In the case of the early Christians, which has been mentioned, we, who live at this day, have no doubt that Pliny put a false estimate on their character. We believe them to have done their duty, and we believe also that they considered themselves as doing it, when they refused divine honours to the emperors. The action, therefore, which Pliny denominated obstinacy, would, if it had been left to us to name it, have been called inflexible virtue, as arising out of a sense of the obligations imposed upon them by the Christian religion.

In the same manner we may argue with respect to the Quakers. Who, for example, if he will try to divest himself of the prejudices of custom, and of the policy of the world, feels such a consciousness of his own powers, as positively to pronounce that the notions of the Quakers are utterly false as to the illicitness of wars under the Christian system? Their arguments on this subject are quite as good, in my apprehension, as any that I have heard advanced on the other side of the question. These arguments, too, are unquestionably much more honourable to Christianity, and much more consistent

with the nature and design of the Gospeldispensation. They are supported also by the belief and the practice of the earliest Christians. They are arguments, again, which have suggested themselves to many good men who were not of this Society, and which have occasioned doubts in some instances, and conviction in others, against the prejudice of education and the dominion of custom. And if the event should ever come to pass, which most Christians expect, that men will one day or other turn their swords and their spears into plough-shares and pruning-hooks; they, who live in that day, will applaud the perseverance of the Quakers in this case, and weep over the obstinacy and inconsistency of those, who combated their opinions.

But the question after all is, Whether the Quakers believe themselves in this, or in any other of their religious scruples, to be right as a Christian body? If there are those among them, who do not, these give into the customs of the world, and either leave the Society themselves, or become disowned. It is therefore only a fair and a just presumption, that all those, who continue in

the

the Society, and who keep up to these scruples to the detriment of their worldly interest, believe themselves to be right. But this belief of their own rectitude, even if they should happen to be wrong, is religion to them, and ought to be estimated so by us in matters, in which an interpretation of Gospel-principles is concerned. This is but an homage due to conscience, after all the blood that has been shed in the course of Christian persecutions, and after all the religious light that has been diffused among us since the reformation of our religion.

CHAP

CHAPTER XIII.

SECTION 1.

Next trait is that of the Money-getting SpiritProbability of the truth of this trait examined— An undue eagerness after money not unlikely to be often the result of the frugal and commercial habits of the Society-but not to the extent insisted on by the world-This eagerness, whereever it exists, seldom chargeable with avarice. THE next defective feature in the character of the members of this Society, is that of a Money-getting Spirit, or of a devotedness to the acquisition of money in their several callings and concerns.

This character is considered as belonging so generally to the individuals of this Society, that it is held by the world to be almost inseparable from Quakerism. A certain writer has remarked, that they follow their concerns in pursuit of riches, "with a step as steady as time, and with an appetite as keen as death."

I do not know what circumstances have

given birth to this feature. That the Quakers are a thriving body, we know. That they may also appear, when known to be a domestic people and to have discarded the amusements of the world, to be more in their shops and counting-houses than others, is probable. And it is not unlikely, that, in consequence of this appearance, connected with this worldly prosperity, they may be thought to be more intent than others upon the promotion of their pecuniary concerns. There are circumstances, however, belonging to the character and customs of the Society, which would lead to an opposite conclusion. They are acknowledged, in the first place, to be a charitable people. But, if so, they ought not to be charged, at least, with that species of the money-getting spirit, which amounts to avarice. It is also an undoubted fact, that they give up no small portion of their time, and put themselves to no small expense, on account of their religion. In country-places, they allot one morning in the week, and in some of the towns two, besides the Sunday, to their religious worship. They have also their monthly meetings, and, after these, their quarterly, to attend,