William Penn and the Quaker Legacy

As a Christian pastor born, raised and presently serving in Pennsylvania, I was greatly interested in reading why may be the best biography of Penn presently available. To some degree, the spiritual DNA of our state seems to have been established in the first 20 years of the founding of Philadelphia. I agree with other reviewers that the writing is college-level, but it is still readable for most all. Moretta does a great job getting past the iconic, and portrays well Penn's inner and interpersonal struggles as well as his shortcomings as a businessman, a family man, a theologian, and a new world visionary. I also agree with a previous reviewer that the editing could have been better. I was particularly struck by the [sic] on page 18 after the quoted word, "Berean." It showed me that either virtually no one who previewed this book knew very much about the Bible, or assumed virtually none of the readers did. This, then caused me to distrust some of the spiritual/doctrinal analysis throughout the rest of the book. A footnote would have been so much better. I appreciated the analysis of most of Penn's writings, but some short tracts got much more attention from Moretta than a treatment of Penn's 600 page, "No Cross, No Crown." It not only would have been helpful to have more than a one-page treatment of its contents, but it would have been helpful to have used it as a measuring device for Penn's fidelity to it over his lifetime, as well as to contrast later statement/writings to it. Still a great bio, and I highly recommend it.

This is an excellent biography of a most complex human being. It does a superb job of portraying Penn as a religious man with an astute sense of political power. It gives a convincing analysis of a great man seeking to achieve great and lasting principles, but in an environment which he did not control. Thus Penn often appeared to be wavering and contradictory in his goals when he was neither. While doing as well as he could do in an uncertain world in which he was but one of many influences, Penn was a man of contradictions in himself. He was an elitist who believed in the necessity of a society of deference, but a Quaker who believed in the natural equality of men's souls before G_d and in ultimately deferring to no man. He was a man who believed in "plainness" but continued to display the dress and housing of the upper crust in a semi-feudal Britain. He was a man whose numerous pamphlets were filled with classical references and were argued with great rationality, yet a man who believed that the most important trait in a person's life was the "inner light" of mystical intuition. While this is a volume of many virtues which is well worth your time and money, the editor assigned to this volume by its publisher should be hung. I was frequently distracted by omitted words, misspellings and simple inept expressions that a B minus level editor would have caught and corrected. Hopefully there will be a second edition from another press.

I am very pleased to find a book on this topic. Although his writing sometimes seems a little more aimed at college/ history students than the general public, John Moretta does a good job of drawing a full, yet succinct, picture of the man and his times. The content and the topic make this book a very worthwhile purchase. Besides being a valuable lesson on a significant part of our nation's history, there is much to learn from reflection on Penn's life. His journey from being a child of privilege, rejecting that heritage, embracing egalitarianism and eventually returning to a preference for privilege is a good representation of the way many people travel a full circle in their lives. His desire to both profit personally while at the same time helping others with the founding of a colony ended up benefiting others but not himself. The conflict of idealism and financial pragmatism is a dilemna countless individuals with an altruistic bent must confront as well. And there are many other valuable reflections as well. For more information on the founding of the Quaker movement, see "First Among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism" by H. Larry Ingle.