The Friends teaching about the real and sanctifying presence of Christ with His people resulted in strong ethical testimonies. These included support for religious and political freedom, opposition to slavery and civil bondage, just relationships with aboriginal and minority persons, honesty in business, humane and remedial treatment of offenders, compassionate care of the mentally ill, and aid to war victims and others in distress.

Friends opposed war and practiced peacemaking. They took their standards from the New Testament and from the example of Christian pacifism during the early Christian centuries. Quakers urged Christians to use the weapons of the Holy Spirit rather than the weapons of violence, believing such a choice to be both right and practical. They emphasized a single standard for truth, rejecting legal oaths out of faithfulness to the express command of Christ.

These ethical testimonies produced significant results. Religious freedom is now widely acknowledged as basic to the social good. Oppression by courts has diminished. The right to conscientious objection to war has been widely supported by religious bodies and honored in many nations. Over the years the Quakers have often served as the conscience of the Church. Such moral leadership has sometimes been a heavy burden. Friends have not always lived up to their reputation. Sometimes they became preoccupied with ethical concerns to the neglect of evangelistic proclamation. At other times, in reaction to this burden, or to their own legalism, they became preoccupied with evangelism to the neglect of social testimonies.

It is sometimes forgotten that early Friends had a vision to evangelize the world at a time when most Protestants had not awakened to missionary responsibility. The first Quaker efforts may have lacked organization, but they did display a global vision. This missionary vision was diminished during the decades of colonizing in the New World, although there was some outreach to the American Indian. In the nineteenth century the missionary expansion resumed.