When a Quaker minister, after having commenced his journey, has entered the house of the first family, the individual members are collected to receive him.  They then sit in silence for a time.  As he believes himself concerned to speak, he delivers that which arises in his mind with religions freedom.  The master, the wife, and the other branches of the family, are sometimes severally addressed.  Does the minister feel that there is a departure in any of the persons present, from the principles or practice of the society, he speaks, if he believes it required of him, to these points.  Is there any well disposed person under any inward discouragement; this person may be addressed in the language of consolation.  All in fact are exhorted and advised as their several circumstances may seem to require.  When the religious visit is over, the minister, if there be occasion, takes some little refreshment with the family, and converses with them; but no light or trifling subject is ever entered upon on these occasions.  From one family he passes on to another, till he has visited all the families in the district, for which he had felt a concern.

Though Quaker ministers frequently confine their spiritual labours to the county or quarterly meeting in which they reside, yet some of them feel an engagement to go beyond these boundaries, and to visit the society in particular counties, or in the kingdom at large.  They who feel a concern of this kind, must lay it before their own monthly meetings.  These meetings, if they feel it right to countenance it, grant them certificates for the purpose.  These certificates are necessary; first, because ministers might not he personally known as ministers out of their own district; and secondly, because Quakers, who were not ministers, and other persons who might counterfeit the dress of Quakers, might otherwise impose upon the society, as they travelled along.

Such persons, as thus travel in the work of the ministry, or public friends as they are called, seldom or never go to an inn at any town or village, where Quakers live.  They go to the houses of the latter.  While at these, they attend the weekly, monthly, and quarterly meetings of the district, as they happen on their route.  They call also extraordinary meetings of worship.  At these houses they are visited by many of the members of the place and neighbourhood, who call upon and converse with them.  During these times they appear to have their minds bent on the object of their mission, so that it would be difficult to divert their attention from the work in hand.  When they have staid a sufficient time at a town or village, they depart.  One or more guides are appointed by the particular meeting, belonging to it, to show them the way to the next place, where they propose to labour, and to convey them free of expense, and to conduct them to the house of some member there.  From this house, when their work is finished, they are conveyed and conducted by new guides to another, and so on, till they return to their respective homes.