CHAP.  IV.

Supposed remedies for the diminution of some of these causes—­Regulations in the case of mixed marriages—­Measures to be adopted in the pursuit of trade—­Education, as it is moral or religious, to be more strictly enforced in some families—­as it is literary or philosophical, to be carried to a greater extent among the children of the rich—­Object of this latter education—­Nature of it as consisting both knowledge and prohibitions—­How it would operate against the fascinating allurements of the world, or to the end proposal.

I Purpose now to suggest, as briefly as I can, such opinions, as, if adopted, might possibly operate as remedies to some of the evils which have been described.  In doing this I am aware of the difficulties that await me.  I am sensible that I ought not to be too sanguine as to the result of all my observations upon this subject and yet, I cannot but think, that I may be successful in some of them.  Arduous, however, as the task, and dubious as my success may be, I am encouraged, on the prospect of being but partially useful, to undertake it.

On the first of the original and immediate causes which have been mentioned, I mean mixed marriages, I shall have but little to say.  I do not see how it is possible, while the society means to keep up a due subordination among its members, not to disown such as may marry out of it.  In mixed families, such as these marriages produce, it is in vain to expect that the discipline can be carried on, as has been shewn in the second volume.  And, without this discipline, the society would hardly keep up, in the extensive manner it does, the character of a moral people.  I think, however, that some good might be done by regulations to be universally observed.  Thus they, who are deputed to inform the disowned of their exclusion from membership, should be of the most amiable temper and conciliatory manners.  Every unqualified person should be excluded from these missions.  Permission should be solicited for both the married persons to be present on such occasions.  It is difficult to estimate the good effect which the deputed, if of sweet and tender dispositions, or the bad effects which the deputed, if of cold and austere manners, might have upon those they visited, or what bias it might give the one in particular, who had never been in membership, for or against the society.  Permission also might be solicited, even when the mission was over for future friendly opportunities or visits, which would shew in the society itself a tender regard and solicitude for the welfare of its former members.  It is not at all improbable, from the impression which such apparent regard and solicitude might occasion, that the children of the visited, though not members, might be brought up in the rules of membership.  And finally it appears to me to be desirable, that the disowned, if they should give proof by their own lives and the education of their children, of their attachment to the principles of the society, and should solicit restoration to membership, should be admitted into it again without any acknowledgment of past errors, and wholly as new and convinced members.