This outward appearance, strange to relate, arises in part from an amiable trait in the character of the Quakers!!  Their great desire to speak the truth, and not to exceed it, occasions often a sort of doubtfulness of speech.  It occasions them also, instead of answering a question immediately, to ask other questions, that they may see the true bearings of the thing intended to be known.  The same appearance of doubt runs also through the whole society in all those words which relate to promises, from the same cause.  For the Quakers, knowing the uncertainty of all human things, and the impossibility of fulfilling but provisionally, seldom, as I have observed before, promise any thing positively, that they may not come short of the truth.  The desire therefore of uttering the truth has in part brought this accusation upon their heads.

Other circumstances also to be found within the Quaker constitution have a tendency to produce the same effect.

In their monthly and quarterly and annual meetings for discipline, they are taught by custom to watch the propriety of the expressions that are used in the wording of their minutes, that these may accurately represent the sense of the persons present.  And this habit of caution about the use of words in the affairs of their own society naturally begets a caution concerning it also in their intercourse with the world.

The peculiarities of their language produce also a similar circumspection.  For where people are restrained from the use of expressions which are gene rally adopted by others, and this in the belief that, as a highly professing people, they ought to be watchful over their words as well as their actions, a sort of hesitation will accompany them, or a sort of pause will be perceptible, while they are choosing as it were the proper words for a reply to any of the questions that may be asked them.

CHAP.  XVI.

Another trait is that of shyness—­This an appearance only, arising from the former trait—­and from that of coldness of manners—­and from the great sobriety of the Quaker character.

Another bad trait, which the world has fixed upon the Quakers, is that of being a sly people.  This trait has been long given them.  We find it noticed by Pope: 

   “The Quaker sly, the Presbyterian sour.”

This charge is grounded on appearances.  It arises in part from the last mentioned trait in their character; for if men be thought cautious in the use of their words, and evasive in their answers, whether they be so or not, they will be marked as sly.

It arises again from the trait of want of animation or of coldness of manners.  For if men of good understanding, in consequence of the subjugation of their passions, appear always to be cool, they will have an appearance of wariness.

It arises again from the great sobriety of the Quakers.  For where men are always sober, they appear to be always on their guard, and men, who are always on their guard, are reputed cunning.