What Friends Believe
If you are willing, God will open to you his invisible power and you will be enlightened by the divine light of Christ. You will see this light shine through all and become born anew by it. You find the pure openings of the Light without the help of any man or book; though afterwards, searching the Scriptures, you can find it. For that Light and Spirit was before the Scriptures were given, and all must come to that Spirit, if they would know God, or Christ, or the Scriptures. Let the loving Light that never ends shine in your heart, your thoughts and your actions. It drove the previous generations of Friends to submit to imprisonment, create a society over 300 years ago based on freedom and equality, fight slavery, struggle for the rights of women, and feed the hungry after two world wars. It drives us to work for the creation of a world with lasting peace today.
Love must be combined with self discipline. Avoid letting addicting pleasures, greed, fear, hate, or the desire to control others rule your life. Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.
Friends treat everyone with respect. The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious and devout souls everywhere are of one religion and when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wore here make them strangers.
Friends seek to remove from religious practice all man-made ideas and ritual that replace Light and Spirit with formality. The Love of God is eternal and predates all human religion. The way is simple and clear, but you must be willing to walk it; there is no easy road to salvation. Open your heart; experience the light and the love. Let it guide your path through life.