CONCLUSION OF THE WORK.

Quakerism and King William III. may be said to have been born together, in 1650. George Fox had indeed begun his travels (at the age of twenty-one) seven years earlier; and had preached his doctrine from the precise date of the abolition of Episcopacy in England:coincidences these, to which some readers will attach little, but which may be not wholly unworthy our notice, when coupled with the event. In 1653, we see the quaker-doctrine spread through the whole North of England-carried thence by above sixty preachers, East, South and West, and making in 1654 its appearance in London: Cromwell, who was now in supreme power, taking care to become acquainted with the apostle of the new doctrine, but not choosing to throw any obstacle in its way.

The country magistracy, stirred up by the priests, were not so forbearing: they persecuted it, and we find a martyr to Fox's principles in James Parnel, in 1656. The like effects ensued on its being taken to the Continent of America, and on its introduction into Scotland the Presbyterians attempted to put it down by a virtual excommunication;-the faithful were not to have any dealings with quakers! Thus their profession was early invested with one (at least) of the characters of the religion of Christ-it was 'every where spoken against,' and men began to cast out their names as evil.'

The Restoration of the monarchy was too late to prevent the execution of sentence of death upon five persons, merely as quakers, who had returned from an unjust and illegal banishment to the colony of the Massachusets and it became presently, through the offence of the 'Fifthmonarchy-men' who were under a real delusion of the devil,' an occasion of greatly aggravated suffering to this people at home. If several hundreds had been released at first by the Royal clemency, who had been imprisoned under Oliver or Richard Cromwell, as many thousands were presently shut up under king Charles. The sufferings of the next seven years I have endeavoured in my Chronological Summary to notice, rather than describe. I shall not, here either, dwell upon the inhuman doings of that age, upon the dragoonings and jailings in order to banishment, the crowding of the prisons with peaceable men in the midst of that memorable pestilence-or on the arbitrary and unjust treatment of the quakers (when a trial was allowed them) in the king's courts-but pass on to the consolidation of the body as a religious sect, under a rule and discipline of its own,-the very thing probably, which all this cruelty was put forth to prevent!

In 1667, Penn and Barclay were associated in profession with Fox. In the following year, the Society held its first General Meeting in London. The present Representative constitution of the Yearly

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Meeting appears first in 1672 in the next year it gave place under the circumstances of a schism in the North led by two eminent preachers, to the former rule of a Presbytery,-but the constitution was restored in 1677. The homily of the Yearly Meeting of 1678 is the first of a series which has continued unbroken to the present time. I know not of any other country of Europe, in which the civil peace has been so little interrupted, as to admit of the stated annual gathering of such an assembly, for so great a length of time. Penn's imprisonment in the tower of London speedily followed his convincement-and we have for the Fruits' of this solitude" his Reflexions and Maxims; as his less commendable Socinian tract, the Sandy foundation shaken,' had been the occasion of it. The celebrated trial of Penn and Mead at the Old Bailey marks the year 1670; the date of the second Act against seditious conventicles.' Followed soon the seemingly sufficient, but (through the quaker's firmness in a passive resistance) fruitless measures, first of forcing upon their meetings a minister of the Establishment, guarded by soldiers; then, of locking the doors and turning the congregations into the street; and, finally, laying the Meetinghouses in ruins. While these barbarities were acting, George Fox who had spread quakerism throughout England, and introduced it into Scotland and Ireland, was making proselytes in the West Indies, and in the British colonies of North America.

In 1676 came out the Apology'-persecution after some respite having been generally renewed. The king had seen it expedient now to revoke, as he had before found it convenient to publish, his Declaration of indulgence to dissenters. The arbitrary and most unjust proceedings of the Court and clergy of Charles II. under colour of law, against this people, were protracted by men of like character to the very eve of the abdication which closed the inglorious reign of James II. We may forgive Penn his partiality to this monarch, on the score of friendship and gratitude; but it materially hurt his character and interests. The Barclays were also in favour at the Court of James; and their accession to the Society brought into it, along with the learning of the Apologist, a large portion of civil respectability and influence.

In 1677 these two preachers, being on a tour among 'Friends' in Holland and the North of Germany, found a congenial spirit, though not a convert to the profession of quakerism, in Princess Elizabeth of the Rhine; a retired character-but certainly among the brighest of the age.

Penn, who ever shines more as a political and moral, than as a religious writer, had interested himself so much in the support of the Civil liberties of his country, that it was found convenient to pay him off an old score, due for his father the admiral's loans and services, in the grant of a province in North America. No sooner however had he shewn himself eminently worthy of a high Civil dignity, and his Friends thus planted abroad to be an enterprising and thriving people, than the hostile machinations of a corrupt court and government were let loose upon him; and he had left him, through these means, but

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short intervals of enjoyment of the luxury of doing good,' by sound and liberal measures of legislation in Pennsylvania and the Jerseys. The Friends who went out to his province were mostly men of superior character and abilities-insomuch that some of the writers of the time (inore attached to home) complain of his stripping Wales, in particular, of the best of the profession of this way within its borders. We have, to be sure, nothing in the present society to compare with the Lloyd and the Jenings, the Kinsey and the Wright of that day: nor are our members now anything like the free citizens they had under their rule. It may be said that the times form men's characters, and that opportunity makes patriots and legislators-but I doubt there was also something in the education and previous habits of these first quakers, fitting them for the work, which the present generation have not. Certain it is that the next, brought up as quakers, proved less fit for the task of Legislation: and in the third, Friends were supplanted altogether in the government by the votes of a host of new comers to the province.

The decease of George Fox and Robert Barclay in 1690, with the loss of other leading men, grown old about this time, may be said to mark the conclusion of the first period of quakerism. From the Toleration Act of Wm. and Mary, in 1689, down to the present time, there has been going on (not unmixed with many specimens of the old leaven of persecution, in individuals or lesser public bodies), a series of Legislative exemptions and provisions in favour of this people, by the Government, which at once prove the force of naked truth in the controversy they had so long to maintain on some points of Christian practice, and the salutary influence of the Gospel on the Civil affairs of this country. It may be acknowledged, with gratitude to God and our rulers, that quaker-principles can now be held and acted upon with entire personal safety, the estates of individuals being alone made liable to the consequences of a conscientious refusal of Ecclesiastical and Military imposts.

From the beginning to the middle of the 18th century, the members of this Society appear to have trod implicitly in the steps of the first gathered Friends; with the usual effect of a mere traditional belief—ă gradual declension in practice. The extreme ignorance of the greater part became after a while an occasion of concern to the well-informed —especially to Dr. John Fothergill; and measures were effectually taken to educate gratis, or on low terms, the offspring of the poorer Friends. Along with this improvement, came up a revival of the disciplinary spirit, which for a long season had nearly slept under the forms of the profession. The women seem to have been, in this affair, the movers of their husbands-and there were not wanting in many of the sex, indications of a disposition even to take the lead in affairs of the men.*

* I have extracted, but forbear to publish, Minutes of the Yearly Meeting of the dates of 1786, 1799, and 1800, which prove this disposition evidently, in both theSelect' and the Women's Yearly Meeting.' ED.

At all events, the Yearly Meeting being thrown open in 1784 to the women, they found themselves sitting, no longer as an accessory body directed in certain specific services by the men, and holding a prescriptive office under them, but as a full counterpart in all the details of discipline to the other meeting. In 1790, this new head received the appropriate support of a new body in the grant of a representative constitution and the Men's Meeting, which before admitted a number necessarily limited by the smallness of the house at Gracechurch Street, removing into new and most capacious premises near Bishopsgate, the attendance of the members at large became fuller, the interest in the affairs that came before it was increased, and the proceedings assumed quite a new character. From this era we may trace a gradual progress in perfecting Rules and discipline; and in providing for the education and other wants of the poorer members of the Society.

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Had this constituted the whole of the change, the revolution of 1790 which gave to the Yearly Meeting the full character of a popular assembly, would have left nothing to regret, and have presented but little to improve. In the freedom of discussion which necessarily followed, the Slave-trade was first introduced as a topic for petitions to the Legislature, from the society as a Religious body: though Friends in their individual Civil capacities were among the foremost in the great struggle for its abolition. Other concerns' have gradually grown in like manner among us, and the objects to which they relate have become testimonies for Friends to bear: until it is now difficult to say where we should stop, and what public object may not become matter for a ، conclusion' by the Yearly Meeting, and be referred to the ، continued care' of the Meeting for Sufferings. Certainly any thing that tends directly to the rescue of the oppressed, the promotion of good morals, or the advancement of humane feeling, may now be fairly and consistently thus treated. Thus is the religious society of the people once called quakers fast merging in the ocean of public. benevolence; and its solemn annual Religious Meeting, for the purposes of its doctrine, discipline, and 'accounts of sufferings' found taking up Civil concerns, with as much alacrity as if it had been called specially upon them by public notice, and were met at the London Tavern!

The tendency of all this is, plainly, to secularize the business, and while new subjects are continually thought of, to prolong and extend it. And with this, to bring a well-trained and well-disciplined body of benevolent people under the full influence and management of able and politic leaders-so that the whole weight of opinion in the Yearly Meeting may, without difficulty, be brought to bear on any point within or without our borders.' The danger of thus setting up a real spiritual oligarchy (if I may so speak) in the privileged bodies meeting in London (and transacting much business on the Society's behalf, and in its name, which does not emanate from the Yearly Meeting) seems to have been willingly overlooked. Nor does it appear to have been foreseen that our Zion'-as we were once prone to call it—may thus be converted, in no long space of time, from a peaceable dwelling

for conscientious people into something very like a little squabbling Greek republic!

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How long the more discerning of those who may yet incline to hold fast the profession' of their faith in the inward light and in modern prophecy without wavering-that is to say, in a manner which cludes all reform-how long these may incline to patronize such a system of close-borough election and arbitrary Presbyterian rule; with the intrusting to hands in a great measure irresponsible their large contributions for benevolent purposes, is for them to decide.

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For my own part-to put now a brief end to this long labour-I have decided that the Friends and I can no more walk together except we were better agreed.' I have submitted to the rite of baptism, and communicated with a church of Christ. I have also, since last Yearly Meeting, given up (from a full conscientious persuasion) Friends' meetings for worship and discipline, and have attended where I could hear the Gospel preached, and join in a reasonable service' to my Maker. These are offences against our discipline not to be passed over; and I am accordingly looking to be excluded from membership, as soon as the Monthly Meeting to which I belong can be brought to issue the needful testimony. The reason why I do not resign my membership, after the example of so many of the Evangelical Friends, is this: I have an equitable interest, in like manner with others who have retired, of full One thousand pounds (provided the measure of contribution may be the rule) in the property real and personal held by Friends for benevolent and useful purposes within the society, or among such as in some measure depend on its aid. There is no charity or meeting-house we hold, but I might while a member, by residing in the proper place or by giving up my time or services be interested or accommodated in it; and also find agreeable employment. I have no desire to relinquish such a charge-to throw such advantages: but I will not consent to retain them at the expense of my own settled persuasion and conscientious judgment, fortified by that of many others whom I prefer before myself, that our present doctrine and mode of holding religious meetings are both unsound—so far unsound that no enlightened Christian ought to countenance them. I have therefore no alternative left, since I have ascertained fully the will and power of a ruling faction to exclude me, with others like minded, but here to take a final leave, I hope in Charity of the history and whole concerns of the Modern Friends. ED.

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