"What Canst You Say?"
- Wilmer A. Cooper, 1991THE TESTIMONY OF INTEGRITY is grounded in the early Quaker understanding of "Truth" and "Children of the light," even before they were known as Friends or Quakers. Later Friends sometimes greeted one another by asking the question: "How is Truth prospering in thy parts?" which is to say, where you live. What a searching way to begin a conversation? It has the advantage of zeroing in on what is important. Friends were not given to idle talk.
The basic truth early Friends were talking about was not what ordinarily comes to mind....For Friends truth referred to the gospel life and the Spirit of the living Christ, which they found the Christian Scriptures. George Fox described it this way:
I was to direct people to the Spirit that gave forth the scriptures, by which they might be lead into all Truth, and so up to Christ and God, as they had been who gave them forth. And I was to turn them to the grace of God, and to the Truth a the heart, which came by Jesus...
When Fox said he was to turn people to the "Truth in the heart," he intended to avoid at all costs second-hand knowledge of God. He wanted to confront is hearers with the penetrating question, "What canst you say?" Not what someone else says, or even what the Bible says. It must be the kind of truth that lays hold of is in a very personal way. It is truth which requires a response from us and will not let us rest until we have translated it into action.
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