When a person of the society becomes a bankrupt, a committee is appointed by his own monthly meeting, to confer with him on his affairs.  If the bankruptcy should appear, by their report, to have been the result of misconduct, he is disowned.  He may, however, on a full repentance, (for it is a maxim with the society, that “true repentance washes put all stains,”) and by a full payment of every man his own, be admitted into membership again; or if he has begun to pay his creditors, and has made arrangements satisfactory to the society for paying them, he may be received as a member, even before the whole of the debt is settled.

If it should appear, on the other hand, that the bankruptcy was the unavoidable result of misfortune, and not of imprudence, he is allowed to continue in the society.

But in either of these cases, that is, where a man is disowned and restored, or where he has not been disowned at all, he is never considered as a member, entitled to every privilege of the society, till he has paid the whole of the debts.  And the Quakers are so strict upon this point, that if a person has paid ten shillings in the pound, and his creditors have accepted the composition, and the law has given him his discharge, it is insisted upon that he pays the remaining ten as soon as he is able.  No distance of time will be any excuse to the society for his refusal to comply with this honourable law.  Nor will he be considered as a full member, as I observed before, till he has paid the uttermost farthing; for no collection for the poor, nor any legacy for the poor, or for other services of the society, will be received from his purse, while any thing remains of the former debt.  This rule of refusing charitable contributions on such occasions, is founded on the principle that money, taken from a man in such a situation, is taken from his lawful creditors; and that such a man can have nothing to give, while he owes any thing to another.

It may be observed of this rule or custom, that as it is founded in moral principle, so it tends to promote a moral end.  When persons of this description see their own donations dispensed with, but those of the rest of the meeting taken, they are reminded of their own situation, and of the desirableness of making the full satisfaction required.  The custom, therefore, operates as a constant memento, that their debts are still hanging over them, and prompts to new industry and anxious exertion for their discharge.  There are many instances of Quakers, who have paid their composition as others do, but who, after a lapse of many years, have surprised their former creditors by bringing them the remaining amount of their former debts.  Hence the Quakers are often enabled to say, what few others can say on the same subject, that they are not ultimately hurtful to mankind, either by their errors, or by their misfortunes.

SECT.  II.