These circumstances of coolness and sobriety, when called into action, will only confirm the world in the opinion of the existence of the trait in question.  For it will not be easy to deceive a man of but moderate understanding, who never loses his senses either by intoxication or by passion.  And what man, in such habits, will not make a better bargain than one who is hot in his temper, or who is accustomed to be intoxicated?

Hence the trait arises from appearances, which are the result of circumstances, favourable to the morality of the Quaker character.

CHAP.  XVII.

Last bad trait is a disregard of truth—­Apparent rise of this trait—­Falsehood of it probable from considerations on the language of the Quakers—­from their prohibition of detraction—­their rejection of romantic books—­their punctuality to words and engagements—­and their ideas with respect to the unlawfulness of civil oaths.

The last charge against the Quakers will be seen in a vulgar expression, which should have had no place in this book, if it had not been a saying in almost every body’s mouth.  The expression, is, “Though they will not swear, they will lie.”

This trait has arisen in part from those different circumstances, which have produced the appearance of evasiveness.  For if people are thought evasive, they will always be thought liars.  Evasiveness and lying are almost synonimous terms.  It is not impossible also, if Quakers should appear to give a doubtful answer, that persons may draw false conclusions from thence, and therefore may suppose them to have spoken falsely.  These two circumstances of an apparent evasiveness, and probably of a deduction of conclusions from doubtful or imaginary premises, have, I apprehend, produced an appearance, which the world has interpreted into evil.

No trait, however, can be more false than this.  I know of no people, who regard truth more than the Quakers.  Their whole system bends and directs to truth.  One of the peculiarities of their language, or their rejection of many of the words which other people use, because they consider them as not religiously appropriate to the objects of which they are the symbols, serves as a constant admonition to them to speak the truth.

Their prohibition of all slanderous reports, as mentioned in a former volume, has a tendency to produce the same effect; for detraction is forbidden partly on the idea, that all such rumours on character may be false.

They reject also the reading of plays and novels, partly under a notion, that the subjects and circumstances in these are fictitious, and that a taste therefore, for the reading, of these, if acquired, might familiarize their youth with fictions, and produce in them a romantic and lying spirit.

It is a trait, again, in the character of the Quakers, as we have seen, that they are remarkable for their punctuality in the performance of their words and engagements.  But such punctuality implies neither more nor less, than that the words spoken by Quakers are generally fulfilled; and, if they are generally fulfilled, then the inference is, that all such words have been generally truths.