have proved so eminently useful to the comfort, health, and safety of many of the hu

man race.

This trait will be true, or it will be false, as it is applied to the different classes, which may be found in the Society of the Quakers. The poor, who belong to it, are all taught to read, and therefore better educated than the poor belonging to other bodies of men. They who spring from parents, whose situation does not entitle them to rank with the middle class, but yet keeps them out of the former, are generally educated by the help of a subscription at Ackworth-School, and may be said to have more school-learning than others in a similar situation in life*. The rest, whatever may be their situation, are educated wholly at the expense of their parents, who send them either to private Quakerseminaries or to schools in the neighbourhood, as they judge it to be convenient or proper. It is upon this body of the Quakers that the imputation can only fall; and,

*Their parents pay a small annual sum towards their board and clothing. The rest is made up by a subscription in the Society, and by the funds of the school. The children also of the poor are admitted to this school, but these pay nothing.

as

may

as far as these are concerned, I think it be said with truth that they possess a less portion of what is usually called liberal knowledge, than others in a corresponding station in life. There may be here and there a good classical or a good mathematical scholar: but in general there are but few individuals among them, who excel in these branches of learning. I ought, however, to add, that this character is not likely to remain long with the Society; for the young members of the present day seem to me to be sensible of the inferiority of their own education, and to be making an attempt towards the improvement of their minds, by engaging in those, which are the most entertaining, instructive, and useful;-I mean philosophical pursuits.

That deficiency in literature and science is likely to be a feature in the character of the Society we may pronounce, if we take into consideration circumstances, which have happened, and notions which have prevailed, in it.

The Quakers, like the Jews of old, whether they are rich or poor, are brought up, in obedience to their own laws, to some em

ployment.

ployment. They are called of course at an early age from their books. It cannot therefore be expected of them, that they should possess the same literary character as they, who spend years at our Universities, or whose time is not taken up by the concerns of trade.

It happens also in this Society, that persons of the poor and middle classes are frequently through industry becoming rich. While these were gaining but a moderate support, they gave their children but a moderate education. But when they came into possession of a greater substance, their chil dren had finished their education, having grown up to be men.

The antient controversy, too, relative to the necessity of human learning as a qualifi cation for ministers of the Gospel, has been detrimental to the promotion of literature and science among them. This controversy was maintained with great warmth and obstinacy on both sides; that is, by the early Quakers, who were men of learning, on the one hand, and by the Divines of our Universities on the other. The less learned in the Society, who read this controversy,

did not make the proper distinction concerning it. They were so interested in keeping up the doctrine, "that learning was not necessary for the priesthood," that they seemed to have forgotten that it was necessary at all. Hence knowledge began to be cried down in the Society; and though the proposition was always meant to be true with respect to the priesthood only, yet many mistook or confounded its meaning, so that they gave their children but a limited education on that account.

The opinions also of the Quakers relative to classical authors have been another cause of impeding, in some degree, their progress in learning; that is, in the classical part of it. They believe these to have inculcated a system of morality frequently repugnant to that of the Christian religion. And the Heathen mythology, which is connected with their writings, and which is fabulous throughout, they conceive to have disseminated romantic notions among youth, and to have made them familiar with fictions, to the prejudice of an unshaken devotedness to the love of truth.

CHAP

Second trait is, that they are a superstitious people -Circumstances, that have given birth to this trait-Quakerism, where it is understood, is sel dom chargeable with superstition-where it is misunderstood, it leads to it-Subjects in which it may be misunderstood are those of the province of the Spirit-and of dress and language -Evils to be misapprehended from a misunder standing of the former subject.

IT

may seem wonderful, at first sight, that persons, who have discarded an undue veneration for the Saints, and the Saints-days, and the relics of the Roman-catholic religion, who have had the resolution to reject the ceremonials of Protestants, such as Baptism, and the sacrament of the Supper, and who have broken the terrors of the dominion of the priesthood, should, of all others, be chargeable with superstition. But so it is. The world has certainly fixed upon them the character of a superstitious people. Under this epithet much is included. It is understood, that Quakers are more ready than

others