“But agriculture, says he, is especially in my eye.  Let my children be husbandmen and housewives.  This occupation is industrious, healthy, honest, and of good example.  Like Abraham and the holy ancients, who pleased God, and obtained a good report, this leads to consider the works of God, and nature of things that are good, and diverts the mind from being taken up with the vain arts and inventions of a luxurious world.”  And a little farther on he says, “Of cities and towns, of concourse beware.  The world is apt to stick close to those, who have lived and got wealth there.  A country life and estate, I like best for my children.  I prefer a decent mansion of a hundred pounds a year, to ten thousand pounds in London, or such like place, in the way of trade.”

To these observations it may he added, that the country, independently of the opportunity it affords for calmness and quietude of mind, and the moral improvement of it in the exercise of the spiritual feelings, is peculiarly fitted for the habitation of the Quakers, on account of their peculiar love for the animal creation.  It would afford them a wide range for the exercise of this love, and the improvement of the benevolent affections.  For tenderness, if encouraged, like a plant that is duly watered, still grows.  What man has ever shown a proper affection for the brute creation, who has been backward in his love of the human race?

CHAP.  IV.

SECT.  I.

Trade—­Trade seldom considered as a question of morals—­But Quakers view it in this light—­Prohibit the slave-trade—­Privateering —­Manufactories of weapons of war—­Also trade where the revenue is defrauded—­Hazardous enterprises—­Fictitious paper—­Insist upon punctuality to words and engagements—­Advise an annual inspection of their own affairs—­Regulations in case of bankruptcy.

I stated in the last chapter, that some of the Quakers, though these were few in number, were manufacturers and mechanics; that others followed the sea; that, others were to be found in the medical profession, and in the law; and that others were occupied in the concerns of a rural life.  I believe with these few exceptions, that the rest of the society may be considered as engaged in trade.

Trade is a subject, which seldom comes under the discussion of mankind as a moral question.  If men who follow it, are honest and punctual in their dealings, little is thought of the nature of their occupations, or of the influence of these upon their minds.  It will hardly, however, be denied by moralists, that the buying and selling of commodities for profit, is surrounded with temptation, and is injurious to pure, benevolent, or disinterested feelings; or that where the mind is constantly intent upon the gaining of wealth, by traffic, it is dangerously employed.  Much less will it be denied, that trade is an evil, if any of the branches of it through which men acquire their wealth, are productive of mischief either to themselves or others.  If they are destructive to the health of the inferior agents, or to the morality of any of the persons concerned in them, they can never be sanctioned by Christianity.