I must admit that, were it not for the One who could speak to my condition when I was the same age as George Fox was, I would have gladly been schooled in natural theology for my religious education. For I, like another Delco Quaker, love botany and words, such as "epinasty", that give me perspective on contemporary Friends' "uppity situation".

Disillusionment with mainline religions while discovering an egalitarian alternative in Quakerism, more and more new growth could subject us to the force of nature. With New Age, and earlier esoteric, belief systems generating top-heavy pressure to adaptation, the Religious Society of Friends is looking more like ground cover in the enchanted forest of the Seed.

Can a deficiency of supportive hyponasty hope to raise up to the Light the greening of American Quakerism? Can the historical bottom hold when pushed to bow to a post-modern conquest? Can Primitive Christianity be a brace, as well as an anchor, for the transport of added freight?

I'd be a lot happier and confident of our Society's  health and future if I gave my hypo-self over to Ernst Heinrich Haeckel's version of natural theology. Yes, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", or ' the development of the individual Quaker recaptures that of the Valiant Sixty and Publishers of Truth' is a comfort for all, except those dealing with the nasty business of Quakerism's botanical growth.