Note Return to text — PART II

No less has it been true in business affairs that Friends have maintained the strictest standard of integrity in the face of opposition and probable loss. They recognized a higher obligation which must be obeyed whatever the consequence which faced them. And in the strength of that idealism they won their way to the respect and confidence of their fellows. In the end they were often found to be the more practical in spite of (or was it because of?) their unreasoning idealism. “It was in this focussing upon moral effort that the Quakers differed most from the other sects of the Commonwealth period. Their ‘views’ were not novel or original. Everyto be done, was to be put into life and made to march.”[Footnote 7]