Simplicity: A Rich Quaker’s View

Pendle Hill Pamphlets

by George Terhune Peck

It seemed to me worthwhile to explore what the testimony of simplicity really meant to me. Right off, it appeared that what was simple to John was fancy to Jane, and vice-versa. The whole area of application of light to specific individual action is notional in the extreme, and any one who presumes to advise—much worse to establish rules—on the basis of his own experience falls into spiritual pride and can cause great damage. It is easy to see the mote in Bernard of Clairvaux’s eye as he preached the Second Crusade:

I say that the soldier of Christ kills in safety and dies in greater safety. He profits himself when he dies and he profits Christ when he kills … Truly when he kills a criminal, he commits not homicide, but as I would call it, malicide.

But is it as easy to see the beam in our own? Merely in setting down what the testimony of simplicity means to me, I run the risk of falling into such error.

34 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peck’s first contribution to the Pendle Hill series, the pamphlet explores simplicity in broader terms than many might expect if used to how to books encouraging the reader to unplug and reduce.

His definition of rich includes all Friends making $15,000/year (1973 dollars —that’s $106,000 in 2024), stating everyone at or above that income level as in the top 20 percent of the US population and well above most of the world’s people.

His simplicity, I felt, was wide enough to drive a blimp through. Yet there were a couple of nuggets of advice you’ve probably heard before but aren’t hurt by the reminders.