For many decades since its inception in 1815, Cincinnati Friends Meeting faithfully observed the rules in the Book of Discipline (now known as Faith and Practice) and disowned Friends who married non-Quakers, losing dozens of members as a result. However, in the mid-nineteenth century, that began to change. The Discipline
Sabrina Darnowsky
CFM Roots: Holiday Observances
At the time that the Religious Society of Friends was founded in the seventeenth century, the Church of England required its members to observe numerous holy days, feasts, fasts, and festivals, which George Fox regarded as without divine authority and inconsistent with early Christian practices. Even at the beginning of
CFM Roots: Alterations in Worship
The move to the Eighth Street meetinghouse presented Cincinnati Friends with an opportunity to conduct worship differently than they had at Fifth Street, including less segregation of the sexes. (Previously, men sat on one side of the worship room and women sat on the other.) At the first meeting for
CFM Roots: No Longer So Plain
For centuries, the distinctive Quaker manner of dress served not only as a visible rejection of “the vain and changeable fashions of the world” and an embrace of “decency, simplicity, and utility.” It also acted “like a hedge about us; which, though it does not make the ground it encloses
CFM Roots: A Transforming First-Day School
By the latter half of the nineteenth-century, the First-Day School at Cincinnati Friends Meeting was also referred to as a Sabbath School or Bible School. It convened at 9:30 A.M., before meeting for worship, from September through June. (During the summer months, William H. Taylor occasionally taught an adult Bible