Plenary, 15 Nov 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 15, 2000

Official Report 378KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Today's time for reflection will be led by Christine Davis, from the Society of Friends.

It is good to be here with you all, a Friend among friends.

In thinking and praying in preparation for today, I have remembered frequently the life and work of William Penn, the Quaker who established the constitution and unicameral Assembly of Pennsylvania. I find that I can do no better than share with you some of William Penn's thoughts and writings. As a Quaker, I am not frightened of silence. Penn described true silence as being

"to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment."

I will read two other short extracts from Penn's writing and follow each with a short silence, finally adding a few concluding words. So let us share together reflections with William Penn:

"True godliness don't turn people out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it: not hide their candle under a bushel, but set it upon a table in a candlestick."

"Christians should keep the helm and guide the vessel to its port; not meanly steal out at the stern of the world and leave those that are in it without a pilot to be driven by the fury of evil times upon the rock or sand of ruin."

[Silence.]

"A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it . . . We are too ready to retaliate, rather than forgive, or gain by love and information. And yet we could hurt no man that we believe loves us. Let us then try what Love will do: for if men did once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but love gains: and he that forgives first, wins the laurel."

[Silence.]

Penn wrote about others:

"They were changed themselves before they went about to change others."

I pray that, as we use the Parliament to change Scotland, we are changed ourselves and learn the hardest lesson of all: to love one another.