Friends; although, in public addresses, and in ordinary dealings, they are content to appear under the modest designation of-the People called Quakers. At the Restoration, Keith and Fisher, men of learning and abilities, and soon afterwards William Penn, reduced Quakerism to a systematic form *. The Friends, in the infancy of their sect, were molested in their simple worship; but though they suffered persecution in the reign of Charles II. they allow that that monarch discountenanced the severities of the Parliament. They

speaker, and a man of good natural endowments. He certainly permitted divine honours to be paid him on entering Bristol, being preceded by a multitude strewing their garments in the way, and exclaiming," Hosannah to the Sun of righteousness." But it is not true, that to every question proposed to him, after his apprehension, he replied only, "Thou hast said it." On the contrary, there appears to have been much method in his madness. He defended himself under the charge of permitting worship to be paid him, by declaring, that he deemed it offered entirely to the Christ within him. "For myself," said he," as a frail creature, I abhor earthly honours; but I receive them as a sign, and I had authority from God to receive them." Naylor endured persecutions with obstinate inflexibility. When he was whipped, branded in the forehead, and bored in the tongue, his followers licked his wounds. But hard labour, and meagre fare, in Bridewell, brought him to his senses, and produced an acknowledgment of sorrow for his blasphemies.

* For an account of the life and writings of Barclay, see the General Dictionary. Sewell, in his History, gives an ample account of Keith. Fisher is particularly mentioned in a German work, Unschuldige Nachrichten.

admit also, that Penn was a favourite with James II. and speak with grateful acknowledgment of the acts passed in their behalf during the reigns of William and Mary and of George I.

The Quakers abound chiefly in England, Ireland, and America; their system seeming too grave for French volatility, and too plain for the voluptuous climates of the south *. They have monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings, for the admission of members, the censure of transgressors, the settlement of differences, the education of their children, the care of the poor, the registry of births and burials, and, though last, not least, the allowance of MARRIAGES †. The yearly, or spring meeting, is, in particular, a grand pairing time it is the races, the assize week, the county meeting, and the watering-place of the Quakers. The legislature indulges them in their objection to the solemnization of marriages by ministers of the Established Church. Matrimony is performed in their meeting-houses, by a declaration of the two parties of their consent to live with each other in the state of wedlock. The Quaker women, being admitted to the ministry,

* Their numbers in England and Wales are computed at 50,000; in Scotland at not more than 300.

In the meetings there is no president; the wisdom of God being thought alone fit to preside. All labour is undertaken gratuitously, except, perhaps, the extra diligence of a single clerk.

and elevated in the scale of estimation, have monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings of their own, though without the power of making laws. The great care taken of the poor of this society, has been attributed, and perhaps with justice, to the attention of their amiable females to that department of religion *.

At Ackworth, a few miles from Pontefract, in Yorkshire, the Friends have a highly respectable and well-conducted school, the erection of which was chiefly promoted by Dr. Fothergill, to whose memory it is a noble monument. Here about a hundred and eighty boys, and a hundred and twenty girls, are educated at a wonderfully moderate expense. Among other excellent regulations, no difference is allowed among the pupils in point of food, accommodation, pocket-money, or other indulgence, how various soever may be the circumstances of their parents.

It is well known that Penn received from Charles II. a tract of land in America, in lieu of arrears due from government to his father, the admiral of that name. Not, however, conceiving himself to be invested with a right, which should supersede the prior possession of the natives, he summoned a council of their princes, and purchased from

* The seven yearly meetings are those, 1. of London, having representatives from Ireland; 2. New England; 3. Nev York; 4. Pennsylvania and New Jersey, &c.; 5. Mary land; 6. Virginia; 7. Carolinas and Georgia,

them so much territory as suited his immediate
need. This land has been since extended by simi.
lar purchases, and is known by the name of Penn-
sylvania. Penn, as he enlarged his dominion
(for he may be regarded as a species of monarch),
ruled with a truly Christian sway. No sword
was unsheathed for war; no'steel was whetted for
persecution. Penn's chief publication was entitled,
"The sandy Foundation shaken *."

Associated with Penn, in the patronage of Qua-
kerism, was Barclay, the author of the celebrated
Apology †. In this work the Quaker principles
are systematically laid down in fifteen theses, which
are still generally received as "the standard of
their doctrine, and the test of their orthodoxy."

* Many of the American Quakers held strange notions re-
specting the Trinity, affirming, that Christ never existed ex-
cept in the hearts of the faithful. This occasioned the contro-
versy in which George Keith distinguished himself. Burnet's
History of his own Times, vol. ii. p. 249; Rogers's Christian
Quaker; and, The Quakers a divided People.

+ Ancestor of Captain Barclay, the rodas oxus.

See Penn's Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the
People called Quakers; Sewell's History of the Quakers;
Rutty's History; Summary of the History, Doctrine, and Dis.
cipline of Friends; Bevan's Refutation of the Misrepresenta-
tions of the Friends; Barclay's Apology, and Helton's De-
fence of ditto; Phipps on Christian Baptism; Clarkson's Por-
traiture of Quakerism; Clarkson's Memoirs of Penn; Tuke's
Faith of the Quakers; Besse's Defence of the Quakers.

On the other hand, Brown's Quakerism the Path to Pa-
ganism; Voltaire's Letters on the English Nation; Crœsii

It were unjust to the Quakers to omit speaking with warm applause of their great liberality in encouraging public charities. Wherever a society is instituted for diffusing knowledge throughout the world, or for improving the bodily comforts of mankind, the society of the Friends are ever prompt to support it, without regard to religious distinctions. They have a committee in America for civilizing the Indian natives: their voice has been ever raised against the nefarious traffickers in human blood. In England they contribute to charities peculiar to the Church Establishment; and this evidently without sinister motives of any kind, which is more than can be said, perhaps, for some others among the sectaries.

XXV. Of the fifteen propositions laid down by Barclay, some are strictly orthodox, and others objectionable. The Quakers believe in a Trinity in unity-in the fall of man-his redemption by Christ-the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and the obligation of the moral law; so

Hist. Quakeriana tribus Libris comprehensa; Voltaire, Mélanges de Littérature; Le Clerc, Biblioth. Univ. tom. xxii. p. 53; Leslie's Snake in the Grass, and other works, have been written in opposition to the Quaker system.

Some of the Quakers in America have manifested an attachment to Socinian principles; and a female preacher, on account of inculcating them, was there recently silenced. But these sentiments are wholly disowned by the great body of Friends.