Note 15 — Chapter IV · FREE MINISTRY.

I believe, as I have already said, that few people outside the Society are aware of the extent to which the practice is still continued of Friends who feel themselves called to the ministry travelling, as we say, “in the service of truth,” or “under a sense of religious concern,” not only from place to place in England, but also all over the world. A remarkable variety of “services” are in this way spontaneously undertaken, and carried out, sometimes quite alone, sometimes with the help of one or more Friends “liberated” to accompany the minister. And those small meetings where there is but little vocal ministry are objects of special care and concern to the larger meetings, of which they form a part; and many Friends make a practice of visiting them from time to time.