The author is focused on the origin of Quakerism in an attempt to explain “why it emerged when it did and what was the distinct type that broke in on the stream of the Reformation movement.” Deeply couched in the history of the 17^th Century, this analysis stresses the differences between the established churches and the revolutionary thinking of George Fox and the early Quakers.

Given the historical foundation, Jones, who in his childhood experienced the quietism of the ‘Second Quaker era’, asks whether “our Quakerism is to be an open or a closed type of religion? Open religion means a type that is uncongealed, fresh, free, formative and in vital contact with the creative stream of divine life? ... It seems to me to be a major issue for the Society of Friends today whether on the whole its emphasis is to be, once more, as in the beginning, for this type of open, expectant religion, or whether it is to seek for comfortable formulations that seem to ensure its safety.”

Rufus Jones goes on to characterize the basic aspects of the Quaker way including sincerity, spiritual nurture, the refusal to use violence, and “the constant return of Friends to the springs and sources of life in worship.”  Here the founder of the American Friends Service Committee states: “Our task is to bind up the broken-hearted, to be a cup of strength in times of agony, to set men on their feet when the foundations seem to be caving in, and to feed and comfort the little children amidst the wreckage of war and devastation.”

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