THE FATHER OF ENGLISH RAILWAYS.* THIS most interesting book is

quite as notable for being a revelation of the true inwardness of Quakerism as for being the retrospect of a busy commercial life characterised even more by simplicity than by strenuosity. So much is this the case that Sir Alfred Pease errs distinctly as an apologist when he says :—" The serious and tame records of an old-time Quaker's life seem hardly likely to interest many outside the Society of Friends. I have hesitated before placing my prosy old ancestor in the public stocks, perhaps to be pelted by scoffers and critics." Quakerism may have been outgrown, or may have associated itself in these latter days with some things foreign to its original conception, but that, even at its narrowest, it "held the strong hand of its purity" on its professors is amply demonstrated by the later diaries of Edward Pease. He seems to have been always apprehensive of the inroads of luxury, insincerity, and fussy activity upon the practice of Friends. Thus when he became wealthy we find him fearing the intrusion of wealth upon his habits in this fashion :—

" Surrounded as I am with innumerable comforts, and blessed with enough of those things which constitute the outward and visible happiness of time, some thought crossed my mind of making some changes and alterations which some might deem adaptations to my circumstances, but I felt thankful in finding a gentle restraint placed on my mind in following customs luxurious in their tendency, and probably the seed of further deviations from simplicity in those who follow the customs and in their successors, —I allude to purchases and introductions of pictures and many fancy articles into dwellings generally."

Even more significant is the apprehension to which he gives utterance in 1855 :—

"I sometimes fear something like a feverish philanthropic delirium may be becoming wastefully prevalent over that life which is hid with Christ in God. Societies for the promotion of peace, for the use only of free-grown cotton, 8:e., an Olive Society, ocean penny postage, anti-slavery action carried to great extent in the attentions of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, total abstinence meetings absorb many and drink up, I fear, the life of God."

It is satisfactory, therefore, to find Sir Alfred Pease devoting a preliminary chapter not only to the practices but to the philosophy and theology of Quakerism, as compacted into such a passage as this :—

" Quakerism at least divests religion from all outward and material phenomena, from all anthropomorphising of the Deity, and brings forth something more than a theory, which philosophers and ecclesiastics may gainsay but cannot disprove, and which commends itself to the open soul as to the open mind. Quakerism does not unequivocally demand that the Christian must believe that God is a Being in the likeness of man, a gigantic Creator sitting in the skies, who once upon a time, in space, called into existence infinite numbers of celestial bodies, just to light this infinitely little world, and then proceeded with this world's making and history as told in the Bible at His dictation and out of His mouth."

This is a sufficiently emphatic declaration from one who tells us that his ancestry for two hundred years at least has been on both the male and female sides purely Quaker. There are many assertions, largely of a negative kind, which are equally emphatic, and, in the best sense, mystical. For example, we are told :—" The attitude of Friends to the doctrine of the Trinity is difficult to define. It probably will not be unfair to them to say it is, in their opinion, a human device to express what is as inexpressible as it is incomprehensible." Again :-

I know the difficulty of accepting absolutely the New Testa- ment accounts of the Conception, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. The last, perhaps, is the highest trial of faith, being from a human point of view the most stupendous event, and yet supported by BO brief a Scriptural notice and by no evidence out- side. The man who can say he truly and honestly believes in the bodily and material Resurrection and Ascension of Christ is safe from the trembling wonder and speculation in regard to the rising of the dead and ultimate destiny. But on the evidence producible no impartial Court could bring in proved.' " • The Diaries of Edward Pease, the Father of English Railways. Edited by Sir Alfred E. Pease, Bart. London : Headley Brothers. [7s. 6d. net.]

Sir Alfred is on more familiar ground when, leaving the mystery and mysticism of "the Universal Light," he deals with the attitude of the Friends towards law and govern-

ment, and the discipline and sumptuary habits of the Society. It is quite possible that some Friends may object to certain of Sir Alfred's views and inferences; he himself is careful to

say in respect to his essay :—

"Few within the Society have leas of right and authority to put forward an exposition of its Doctrines and Practice, and I warn the reader that I alone am responsible for this attempt at one, and that the statements are my own views and impressions, however authoritative some of the sources may be from which they are derived."

In spite, or in virtue, of this disclaimer, Sir Alfred Pease's essay is the most illuminating on the subject which has recently been published. The Society has undergone many changes. It seems that "a Quaker may retain his member.

ship though he be a Peer or a Socialist, though he be a theatre-goer or bear arms, though he administer oaths or be a musician, though he be a hymn-singing evangelical or Bible critic." One wonders, therefore, if it will be as true fifty years hence as, according to Sir Alfred Pease, it is now that "the bond that still holds the Society together is the belief in the immediate power of the peaceable Spirit of Christ on the heart, without the intervention of all that is man-made and man-appointed, and the conviction that the golden rule is no impracticable ideal, but one that can be and is to be applied in public and private life."

The quality of the diaries of Edward Pease which this volume presents us with is such that the reader cannot but regret, in the interests of British history rather than of Quakerism, that they are restricted to the last twenty years of a life which began in 1767, and embraced very nearly a century.

The other volumes have been destroyed, and as a consequence their place is taken by a chapter of biography. From this

we learn that Edward Pease was born on the last day of May, 1767, in the house of his parents, Joseph and Mary Pease, of Darlington :— " We must picture Edward Pease as a small boy in the old North Country market town, living in a substantial house very plainly furnished, with a very affectionate, but strict and pious mother, who, though she had put aside the world and was to be a minister in the Society, must have understood what it was to be young, and had a tender sympathy with the joy and spirit of youth. It is difficult from the scanty records relating to his father, to judge of his nature, character, and appearance, but the impression left in me from such allusions as I have beard or found makes me think him the least interesting of the line from which I am sprung. I picture him as a hard-working man of business, and a careful observer of the discipline of Friends, somewhat tried by his wife's religious activity, mixing little socially with any outside his own circle."

After a careful school education, Edward, at the age of fourteen, entered his father's business, which was that of a wool merchant. He learned it from top to bottom: went

through the wool-sorting and combing room, sat at the looms, and mastered the process of the dye-house. Although he strenuously lived the simple life of the Friends, he took to field sports and light reading. He regarded the latter in his old age as a failing ; at the age of ninety he is found com- plaining that he had been reading the Travels of Dr. Living- stone instead of the Bible. At the age of twenty-one he married Rachel Whitwell, who, being evidently a most lovable and gentle woman, governed her husband's life till her death, an event which in his diaties he never ceases to lament with almost the grief of a lover. We can quite believe her descendant when be says that "the strict piety of Edward Pease's later years as revealed in his diaries was largely due to the influence of her saintly life, and to his hope

that in following her here his spirit might rejoin hers hereafter."

A considerable portion of this section of the book is taken up with his relations to the Society, and to the various

" causes " with which it became identified. Of these total abstinence was not one. On the contrary, "when I came to destroy old vouchers, I reprieved some of the old hotel bills, which indicated what we should now consider a shocking consumption of liquor. Old Parliamentary election accounts tell me the same tale, and some of Edward Pease's descendants who remember his son John, a leading minister in the Society, may be a little surprised to know that I have a voucher of his for two pounds paid for punch at the Black Lion at Stockton. My father told me that beer was in his child- hood looked upon as a necessary article in the nursery, and that

he and his brothers and sisters were all brought up to have their beer at meals."

As regards the development of his politics, we find him even at the last, and when his own son was in Parliament, making but scant allusions to Parliamentary proceedings. "If Toryism and. Conservatism could have been brought into harmony with civil and religious liberty, and been favourable to humane and philanthropic objects, he would, I think, have been Conservative, but above all things he was anti-clerical and for toleration and peace."

On the whole, the business side of Pease's life is much more important than the political or the philanthropic, and even bolds its own with the spiritual. One of the entries in his diary illustrates this feature of his character with admirable comicality. "Went to Newcastle to attend to my interests in the. Forth Street engine manufactory. Whilst engaged in matters needful to be attended to, I trust some anxiety was generally prevalent that the important end of my being might be uppermost." Smiles in his Life of Stephenson describes Pease as "a thoughtful and sagacious man, ready in resource, possessed of indomitable energy and perseverance ; he was eminently qualified to undertake what appeared to many the desperate enterprise of obtaining an Act of Parliament to construct a railway." The first public railway, between Stockton and Darlington, was projected by him, and as a consequence the designation of him as the father of English railways is perfectly justified. George Stephenson was asso- ciated with Pease, and was appointed engineer to the pro- jector's company with a salary of 2300 a year. At that time Pease was a man over fifty, and it is to his credit as a sincerely unworldly man that he was never wealthy till old age came to him.

The diaries which Pease's great-grandson gives us are interesting, but here and there become a little fatiguing, consisting, as they do, mainly of subjective revelation. Perhaps some of the most graphic passages, however, are those in which he criticises others, including the men with whom he was associated, as well as himself. For example : " Romilly seems to have been no Christian; the associates of his army life were the wicked French Revolutionary Atheists ; his own talents were brilliant, but his shocking self-destruc- tion proved that his principles led to no correct view of eternity or holy fear." The following curious allusion to his friend George Stephenson would seem to indicate that what Sir Alfred Pease terms "the attitude of a correct friend" may have in it an element of censoriousness, if not of self- righteousness :—

"Went in the forenoon to Tapton House, late G. Stephenson's residence, and received from Robert a welcome reception; had a serious friendly conference with him, under a feeling expressed to him of my belief that it was a kindness to him his father was taken, his habits were approaching to inebriety ; his end was one that one seemed painfully to feel no ground almost for hope. I fear he died an unbeliever."

It is not unpleasing to find Sir Alfred Pease revising his ancestor's judgment by saying : "George Stephenson bore some of the fruits of the Spirit at least in his simplicity,

honesty, patience, industry, generosity, and love of his fellow- men, and who shall say that he did not work that righteousness that is accepted of God ? " The Stephenson connexion was a source of benefit, at least of the material kind, to Pease. In 1848 he writes :—" Pecuniarily I have cause to admire. How an effort to serve a worthy youth, Robert, the son of George Stephenson, by the loan of 2500, at first without the expecta- tion of much remuneration, has turned to my great advantage.

During the course of the year I have received 27,000 from the concern at Forth Street." This volume, in fact, is one of the sincerest expositions of the art of making the best of both worlds which has ever been published.