whole of living nature it makes possible an endless and fascinating variety of creatures, a lavishness, a beauty of form and colour surpassing all that could be imagined as necessary to survival.

But like every gift of God it can be misused, and when it is misused the degradation to which men and women can be lowered reflects the heights to which they might be raised by its proper enjoyment. It seemed to us that morals, like the Sabbath, were made for man, not man for morals, and that, as society changes and modes of conduct with it, we must always be searching below the surface of human behaviour to discover what is in fact happening to people, what they are seeking to express, what motives and intentions they, are satisfying, what fruits, good or bad, they are harvesting. Again, as Quakers, we put our faith not in traditional judgments but in the accessibility of the Grace and Will of God in every situation in our own. world.

There will be many reading this essay who will be disturbed at what may appear to be an acceptance of the present weakening of moral code, and we should therefore state with emphasis and conviction what are our positive hopes for men and women and society. A moral code, even when accepted for the best of reasons, necessarily tends to be negative rather than positive, to be concerned with "Thou shalt not" rather than with what an individual should give to his fellows. We are much concerned about the whole content of human relationship, about the meaning of "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" in the full range and depth of its implications. Loving does not merely mean doing good works; it goes further than feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. It means warmth and intimacy, open-heartedness and overwhelming generosity of hand and spirit. It means a desire to know and a courageous willingness to be known. Loving implies commitment to the other person, involvement in that person's life whatever it may cost in suffering, whether that suffering comes through being repudiated or through identification and sharing.

The life of society desperately needs this warmth of contact and intimacy. Everywhere we see sociability without commitment or intimacy, and in our towns intense isolation and loneliness can exist amid a surging throng. We see human energy that should be creative and loving deflected into activities that are coldly power-seeking; we see love inhibited, frustrated or denied, turning into its oppositeinto ruthlessness and aggression.

Some members of our group have found themselves compelled to surrender assumptions that they had long accepted as good and right, because the emphasis on morality has so often gone with a cold and inhibitive attitude.

We have had to ask ourselves insistent questions and we want to record these questions whether we can answer them or not. Christianity for us is concerned primarily with what is true, not with approved patterns of conduct. We believe therefore that it is right for a Christian to ask every kind of question fearlessly in the search for truth. If Christianity is a true faith there can be no ultimate contradiction between what it demands of us and what in practice works-works towards complete human fulfilment. We have no mattachine REVIEW

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hesitation in taking every now and then an empirical approach-to ask, for instance whether homosexual contacts are really "unnatural” or repulsive, whether pre-marital intercourse is necessarily a bad preparation for marriage, whether to have a variety of sexual partners does in fact weaken intimate relations and destroy a community.

To many such questions there is as yet no answer, or only a tentative one; and a small group, however long it continues its work, cannot provide all the answers. A much wider research is necessary on the part of those concerned with modern sexual conduct, and a more open willingness on the part of men and women to assess their own experience honestly. Those who live by traditional standards should be more ready to include among their friends, without condemnation or prejudice, those who may have no use for these standards.

Many other groups have already recognised that the kind of morality that includes a vehement and categorical condemnation of the homosexual is not Christian, for it lacks compassion for the individual person and it lacks understanding of the human problem. Is it equally recognised that heterosexual morality-the morality of marriage and family life-though believed in with conviction, may be defensive and insensitive? The state of mind that ensures loyalty to the marriage partner may in fact shut other people out from the warmth and friendship they need. Morality may involve fear and rejection. Among the married, faithfulness may be achieved by "working to rule", but at the cost of depth and understanding; among the unmarried chastity may be upheld at the cost of charity towards those in different circumstances.

It may be that there can be no truly abundant life, no really open heart, without risk. Here is what one of the greatest of modern theologians, Paul Tillich, has to say about this, stimulated by the thought of the woman of questionable morals who broke the costly jar of ointment over Jesus and was criticised by the bystanders for her wastefulness:

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"Jesus knew that without the abundance of the heart nothing great can happen. A religion within the limits of reasonableness is a mutilated religion. Calculating love is not love at all. Jesus did not raise the question how much eros and how much agape, how much human passion and how much understanding was motivating the woman. He saw the abundant heart and he accepted it without analysing ..

The history of mankind is the history of men and women who wasted themselves and were not afraid to do so. They did not fear the waste of themselves, of other men, of things in the service of a new creation. They were justified, for they wasted all this out of the fulness of their hearts. They wasted as God does in nature and history, in creation and salvation... There is no creativity, divine or human, without the holy waste which comes out of the creative abundance of the heart and does not ask, "What use is this?"

We know that lack of love in our early years is mentally destructive. But do we know that the lack of occasions to waste ourselves is equally dangerous? In many people there has 33