the difference between the accent of the Quakers, and that of the speakers of the world, may arise in the difference between art and nature.  The person who prepares his lecture for the lecture-room, or his sermon for the pulpit, studies the formation of his sentences, which are to be accompanied by a modulation of the voice.  This modulation is artificial, for it is usually taught.  The Quakers, on, the other hand, neither prepare their discourses, nor vary their voices purposely, according to the rules of art.  The tone which comes out, and which appears disagreeable to those who are not used to it, is nevertheless not unnatural.  It is rather the mode of speaking which nature imposes, in any violent exertion of the voice, to save the lungs.  Hence persons who have their wares to cry, and this almost every other minute, in the streets, are obliged to adopt a tone.  Hence persons with disordered lungs, can sing words with more ease to themselves than they can utter them, with a similar pitch of the voice.  Hence Quaker women, when they preach, have generally more of this tone than the Quaker men, for the lungs of the female are generally weaker than those of the other sex.

Against the sermons of the Quakers two objections are usually made; the first of which is, that they contain but little variety of subject.  Among dissenters, it is said, but more particularly in the establishment, that you may hear fifty sermons following each other, where the subject of each is different.  Hence a man, ignorant of letters, may collect all his moral and religious duties from the pulpit in the course of the year.  But this variety, it is contended, is not to be found in the Quaker church.

That there is less variety in the Quaker sermons than in those of others, there can be no doubt.  But such variety is not so necessary to Quakers, on account of their peculiar tenets, and the universality of their education, as to others.  For it is believed, as I have explained before, that the spirit of God, if duly attended to, is a spiritual guide to man, and that it leads him into all truth; that it redeems him; and that it qualifies him therefore for happiness in a future state.  Thus an injunction to attend to the teachings of the spirit, supersedes, in some measure, the necessity of detailing the moral and religious obligations of individuals.  And this necessity is still farther superseded by the consideration, that, as all the members of the Quaker society can read, they can collect their Christian duty from the scriptures, independently of their own ministers; or that they can collect those duties for themselves, which others, who are illiterate, are obliged to collect from the church.

The second objection is, that the Quaker discourses have generally less in them, and are occasionally less connected or more confused than those of others.

It must be obvious, when we consider that the Quaker ministers are often persons of but little erudition, and that their principles forbid them to premeditate on these occasions, that we can hardly expect to find the same logical division of the subject, or the same logical provings of given points, as in the sermons of those who spend hours, or even days together, in composing them.