Quakers
London, England, ca. May 1831
British Women Quakers Send Greetings to Women Quakers in Philadelphia
MD

[QUAKERS.] Elizabeth Dudley, Manuscript Document, Copy of Communication from Yearly Meeting of Women Friends of London to the Yearly Meeting of Women Friends of Philadelphia, May 1831. 3 pp., 7.75" x 9.75". Expected folds; some soiling; very good.

This letter from the Yearly Meeting of Women Friends in London in May 1831 to the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Women Friends responds to one sent by the latter group in April 1830. It speaks of the suffering that the Philadelphia group is facing, and encourages them to persist with ?faith and patience.?

The notation on the fourth page??Downingtown Preparative Meeting??suggests that this document may be a copy that was prepared for the Quakers in Downingtown, thirty-three miles west of Philadelphia. A Preparative Meeting was, in effect, the local congregation that oversaw general meetings for worship every three or four months. Preparative Meetings were part of Monthly Meetings, which was the basic unit of organization for the Society of Friends. Monthly Meetings in a given area were part of a Quarterly Meeting, multiples of which made up Yearly Meetings, the highest level of authority in the Society of Friends.

Complete Transcript
From our Yearly Meeting of Women Friends held in London by adjournment from the 18th of the 5th Month to the 27th of the same inclusive 1831.
To the Yearly Meeting of Women Friends, to be held in Philadelphia.
Beloved Sisters
The receipt of your Epistle of the 4th Month of last year, has made some of us renewedly feel that we are members of the same body: that while you suffer, we in degree, suffer with you. This feeling of unity is precious, and induces the desire, that ability may be given us in any degree, to comfort the mourners amongst you, or say a word in season to those whose hands are at time ready to hang down, and their knees to smite together; for though ourselves sensible of weakness, we should rejoice to be the means of encouragement to you. We fully believe that strength has been granted you, to suffer in the cause of Christ, and that many have thereby been purified, and prepared to serve Him with increased dedication. And while we know that former experience cannot preserve, we desire that the remembrance of past mercies may strengthen your confidence in Him, who hath helped hitherto, and enabled to fill up your various allotments in his Church. He who died that we might have life, will assuredly care for those who are depending upon Him, and evincing their love by an endeavour to keep his commandments. We feel a tender interest in the present and everlasting welfare of our dear young friends; for those amongst you, who were enabled in the day of sifting and separation, to avow their allegiance to the Prince of Peace; and through much suffering and reproach, to acknowledge Him our holy High Priest?may these remember the goodness and mercy which touched their hearts; raising the petition, ?Oh! let me not wander from thy commandments; and may they be often engaged to query how far they have kept the covenants; then entered into, and paid their vows.
And to you of every class, who are struggling along, under great discouragements, amidst many provings of faith and patience, at times almost ready to conclude you shall one day fall, by the hand of the enemy, we would say ?Be of good cheer; for greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world;? and although the season of darkness and dismay, may continue long, yet ?in patience possess ye your souls? confiding in the assurance, that in quietness and confidence shall be your strength; a very frequent recurrence to the example of our Holy Redeemer and the precepts He taught his disciples, does we believe greatly promote our establishment on the true foundation Jesus Christ the rock of ages, to Him gave all the prophets witness; and we thankfully believe it to be the design of our Heavenly Father, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. The reading of even a small portion of the Sacred Volume, is often found to have a sweet impression on the mind, and proves the watchword to faith and prayer in succeeding hours of temptation and conflict.
This our annual assembly has been large, and whilst many of us have deeply felt the removal or absence by reason of infirmities of some, who had long stood as Mothers amongst us, yet we are consoled in the belief that there is a number of the middle aged and the youth prepared by submission to the Cross of Christ, for usefulness in the militant Church; and we have often on the present occasion, been drawn from contemplating the causes of mourning by a reverent sense of the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel.
May we all be more and more concerned, to walk worthy of the vocation, whereunto we are called so that we may experimentally know Christ to be made unto us, wisdom and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; then after a short period of probation and suffering will our immortal spirits through Infinite mercy, be numbered with those, who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
We remain your affectionate Sisters
Signed in and on behalf of the meeting by
Elizabeth Dudley Clerk

Historical Background
The Women?s Yearly Meeting was established in Philadelphia in 1681, and the first recorded minutes began in 1691. Quaker men and women worshiped together and women appeared in ministry equal with their male counterparts, but business was generally conducted separately at all levels of Friends? organization until the nineteenth century. In general, the business of a women?s yearly meeting was to care for the poor, to see to the education of children, and to communicate with other women?s meetings on matters of concern.

This communication comes in the wake of the Hicksite-Orthodox division of 1827-1828, when the Society of Friends divided over the teachings of Elias Hicks (1748-1830), who argued that the Inward Light in each individual should be the primary focus of each individual?s faith.


Elizabeth Dudley (1779-1849) was born in Ireland, and her mother served as a preacher in the Society of Friends. Elizabeth helped to raise her younger siblings and at the age of 23 felt a call to the ministry. In 1810, she moved with her mother and surviving siblings to London and joined the Southwark Monthly Meeting. Two years later, she began joining her mother in her itinerant ministry to various groups of Quakers throughout England. As a Quaker minister, Dudley became involved in the campaign to abolish slavery.

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7.75" x 9.75"