Synopsis
“Better fanatic follies than to lie… Cold and unmoved in starched propriety.” In its older usage, the word enthusiasm meant possession by deity with resulting prophetic or poetic frenzy. These essays, on moral, didactic, emotional, and spiritual enthusiasm, represent the substance of six lectures delivered in 1945 at Woodbrooke, in the Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham, U.K. 96 pages.
About the Author(s)
Geoffrey Nuttall (1911- ) reexamined the origins of Quakerism and revolutionized the understanding of that history. Where Friends previously believed that the Puritan world in which Quakerism arose was dry and formal, Nuttall saw a vibrant spiritual life. Geoffrey Nuttall attended Oxford and went into the ministry of the United Reformed Church, serving a congregation at Wiltshire. A year at Marburg combined with a passion for history soon replaced his pulpit with a lectern as he began the research that would define his career. During the next forty years, Nuttall worked at Woodbrooke and also at New College and King’s College, both of the University of London. Nuttall’s colleagues celebrated him as a scholar who injected life into what was once dismissed as dry history, and brought that same vivacity to teaching and examination.
Pendle Hill Pamphlet #41
