CHAP.  V.

Settlement of differences—­Quakers, when they differ, abstain from violence—­No instance of a duel—­George For protested against going to law, and Recommended arbitration-Laws relative to arbitration—­Account of an arbitration-society, at Newcastle upon Tyne, on Quaker-principles —­Its dissolution—­Such societies might be usefully promoted.

Men are so constituted by nature, and their mutual intercourse is such, that circumstances must unavoidably arise, which will occasion differences.  These differences will occasionally rouse the passions; and, after all, they will still be to be settled.  The Quakers, like other men, have their differences.  But you rarely see any disturbance of the temper on this account.  You rarely hear intemperate invectives.  You are witness to no blows.  If in the courts of law you have never seen their characters stained by convictions for a breach of the marriage-contract, or the crime of adultery; so neither have you seen them disgraced by convictions for brutal violence, or that most barbarous of all Gothic customs, the duel.

It is a lamentable fact, when we consider that we live in an age, removed above eighteen hundred years from the first promulgation of Christianity, one of the great objects of which was to insist upon the subjugation of the passions, that our children should not have been better instructed, than that we should now have to behold men, of apparently good education, settling their disputes by an appeal to arms.  It is difficult to conceive what preposterous principles can actuate men, to induce them to such a mode of decision.  Justice is the ultimate wish of every reasonable man in the termination of his casual differences with others, But, in the determination of cases by the sword, the injured man not unfrequently falls, while the aggressor sometimes adds to his offence, by making a widow or an orphan, and by the murder of of a fellow-creature.  But it is possible the duellist may conceive that he adds to his reputation by decisions of this sanguinary nature.  But surely he has no other reputation with good men, than that of a weak, or a savage, or an infatuated creature; and, if he fells, he is pitied by these on no other motive than that of his folly and of his crime.  What philosopher can extol his courage, who, knowing the bondage of the mind while under the dominion of fashion, believes that more courage is necessary in refusing a challenge, than in going into the field?  What legislator can applaud his patriotism, when he sees him violate the laws of his country?  What Christian his religion, when he reflects on the relative duties of man, on the law of lore and benevolence that should have guided him, on the principle that it is more noble to suffer than to resist, and on the circumstance, that he may put himself into the doubly criminal situation of a murderer and a suicide by the same act?