Perhaps I should begin this essay by pointing out that I am not here casting myself in the role of clairvoyant and predicting that the Quakerism of the future will be mystical, prophetic, and evangelical. I am doing something even more presumptuous: I am saying that in my judgment the only Quakerism that can survive in the future will have to be mystical, prophetic, and evangelical. These are the qualities that, taken together and in the senses I shall presently define, are the very best elements in our tradition. They constitute what, it seems to me, we should want to survive. If I could be sure that they would be better preserved in the future by some other fellowship of believers, I, for one, would not hesitate to join others in a dedicated dissolution of the Society of Friends.
It is not our cherished Quaker institutions of Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly Meetings that matter most in the end, though our way of doing business under the aspect of the eternal is of great importance to us and remains, inevitably, part of our ethos. It is the vital energy for which our institutions have provided reasonably effective conductors that is most precious to us.
This energy or power, I am suggesting, has been a product of the peculiar Quaker blend of the mystical, the prophetic and the evangelical during those periods when we have been most ourselves.
