tongues have professed and declared." I may observe, therefore, that the circumstance of a more than ordinary profession of consistency, and not any supposed immorality on the part of the Quakers, has brought them, in the instances alluded to, under the censure of the world. Other people, found in the same trades or occupations, are seldom noticed as doing wrong. But where men are set as lights upon a hill, blemishes will be discovered in them, which will be overlooked among those who walk in the vale below.

The trades or occupations which are usually condemned as improper for Quakers to follow, are numerous. I shall not, therefore, specify them all. Those, however, which I propose to select for mention, I shall accompany with all the distinctions which equity demands on the occasion.

The trade of a distiller, or of a spiritmerchant, is considered as objectionable, if in the hands of a Quaker.

That of a cotton-manufacturer, who employs a number of poor children in the usual way, or in a way which is destructive

to

to their morals and to their health, is considered as equally deserving of censure*.

There is a calling, which is seldom followed by itself; I mean the furnishing of funerals, or the serving of the pall. This is generally in the hands of cabinet-makers, or of upholsterers, or of woollen-drapers. Now if any Quaker should be found in any of these occupations, and if he should unite with these that of serving the pall, he would be considered, by such an union, as following an objectionable trade. For the Quakers having discarded all the pomp, and parade,

and dress connected with funerals from their own practice, and this upon moral principles, it is insisted upon that they ought not to be accessary to the promotion of such ceremonials among others.

* Poor children are frequently sent by parishes to cotton-mills. Little or no care is taken of their morals. The men, when grown up, frequently become drunken, and the girls debauched. But the evil does not stop here. The progeny of these, vitiated by the drunkenness and debauchery of their parents, have generally diseased and crippled constitutions, which they perpetuate to a new generation, after which the whole race, I am told, generally becomes extinct. What Christian can gain wealth at the expense of the health, morals, and happiness of his fellow-creatures?

VOL. II,

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The trade of a printer, or bookseller, when exercised by a Quaker, has not escaped the animadversions of the world. distinction, however, must be made here. They who condemn this calling can never do it justly but in supposed cases. They must suppose, for example, that the persons in question follow these callings generally, or that they do not make an exception with respect to the printing or selling of such books as may convey poison to the morals of those who read them.

A Quaker tailor is considered as a character which cannot consistently exist. But a similar distinction must be made here as in the former case. It cannot surely be meant that, if a Quaker confine himself to the making of clothes for his own Society, he is reproachable for so doing, but only if he make clothes for every one without distinction, following, as he is ordered, all the varying fashions of the world.

A Quaker hatter is looked upon in the same light as a Quaker tailor. But here a distinction suggests itself again. If he make only plain and useful hats for the con.munity and for other Quakers, it can

not

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not be understood that he is acting inconsistently with his religious profession. charge can only lie against him, where he furnishes the hat with the gold and the silver-lace, or the lady's riding-hat with its ornaments, or the military hat with its lace, cockade, and plumes. In this case he will be considered as censurable by many, because he will be looked upon as a dealer in the superfluities condemned by his own religion.

The last occupation I shall notice is that of a silversmith. And here the censure will depend upon a contingency also. If a Quaker confine himself to the selling of plain silver articles for use, little objection can be raised against his employ. But if, in addition to this, he sell gold-headed canes, trinkets, rings, ear-rings, bracelets, jewels, and other ornaments of the person, he will be considered as chargeable with the same inconsistency as the follower of the former trade.

In examining these and other occupations of the Quakers, with a view of seeing how far the objections which have been advanced against them are valid, I own I have

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have a difficult task to perform. For what standard shall I fix upon, or what limits shall I draw on, this occasion? The objections are founded in part upon the principle, that Quakers ought not to sell those things, of which their own practice shows that they disapprove. But shall I admit this principle without any limitation or reserve? Shall I say, without any reserve, that a Quaker-woman, who discards the use of a simple ribbon from her dress, shall not sell it to another female, who has been constantly in the habit of using it, and this without any detriment to her mind? Shall I say again, without any reserve, that a Quaker-man, who discards the use of black cloth, shall not sell a yard of it to another? And if I should say so, where am I to stop? Shall I not be obliged to go over all the colours in his shop, and object to all but the brown and drab? Shall I say again, without any reserve, that a Quaker cannot sell any thing, which is innocent in itself, without inquiring of the buyer its application or its use? And if I should say so, might I not as well say that no Quaker can be in trade? I fear that to say this would be to get into a

labyrinth,