The mere singing, it must be obvious, can be no more immoral than the reading, of the same song, singing is but another mode of expressing it.  The morality of the action will depend upon the words which it may contain.  If the words in a song are pure, if the sentiments in it are just, and if it be the tendency of these to awaken generous and virtuous sympathies, the song will operate no otherwise than a lesson of morality.  And will a lesson of morality be less serviceable to us, because it is dressed up in poetry and musically expressed by the human voice, than when it is conveyed to us in prose?  But if, on the other hand, the words in a song are in themselves unchaste, if they inculcate false honour, if they lead to false opinions, if they suggest sentiments, that have a tendency to produce depraved feelings, then vocal music, by which these are conveyed in pleasing accents to the ear, becomes a destroyer of morals, and cannot therefore be encouraged by any, who consider parity of heart, as required by the christian religion.  Now the Quakers are of opinion, that the songs of the world contain a great deal of objectionable matter in these respects; and that if they were to be promiscuously taken up by children, who have no powers of discriminating between the good and the bad, and who generally lay hold of all that fall in their way, they would form a system of sentimental maxims, very injurious in their tendency to their moral character.

If we were to take a collection of songs as published in books, and were to examine these, we should find that such a system might easily be formed.  And if, again, we were to examine the sentiments contained in many of these, by the known sentiments of the Quakers on the several subjects of each, we should find that, as a highly professing people, more objections would arise against vocal music among them, than among other people.

Let us, for example, just glance at that class of songs, which in the collection would be called hunting songs.  In these men are invited to the pleasures of the chase, as to pleasures of a superior kind.  The triumphs over the timid hare are celebrated in these with a kind of enthusiastic joy, and celebrated too as triumphs, worthy of the character of men.  Glory Is even attached to these pursuits.  But the Quakers, as it will appear in a future chapter, endeavour to prevent their youth from following any of the diversions of the field.  They consider pleasures as placed on a false foundation, and triumphs as unmanly and inglorious, which are founded on circumstances, connected with the sufferings of the brute creation.  They cannot therefore approve of songs of this order, because they consider them as disseminating sentiments that are both unreasonable and cruel.