He sits in his monthly meeting, as it were in council, with the rest of the members.  He sees all equal but he sees none superior, to himself.  He may give his advice on any question.  He may propose new matter.  He may argue and reply.  In the quarterly meetings he is called to the exercise of the same privileges, but on a larger scale.  And at the yearly meeting he may, if he pleases, unite in his own person the offices of council, judge, and legislator.  But when he leaves the society, and goes out into the world, he has no such station or power.  He sees there every body equal to himself in privileges, and thousands above him.  It is in this loss of his former consequence that he must feel a punishment in having been disowned.  For he can never be to his own feelings what he was before.  It is almost impossible that he should not feel a diminution of his dignity and importance as a man.

Neither can he restore himself to these privileges by going to a distant part of the kingdom and residing among quakers there, on a supposition that his disownment may be concealed.  For a Quaker, going to a new abode among Quakers, must carry with him a certificate of his conduct from the last monthly meeting which he left, or he cannot be received as a member.

But besides losing these privileges, which confer consequence upon him, he looses others of another kind.  He cannot marry in the society.  His affirmation will be no longer taken instead of his oath.  If a poor man, he is no longer exempt from the militia, if drawn by submitting to three months imprisonment; nor is he entitled to that comfortable maintenance, in case of necessity, which the society provide for their own poor.

To these considerations it may not perhaps be superfluous to add, that if he continues to mix with the members of his own society, he will occasionally find circumstances arising, which will remind him of his former state:  and if he transfers his friendship to others, he will feel awkward and uneasy, and out of his element, till he has made his temper, his opinions, and his manners, harmonize with those of his new associates of the world.

PECULIAR CUSTOMS OF THE QUAKERS.

CHAP.  I. SECT.  I.

Dress—­Quakers distinguished by their dress from others—­great extravagance in dress in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—­this extravagance had reached the clergy—­but religious individuals kept to their antient dresses—­the dress which the men of this description wore in those days—­dress of the women of this description also—­George Fox and the Quakers springing out of these, carried their plain habits with them into their new society.

I have now explained, in a very ample manner, the moral education and discipline of the Quakers.  I shall proceed to the explanation of such customs, as seem peculiar to them as a society of christians.