so the second Quaker Meeting in Ireland – Ballyhagan (now Richhill) Meeting – was born. The Quakers in this room tonight are the direct descendants of these two Meetings established in 1654.

We know little of Margery Atkinson, but a good deal about William Edmondson. From Lurgan he moved to become a farmer in Co. Cavan, and eventually settled near Mountmellick in Co. Laois. Throughout his time in Ireland he travelled repeatedly and extensively (as Quakers say) 'in the ministry', particularly across the province of Ulster, in the Midlands and to Dublin. 'Many people were convinced and meetings increased mightily', he wrote. One estimate speaks of 100 Meetings by the start of the next century. He accompanied George Fox, the founder of Quakerism in England, when he visited Ireland in 1669. He was arrested numerous times, put in the public stocks in Belturbet and was abused and physically attacked repeatedly. In the 1670s and 1680s he travelled on several visits to the West Indies and North America; he held the first Meeting for Worship in Pennsylvania and in New York City. He is rightly described as 'the apostle of Quakerism' in the Americas; arguably he is of as great a significance in American Quakerism as he is in Irish. He also travelled widely in the ministry in England. He died in 1712 aged 85 and was buried in Co. Laois.

Other Friends played important roles in the establishment of Quakerism in Ireland – Francis Howgill, Edward Burrough, Elizabeth Fletcher, Elizabeth Smith and Richard Clayton to name but few – but it is with these two Friends, William Edmondson and Margery Atkinson, that we see the start of that movement that has brought us together here tonight. It is their legacy, and how we Quakers have discharged it, that I want to address in this lecture.

I don't for one moment pretend that the legacy of Quakers in Ireland is entirely benign or even neutral. After all, the earliest adherents to Quakerism in Ireland were, put simply, soldiers in Cromwell's army, with all the baggage that that brings for Irish people. They were part of that huge expropriation of Irish land that was reinforced by Cromwell's settlement in Ireland. If we Quakers here tonight are the descendants of these first Friends then we have to accept that part of our History. But if we acknowledge that, then we can also say that Friends have contributed much to Irish society since the 1650s. Their relief work during the famine of the 1840s is widely acknowledged, but there is plenty more that is deserving of commendation. Quakers have been prominent in education with the Friends schools in Ballitore, Mountmellick, Lisburn, Newtown and elsewhere, in social work, such as among Travellers, in the work of the Ulster Service Committee, in peacemaking during the Troubles, in work in hospitals for the elderly and infirm. Quaker work in Irish industry is also remarkable: pioneering Irish steam-shipping in the 1820s, and being behind the first steamer to cross the Atlantic in 1838; inaugurating railways in Ireland in the 1830s, in building Portlaw and Bessbrook villages, in iron works in Waterford, in pioneering work in manufacturing like biscuits, in retailing such as coffee and so forth; the list is a long one and I don't pretend it is complete. In case after case, whether in social work or in business, Quakers pioneered the way that others later followed. I think it is fair to say that Irish Quakers have contributed much to Ireland over the years and that these immigrant descendants of Cromwell's army have come to terms with Ireland and, by and large, come to terms with their Irish identity. Indeed given the numbers involved – probably little more than 5,000 at their peak in 1720 – and given that much of their work was driven by a handful of Quaker families, whose literal descendants sit in this room tonight, this is a remarkable story.

It is of course, also a familiar story and well known to many in this room. But it is a story that, as I outlined it above, lacks a vital ingredient. What drove these Friends? Why did they do this? What was the Quakerism that they professed? What I want to do tonight is to try to answer these questions by looking at the beliefs of these Quakers in the 1650s when Quakerism emerged. I want, in a sense, to try to define Quakerism, something that Quakers are always reluctant to do (and perhaps with good reason). Although my method will be historical – examining the beliefs of the founders of Quakerism – this exercise is not intended to be simply of historical interest. I do it in order to reflect on Quakerism's condition in its 350th year. Quakers, traditionally, take little notice of the world's dates and anniversaries, even one as significant as a 350th. Yet I feel anniversaries have the benefit of prompting us to reflect and this is no bad thing. It is as part of this process of reflection that this lecture is designed as a contribution. This is, I realise, supposed to be a Public Lecture and I apologise to the non-Quakers here for the prolonged bout of Quaker navel-gazing that follows.

So my aim in this lecture tonight, in paying tribute to William Edmondson and Margery Atkinson, Quakerism's founders on this island, is to define what I see as the essence of Quakerism, by examining what moved these Early Quakers on a spiritual level. I should state here that, given the relatively limited writings by Irish Friends in the first decades of Quakerism that I have been able to find – and this reflects my ignorance not theirs – I am using the works of the founding Friends more broadly in these islands: George Fox, Isaac Penington, Francis Howgill and others, to reflect the ideas that Edmondson and Atkinson shared. I should also say at the outset, that I will not speak about the service traditions of Quakerism, not because I don't see these as important, but because I feel this service tradition derives ultimately from the ideas about humanity and its relationship with God that these Early Friends expressed. I want to challenge and provoke, though I do so with no desire to offend. I ask the question: will there be a 500th anniversary of Quakerism in Ireland, or even a 400th? But I also want to try to suggest a vision for the future and to be positive; to suggest that our Friends William Edmondson and Margery Atkinson have much still to say to us in the year 2004 and that this anniversary should be a time of looking forward with confidence rather than looking back in concern.

I want to use the term 'Children of Light' as my way into this definition of the essence of Quakerism. The term comes from John 12.36 (and also can be found in Thessalonians and in Ephesians) and was the label which Quakers called themselves, before they were known as 'Friends of Truth' or 'the people of God called in scorn Quakers'; the term 'Religious Society of Friends' emerged more than a century later. 'While ye have Light, believe in the Light, that ye may be the children of Light', says Jesus in John's gospel. George Fox refers to this passage in his Journal (p16) describing John as the greatest human prophet – John's gospel is often called the Quaker gospel – and saying how John did 'bear witness to the light, which Christ the great heavenly prophet hath enlightened every man (and presumably woman) that cometh into the world withal, that they might believe in it, and become children of light'. This idea, which comes early in Fox's ministry, was however, not original to him. Fox encountered several groups who called themselves 'children of the light' in Nottinghamshire when he visited the area at the start of his ministry. These were former Baptists who were led by Elizabeth Hooton who became Fox's spiritual mentor in this period. By the early 1650s indeed, there were numerous groups across the north of England calling themselves 'children of the light' and they were to become the nuclei of the movement that burst out of the North-west in June 1652 and that came to be known as Quaker. 'In their resolute obedience to all the demands which the Light made upon them and in their sure insight into Truth the early Friends … abundantly justified their name of children of the light' writes William Braithwaite, historian of early Quakerism.

The Light Within

Let us consider what these first Quakers understood by the Light Within. These children of light stressed the absolute paramountcy of the direct experience of the Light Within over everything – over priestly teaching and over scripture – as the source of religious authority. In its rejection of the primacy of scripture Quakerism broke with the Protestantism of its time. Primacy lay with the direct experience of encounter with God as expressed in the idea of the Light in John's gospel, and this took precedence over all other intermediaries between God and humankind. 'Your teacher is within you, look not forth' said George Fox, '… for the Lord God alone will teach his people'.

But what was this Light Within? One thing it was not was the individual conscience or individual reason. Conscience and reason changes and varies between individuals, said these Early Friends. The Light Within does not; it is constant and the same for all. It illuminates conscience but it is not conscience. It was not a human phenomenon at all. It was best expressed in the form 'the Inward Light' i.e. something that shines from outside the individual but into him or her. I stress this, for these Friends the Inward Light began outside the individual and shone inwards. It was not a human creation, dependent ultimately on human reason, but something that came from outside humanity.

The Light can be seen as the ability all humans have to know that God is speaking to us and to understand what God is saying. It is our capacity to understand God's way. As Edmondson put it, it is 'God's witness in our hearts'. Fox famously described this as 'that of God within' but the point being that it came from God not humankind. As Isaac Penington (one of the most prominent Friends to write on the Light Within) said, 'there is a witness of and from God in every conscience'. William Dewsbury, appealing in 1655 to English soldiers in Ireland to join Quakers, wrote 'God is light and has lightened every one of you … when you act against this light … you crucify the life of Christ'. To put it at its starkest, the Light Within is the capacity we all have to respond to God, if only we would listen, and the capacity we all (I stress all ) have to respond to our fellow men and women's needs: it is our divine desire to do good to others.

For Early Friends the Light Within had was indeed like a candle in the dark, but also like a lighthouse, speaking to the world. It was a guide: it 'teaches you' said Fox. In doing this it guides you to God. By guiding you to God it leads you to dwell in the Light, to love the Light, to mind the Light, to obey the Light, to walk in the Light: all these are phrases Fox uses. Early Friends were clear what this guide – this Inward Light – was. It was Christ. As Fox called him, 'Christ the Light' or 'The True Light'. Edmondson, when ministering in Derry, called it 'the Light of Christ in their hearts'. 'If ye love the Light, ye love Christ', Fox wrote, 'if ye hate that, ye hate Christ', going on to add, 'I directed people to their inward teacher, Christ'. He described elsewhere 'the light of Jesus Christ that shines in each and every one of your consciences'. It was Fox's realisation of this – that, as he put it, there was 'one even Christ Jesus' that could speak to his condition – that marked his convincement experience at the start of his ministry. He did not need priests, professors or ministers, nor churchly services or creeds or hymns, nor for that matter scripture. The direct, personal experience of Christ through the Inward Light was all that mattered.

This raises the question of how we can be sure that we receive the Inward Light? We should note here that Early Friends said that the Light was open to all; it was not restricted to a pre-determined elite of saved as opposed to the dammed. Unlike Protestant churches, Quakers were not Calvinists. The Inward Light was open to all human beings and all could be saved by it. Even those who had never heard of Christ, said Early Friends, could live lives in accordance with the Light Within. John 1.9 makes this clear too: the Light is for all. 'For I saw that Christ died for all men', wrote Fox, and this is echoed in Penington's comment above, about God being in every conscience. The Inward Light is open to us all. And how do we receive it? Penington answers this by saying it was up to God: we just do. Through faith. 'Why thus' he writes, 'the Lord opened my spirit'. But it is then up to us to respond to it. 'It is an inward change', says Penington, 'by the spirit and power of the living God'.

Penington's reference to this 'inward change' is an important aspect of the Light. It brings out the revelation aspect of the Light, its capacity to reveal things as they are. This is light as more than a candle or even a lighthouse. As Rex Ambler, a contemporary Quaker, has written, the Light is a searchlight turned inward on us, that reveals things we would rather leave hidden, that asks searching questions of us, a light from which there is no escape, no matter how much denial we hide behind. This 'struggle of self-judgement', as Ambler calls it, is a difficult experience that we would do anything to avoid, but which it is ultimately impossible to escape. 'Let the light of Jesus Christ that shines in every one of your consciences, search you thoroughly', said Fox; echoing this, Edmondson asked for the Lord 'to search me thoroughly'. This is a desperately uncomfortable and difficult experience of self-honesty, but one that Early Friends said you had to go through as part of your convincement. It reflects their emphasis on human broken-ness and the necessity of our first acknowledging our broken-ness if we are to be healed and to grow, 'For the great day of the Lord has come … when every heart will be disclosed and the secrets of everyone's heart will be revealed by the light of Jesus', said Fox. The consequence of our acceptance of the Light can thus best be summed up in the idea that it changes our lives. It leads, as Penington says, to inward change in us as individuals. Living in the Light was transforming and ultimately life changing.

This encounter with the Light is about something deep within us and about our relationship with God. It says profound things about us as human beings, and about God; it says weighty things about how we see ourselves and about how we see our relationship with God. It says powerful things about our very intimate core, about the depths of our beings, about our very innermost sense of ourselves. It is my view that we all in this room – Quaker and non-Quaker alike – have, at one time or another – and some of us more often than others – been aware of the presence of God in our lives in the way these children of light were when they experienced Christ as the Light Within. It is an experience we find difficult to put into words, but it is the sudden awareness of encounter, the flash of revelation, the sense of not being alone but of being 'accompanied' in our lives that we all so often have.

The Light as encountered by the children of light is therefore a spiritual transformation within the individual. But for Early Friends the Light also had important spiritual implications for life in the world more broadly. There are three aspects to this and I would like now to examine these in turn.

The Light and the World

This Lamb's War begins with our surrender to the Light Within. 'Give over thine own willing', said Penington, 'give over thine own running, give over thine own desiring to know or to be anything and sink down into the seed which God sows in the heart and let that grow in thee and breathe in thee and act in thee and thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows that and loves and owns that and will lead it to the inheritance of life which is his portion'.

We have simply, to make a choice, a commitment. We have to decide whose side we are on, that of the Light or that of the profane world. Are we to live in the spirit of in the world? Early Friends made that choice: a choice to reject the profane world 'which wars against the spirit of God', said Fox. Instead they chose to live their lives in the spirit, as they termed it, within the world yet outside it. They were a people called to be different, to be dangerous, a people called to live outside the world and to recognise that, as Nayler put it, 'if you are at peace in the world's ways … you are not in God's kingdom'. This had two consequences. Firstly, it led them to that plainness that so characterised Early Friends: the acceptance of Quaker grey, of Quaker dress and the rejection of the world's fashions, speech, honours etc, and everything else that went with them, even to their refusal to say 'Good morning' to non-Quakers or to eat at the same table with them. All these were signs of their rejection of the world and their decision to live in the spirit while in the world, abiding by God's laws only. 'The fleshly mind, spirit and will … lives in disobedience and doth not keep within the law of the spirit', said Fox. All other things were irrelevant in comparison. Secondly it led to Early Friends' stress on their perfectibility, something others at the time found difficult to accept. Their view was that once they rejected the world and lived in the spirit, they were entering into the same spirit as the Apostles had lived in. This did not mean they did not sin, but did mean they had become, as they put it, 'as Saints'.

The existence of Light implies the existence of darkness. The struggle between the two – Light and Dark – is the Lamb's War. Ultimately, we know, the Light will win. This leads into my second point, the children of light's idea of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

ii) The Kingdom of God here on earth. For early Quakers their encounter with the Light made them realise that the Kingdom of God was something that was to be experienced here on earth and not in heaven. 'They said that he (God) was above the skies, calling it heaven', said William Dewsbury in 1655, 'but I felt the hand of the Lord within me' (my emphasis). The Light created, said Fox, a new Creation here on earth, a new Creation that begins in individuals. Francis Howgill again: 'All was overturned … and then I saw the cross of Christ and stood in it … and the new man was made and so peace came to be made' (my emphasis). This is a change in the individual, generated by the Light. Howgill is saying here that humans, once they accept the Light, can transcend their humanity, and that this is not something that has to wait for a resurrection in the future or in heaven or in the sky. He continues: ' and the Lord appeared daily to us, to our Astonishment, Amazement and Great Admiration, in so much that we often said one to another with great joy of heart "what, is the Kingdom of God come to be with men?"'

These Quakers identified this Kingdom of God as existing here in a corporal reality on earth and they found it in two experiences. One was in their experience of God as expressed in the Light Within and the personal communion of deep intimacy between the individual and God, that they realised could be experienced by anyone at anytime and in any place. This was living in the Spirit. 'For behold the Kingdom of God is within you', it says in Luke (17.21). This Kingdom of God existed within each and every one of us, said Early Quakers, and could be identified in our individual capacity to find Christ and experience his living reality in our lives. The second experience lay in community. For Early Quakers the Kingdom of God was to be experienced in the solidarity of the Christian community, among Friends, both in Meeting for Worship where the Light was experienced at its most intense, and outside it. As Howgill's statement about the Lord appearing among men reveals, a solidarity emerged in the ties of Christian sentiment between like-minded people seeking God together, so that Christ's presence became real and the Kingdom of God thus existed in tangible, incarnate form ('What? come to be with men?'). In this dual experience of the Light God's presence becomes a reality and we experience a living Pentecost, not once in Palestine but repeatedly, everyday and everywhere. The encounter with God was beyond space. When we decide to live in the spirit we experience a transcendant God that exists in the world and that can be found wherever we chose to look.

This, it must be admitted, does not come easy. It requires an acceptance of our broken-ness and our human limitations if we are to know God. In short, it requires us to accept our humanity but in doing so, this bring us the presence of God. To live in the spirit therefore, to take sides in the Lamb's War with the implications of personal change it generates, is to go beyond our human nature to something beyond humanity, to an encounter with God that transforms us all. For the reconciliation that the children of light achieved, I believe, was not simply between humanity and God but also within humanity, between individuals and just as importantly, within ourselves. This reconciliation was not something that occurred 'above the skies' or in a future resurrection but here and now. It is an inner apocalypse indeed, an inner transformation that Early Quakers strived for, one that changes us as people.

The idea of the Kingdom of God being here on earth, in the life in the spirit – that the Kingdom of God is beyond space – leads us to the third aspect of the Light I want to examine, that which concerns time..

. iii) The presence of God now. Throughout the writings of Early Quakers is their awareness of the presence of God, as mediated through Jesus, in their lives and in the world around them. Having experienced God through the Inward Light, the awareness of God was a real, tangible and immediate encounter for these people. Edmondson wrote how in Dublin, 'the Lord's presence appeared mightily among us'. Richard Waller, while in prison in Waterford in 1656, wrote that 'the Lord is risen among us in his mighty power'. God's presence was not something these children of light read about in books or listened to in ministry but something they physically experienced. God's presence had the impact of a physical shock on them. It was their desire to tremble at the overwhelming presence of the Lord that led to their scornful nickname, the 'Quakers'; rarely has a description been more appropriate.

This physical and personal earthquake at the presence of God reflected their surrender to the demands of the Light, and that they had experienced the Quaker Pentecost. Thomas Kelly, an American Quaker, 300 years later wrote that these Early Friends were 'burning for God', giving up their own wills to do God's will as expressed in the teachings of Christ. This was a physically frightening experience yet also a comforting one: as in Francis Howgill's sublime testimony that he was 'lost in the incomprehensible being of eternal love'. Becoming aware of the immediate presence of God implied an awareness of God's love for us as individuals, no matter who we are or what we might have done. God's love was both incomprehensible and eternal, but was there for us all. He was a God who was there. Or rather, a God who was here. . This is the central mystery of the Christian faith and was the central message of these children of light.

Early Quakers explained this mystery in terms of the Second Coming of Christ. The central teaching of the children of light is summed up in Fox's statement 'for Christ is come to teach his people himself'. There is no more fundamental statement of Quaker belief than this, and it was at the heart of what the children of light understood as Light. Their experience of the Light made them realise that 'Christ is come and is coming' as they said; he was here, now. We could all have a direct personal relationship with Christ. This Second Coming was not something that would happen in the future, but was something that was happening now, immediately, that happened and happens as soon as we open our selves to the presence of God. Fox's idea was of a 'new Creation' that would close the gap between God and the broken-ness of humanity that derives from our human inadequacy. This new Creation occurs within us when we realise that 'Christ is come to teach his people himself'. This new Creation ends the alienation of human-kind from the presence of God, that alienation from God that derived from the very fact of our human nature. This experience of a new Creation – of a new humanity, of the kingdom of heaven on earth – is something we can all experience and experience now, in the immediate present and not the future. It is a new Creation that occurs within our hearts when we resolve to slough off the old self with its egotism and selfishness and open ourselves to Christ. This new Creation is the transformation of our selves that occurs at that moment we accept the presence of Christ in our lives. It is an inner apocalypse, or what Douglas Gwyn, the Quaker writer, calls 'the Quaker apocalypse'.

'For Christ is come to teach his people himself', with its present tense, is thus the key Quaker teaching, the Quaker contribution to Christian theology. The realisation of the meaning of those words – that the Second Coming of Christ to create the kingdom of heaven occurs now in the present and the here – was the pivotal moment in the emergence of Quakerism. It is also the pivotal moment in all our lives. It is that moment when the Light makes us aware that we live, all of us, accompanied lives and that we are not alone on this earth. It is the moment we realise that God is, and that life has a purpose, even if that purpose seems at times difficult and bewildering. Like Howgill we can then exclaim, 'what, is the Kingdom of God come to be with men?' 'It is, Friend', we reply, 'for Christ is come to teach his people himself'.

The immediate presence of God here and now is thus the third element of the insights of the children of light that I wish to emphasise in my attempt to define Quakerism. In essence it is the idea that the encounter with God is timeless and beyond time, it is in deep time, in the deep present. For these children of light, in their new relationship with God, time and its manifestations (past, present and future), just like space, were fused as one in the now.

The Experience of Encounter

What unites all of these aspects of the Light is that at the heart of the Quaker spiritual experience is an overwhelming sense of encounter with God. Their writings drip with the presence of God. God is not some distant figure, intellectualised in theological precepts or in a Sunday sermon, or written in words on a page, but a living reality in their lives. Rather, God is a living presence in their lives, here in the ever present. For these Early Quakers, God is. God is immediate. Here. Immanent. Inescapable.

'Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.' (Psalm 139).

Further, the encounter they experienced is a profoundly intimate one, of a God who is here with us, and this intimacy is something I want to stress. This God can be experienced in every second of our lives, wherever we are, 'for Christ is come'. This God is infinite yet also intimate, close and personal. A God who accompanies us, understands us and stands by us. As in any intimate relationship, this intimate encounter with God that Early Friends proclaimed, changes the individual.

It does this in two ways. The first way is best described in the word surrender. Early Friends spoke of how their experience of convincement was accompanied by surrender to the Other – to God's will. This indeed is what we Quakers still do in the silence of Meeting for Worship. When entering into the silence we too surrender to God's Will. We wait on God's Will, not our own, accepting that we will go where the Meeting will take us. 'Therefore wait patiently upon the Lord whatsoever condition you may be in' said Fox, 'wait in the Grace and Truth that comes by Jesus, for if you do so, there is a promise to you and the Lord God will fulfil it in you. … Wait upon God in that which is pure, though you see little and know little and have little and see your emptiness … stand still in it everyone to see your Saviour'.

Central to this waiting that Fox talks of is our need to surrender our ego: the intimacy of our relationship with God is one that takes us out of our selves, suppresses our ego and leads us to surrender to God's Will. This indeed, is the theme of all the great religions: whether Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or whatever. As quoted above, 'give over thine own willing … give over thine own desiring', said Penington. It is what Thomas Kelly calls 'Holy Obedience'. If we do so follow our encounter with God with this Holy Obedience – this surrender of ourselves to God's Will – then we enter into a special place within ourselves: deep, private, intimate, quiet, safe. We are, as Francis Howgill said above, 'lost in the incomprehensible being of eternal love'.

If surrender is the first consequence of our encounter with God then confidence is the second. We are strengthened by our encounter with the Other because we now know what matters. This confidence is best captured by Fox's description of the Two Oceans, 'I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God'. It is the knowledge of which ocean will win out in the end – though it may take time and many stormy waves – that leads us into the joy that lies at the heart of the Quaker faith, best seen in Fox's statement that his encounter with Christ meant that his heart 'did leap with joy'.

At the centre of this experience of light that the children of light lived through was therefore the idea of an encounter with God – a God who is there – and how that experience of intimate encounter changed them and changed how they lived in the world. On this, if nothing else, all traditions within Quakerism can unite. Here, I suggest, is that essence of Quakerism I set out to define at the start of this lecture. It was an encounter that led to an experience of atonement, redemption and personal convincement. It drove them to great things. It led William Edmondson to jail in Armagh, Derry, Cavan and elsewhere and to the public stocks in Belturbet. It led our fore-fathers and fore-mothers, the Irish children of light, to their work in the Famine, to their enterprise in industry and philanthropy, and to their pioneering work in education. It led to the witness that the Margery Atkinsons of our Society have expressed over the centuries. It poses questions for us today.

Conclusion

I believe that the experience of these children of light tells us that we have a need to readdress our spirituality. This is not at the expense of service to our fellow human beings, but alongside it. As Christians, we ignore our spirituality at our peril. Service, or good works, without the spiritual bedrock of the light become like the house built on sand without foundations, destroyed when the storm comes. The encounter of Early Friends with the Light shows us that life in this world is about an encounter with God, an encounter in the here and now, in the present time and in the present place. It shows us that the Second Coming has arrived, that it occurs every minute of every day. God is immanent in the world, not just 2,000 years ago in Galilee but today in Waterford as much as anywhere else. For we all can lead accompanied lives and lives of Light, whatever our faith might be and whatever the tradition within which we chose to express it.

I speak as a Quaker and as someone who is grateful 'beyond what words can utter' that I found Quakerism and Quakerism found me. This study of the children of light, I hope, tells us that we have a precious heritage that we would be foolish to ignore. This year we celebrate the 350th anniversary of the arrival of Quakerism on this island. We must, I accept, go forward as a Society and not spend our time looking backwards. But 350 years is an appropriate time to reflect on where our corporate faith is heading. Those Early Quakers still speak to us down the centuries. Are we listening? As Alastair Heron, a contemporary Quaker and one of the most perceptive commentators on British Quakerism, has recently written, 'I have no doubt that the Religious Society of Friends in Britain is facing serious difficulties. These are not primarily structural or organisational but spiritual'. I suspect he is right and that these problems in Britain are reflected, to a greater or lesser extent, through out Quakerism in the North Atlantic world. We are members of a Society of Friends that has become, in my view, essentially secularised, that has become, as Thomas Kelly put it more than half a century ago, 'mildly and conventionally religious'. We are now, in the words of Harvey Gillman (a contemporary Quaker), 'a well-intentioned social club of like-minded, nice people'. That is not meant as a compliment. Thomas Kelly again, 'We are secular and secularism is in our Meeting Houses'. Christine Trevett in her Swarthmore lecture of 1997 is right, that if George Fox was to reappear among us and ask his celebrated question, 'what canst thou say?' our answer all too often would be 'er, um, well, not very much, George, not very much'.

We Quakers in Ireland have a precious heritage of an encounter with God some 350 years ago, of the way that encounter changed the lives of William Edmondson and Margery Atkinson. Their experience still speaks to us. We need to have more confidence in proclaiming that encounter, in accepting it as central to our lives and our faith. For I am convinced that Christ is still come to teach his people himself. The light proclaimed by those children of light in 1654 still shines on us today. Those children of light, like children everywhere, have much to teach us: they question, they challenge, they cause us pain and difficulty as we adjust to their challenges, but they, again like children everywhere, also show trust and faith and love and joy and confidence in the future. Let us, on this 350th anniversary, become like children: children of light.

© Martin Lynn 2004