LETTER LVII.

Account of the Quakers.

THE most remarkable sect in this land of sectaries is unquestionably that of the Quakers. They wear a peculiar dress, which is in fashion such as a grave people wore in the time of their founder, and always of some sober color. They never uncover their heads in salutation, nor in their houses of worship; they have no form of worship, no order of priests, and they reject all the sacraments. In their meeting-houses they assemble and sit in silence, unless any one should be disposed to speak in which case they suppose him to be immediately moved by the Spirit; and any person is permitted to speak, women as well as men. These, however, are only a few of their peculiarities. They call the days of the week and the months according to their numerical order, saying that their common names are relics of idolatry. The English, instead of addressing each other in the third person singular, use the second plural. This idiom the Quakers reject as the language of flattery and falsehood, and adhere to the strict grammatical form. They will not take an oath; and such is the opinion of their moral character, that their affirmation is admitted in courts of justice to have the same force. They will not pay tithes; the priest therefore is obliged to seize their goods for his due. They will not bear arms; neither will they be concerned in any branch of trade or manufactory which is connected with war, nor in any which is so dependant upon accident as to partake of the nature of gambling. They prohibit cards and other games, music, dancing, and the theatre. A drunken Quaker is never seen, nor a criminal one ever brought to the bar. Their habits of patient and unhazarding industry ensure success; and accordingly they are, in proportion to their numbers, wealthier than any other set of people. They

support their own poor, and take the lead in every public charity. What is truly extraordinary is that, though they seem to have advanced to the utmost limits of enthusiasm as well as of heresy, so far from being enthusiastic, they are proverbially deliberate and prudent: so far from being sullen and gloomy, as their prohibitions might induce you to suppose, they are remarkably cheerful: they are universally admitted to be the most respectable sect in England; and though they have a church without a priesthood, and a government without a head, they are perhaps the best organised and most unanimous society that ever existed.

Were it not for their outrageous and insufferably heretical opinions, it might be thought that any government would gladly encourage so peaceable, so moral, and so industrious a people. On the contrary, though they are at present peculiarly favored by the English laws, there was a time when they were the objects of especial persecution. I will endeavor briefly to sketch their history; it contains some interesting facts, and may furnish some important inferences. One of the many remarkable circumstances belonging to this remarkable body is, that though they are now the least literate of all the English sects, they possess more ample collections of their own church history than any other Christian church, or even than any monastic order. If the acts of the Apostles had been as fully and faithfully recorded as the acts of the Quakers, what a world of controversy and confusion would have been prevented.

George Fox, their founder, began his career during the great rebellion. There never was a time in which it could be more excusable to go astray. The heretical church of England, by attempting to assimilate itself to the church of Rome, in a few forms, while it pertinaciously differed from it in essentials, and by persecuting those who refused to submit to those forms, had provoked a resistance which ended in its own overthrow. It was an age of ecclesiastical anarchy. Hypocrisy was the reigning vice; the least sincere were the more zealaus: discordant doctrines were preached every where, and pious and humble-minded li

men, puzzled by this confusion of errors, knew not which to chuse. They who in this perplexity stood aloof from any community were so many, that they were distinguished by the name of Seekers.

George Fox seems to have possessed much of the zeal, the simplicity and tenderness of the seraphic St. Francis, (if I may be allowed to compare a heretic with so glorious a saint in his human qualities,)—but, having no better guide to follow than his own nature, no wonder that he was misled. His mind ran upon religious things when he was but a youth, and he had leisure to think of them in the solitary employment of keeping sheep. At length, unable to bear the burthen of his thoughts, he went to one of the heretical priests and laid open to him the state of his mind. The priest's advice was that he should take tobacco and sing psalms.

In this uneasy state he abandoned all other pursuits and wandered about the country in search of truth, which at last, by following wholly the feelings of his own heart, he thought he had attained. During his wanderings he met with many persons in a similar state of uneasiness; and, being thus emboldened, began to fancy himself divinely commissioned to call men to repentance,-a commission which he and his followers soon thought proper to put in execu tion. Their zeal was not at first accompanied with discretion; they went into the churches and interrupted the preachers;-there needed not this imprudence to provoke men who were already sufficiently irritated by their doctrine. The priests became their cruel enemies, and often instigated the people to fall upon them. The heretics even in their chnrches used their Bibles to knock down these enthusiasts with; they were beaten down with clubs, stoned, and trampled upon, and some of them lost their lives.

The Presbyterians during their short tyranny treated them with great rigor, but the greatest sufferings were after the restoration of the monarchy. No sooner had the heretical hierarchy recovered its power, than it began to persecute the dissenters with such bitterness as the rancorous remembrance of its own in

juries excited. Charles willingly permitted this be cause he dreaded the political opinions of these sectari

ans; it is probable too, that as he had been secretly reconciled to the true faith, he was not displeased to see a church which dared not pretend to be infallible pursuing measures which nothing but infallibility can justify; thus accustoming the people to intolerance, and weakening heresy: so he protected the Catholics from the false bishops, and left the sectarians to their tender mercy. Other sectarians made use of every artifice to escape; but it was contrary to the principles of the Quakers to avail themselves of any subterfuge; and their dress, language, and manner made it impossible for them to pass unnoticed. The prisons were filled with them; the prisons were then dreadful places; filth, cold and wet brought on diseases which were aggravated by the uniform brutality of the jailors; and in this manner numbers were destroyed by the cowardly cruelty of those who were ashamed openly to put them to death.

Erroneous as the principles of these people are, it was impossible that any men could lead more blameless lives, and display more admirable integrity or more heroical self-devotement. George Fox was more than once set at liberty on his bare promise of appearing upon a certain day to take his trial, no other security being thought needful; more than once opportunities of escaping from prison were avowedly given him, of which he would not avail himself; and a pardon from the king offered him, which he refused to accept; saying, that to accept a pardon would imply that he had committed a crime which needed it. The usual snare for them was to tender the oath of supremacy, a test enacted against the Catholics. It was in vain that they declared their full assent to the vile heresy of this oath, and that they affirmed its substance in other words; the act of swearing was insisted upon, and for refusing this their property was confiscated and themselves sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. No injustice, no cruelty, ever provoked them to anger; they exhorted their persecutors, but never reproached them. Instances often occurred of one man's offering to suffer confinement for another. The principle of

selfishment seemed to be extinguished among them. Even the instincts of resentment and self defence, perhaps the most powerful and deeply rooted in our nature, they had subdued. Men who had borne arms and approved their courage in battle not only submitted to insults and blows themselves, but saw their wives and daughters insulted, beaten and trampled upon, without lifting a hand to protect or revenge them. It was in vain to block up their meeting houses; they met in the open streets, and in open day, though sure that soldiers would be there to arrest them and a rabble to insult them; and when the parents were cast into prison, the children voluntarily followed their example; held their meetings in like manner, and submitted to the same sufferings, with the same quiet and unconquerable endurance.

It is worthy of remark that these excellent people, as assuredly they were in every thing not appertaining to the articles of their faith, while they were thus persecuted by their brother heretics, were treated by the true church with a tenderness which it has never shown towards any others. Two female preachers who went to Malta to promulgate their opinions, were seized there by the Holy Office and confined that they might not pervert others; but when it was found impossible to reclaim them, they were set at liberty and sent out of the island. A man in his way from visiting them landed at Gibraltar, which was then in our possession, and went on Holy Thursday into the church while the priest was celebrating mass; he took off his cloak and rent it, and appeared in sackcloth; cried out Repentance thrice in a loud voice, and then returned unmolested to his ship. One man went to Jerusalem to bear his testimony against pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre! Several went to Rome to convert the pope, for whom they seemed to be particlarly concerned; they were safely lodged in the Holy Office, permitted to write as many memorials as they pleased to his holiness and the cardinals; and when they had said all that they had to say, they were sent out of Italy. With this tenderness did the church be