But though the Quakers have made these regulations, the world find fault with many of their trades or callings—­Several of these specified—­Standard proposed by which to examine them—­Some of these censurable by this standard—­and given up by many Quakers on this account, though individuals may still follow them.

But though the Quakers have made these beautiful regulations concerning trade, it is manifest that the world are not wholly satisfied with their conduct on this subject.  People charge them with the exercise of improper callings, or of occupations inconsistent with the principles they profess.

It is well known that the Quakers consider themselves as a highly professing people; that they declaim against the follies and vanities of the world; and that they bear their testimony against civil customs and institutions, even to personal suffering.  Hence, professing more than others, more is expected from them.  George Fox endeavoured to inculcate this idea into his new society.  In his letter to the yearly meeting in 1679, he expresses himself as follows:  “The world also does expect more from Friends than from other people, because they profess more.  Therefore you should be more just than others in your words and dealings, and more righteous, holy, and pure, in your lives and conversations; so that your lives and conversations may preach.  For the world’s tongues and mouths have preached long enough; but their lives and conversations have denied what their tongues have professed and declared.”  I may observe, therefore, that the circumstance of a more than ordinary profession of consistency, and not any supposed immorality on the part of the Quakers, has brought them, in the instances alluded to, under the censure of the world.  Other people, found in the same trades or occupations, are seldom noticed as doing wrong.  But when men are set as lights upon a hill, blemishes will be discovered in them, which will be overlooked among those who walk in the vale below.

The trades or occupations which are usually condemned as improper for Quakers to follow, are numerous.  I shall not therefore specify them all.  Those, however, which I purpose to select for mention, I shall accompany with all the distinctions which equity demands on the occasion.

The trade of a distiller, or of a spirit-merchant, is considered as objectionable if in the hands of a Quaker.

That of a cotton manufacturer, who employs a number of poor children in the usual way, or in a way which is destructive to their morals and to their health, is considered as equally deserving of censured.[4]

[Footnote 4:  Poor children are frequently sent by parishes to cotton-mills.  Little or no care is taken of their morals.  The men, when grown up, frequently become drunken, and the girls debauched.  But the evil does not stop here.  The progeny of these, vitiated by the drunkenness and debauchery of their parents, have generally diseased and crippled constitutions, which they perpetuate to a new generation; after which the whole race, I am told, generally becomes extinct.  What Christian can gain wealth at the expense of the health, morals, and happiness of his fellow-creatures?]