Mildred Binns Young, a prolific Quaker thinker, prods us both with her writings and with the example of her life to take the Quaker testimonies seriously. "It seems to me," she writes, "that wherever I go, the theme - in whatever poetical words it may be cast - is basically the single question: What ails us? How do we connect creatively with the crying needs of our time? How do we walk humbly with our God into the future? How do we even get turned around facing the future instead of backing into it with our eyes on the past?"

The author brings her wonder to the surface: "Looking inward, our modern man sees psyche and subconscious, ductless glands, genes, hormones. Looking outward he sees into the spaces opened up to us by the physical science...Where shall he look for the 'holy'?" Extending the observations and leadings of Woolman to the present day impact of culture, economics and social pressures she considers the effect of technology on our spiritual existence.

Mildred asks us to recognize "that fearsome complex of technology that, with one hand, threatens to destroy us, and, with the other, to make something inhuman of us while leaving us alive and surrounded by the artifacts of 'progress'." And in that recognition she urges all of us: "Right, then. Let us not be timid. But let us be critical." Right, then. Follow her criticisms to their ultimate and consistent conclusions.

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