I have never forgotten the statement made to me somewhere in India by a young man who had recently joined the Society of Friends and had been sent out to what was then a famine-stricken tropic country on a Quaker relief project. "Why, when you admit to all these queries and doubts, and feel you are searching, do you then make yourself a member of a sect, admittedly one of the noblest and finest of all, but still a sect, with all the limitations which go with it?" I had asked him. He thought for a while and then broke the long silence to reply: "I quite understand and admit what you say about sectarian limitations. But I feel my youth and inexperience and weakness. At my age there is need for some kind of support from outside, some group to give me not merely fellowship but also a feeling of solidity and stability, something to lean upon, in short." What he said taught me a lesson and made me understand sympathetically that the love of independence to ensure a free search, and the desire for self-reliance do not belong to everybody, and that others, certainly most people, have other needs, prefer other ways, for which there is also room in human life.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 4 : Organized Groups > # 7
