How again are these customs and principles of the Quakers promotive of independence of mind?  I answer thus:  There is a natural independence of mind in man, but it is often broken and weakened.  Some men injure it by the solicitation and acceptance of honours, and pensions, and places; others by flattery and falsehood; others by customs of obeisance; others by their obedience to fashion.  But the independence of mind of the Quakers is not stunted in its growth by the chiding blasts of such circumstances and habits.  It is invigorated, on the other hand, by their own laws.  No servility is allowed either in word or gesture.  Neither that which is written, nor that which is uttered, is to please the vanity of the persons addressed, or to imply services never intended to be performed.  The knee is not to be bent to any one.  It is strengthened again and made to shoot by their own maxims.  Is it possible to be in the habit of viewing all men as equal in privileges, and no one as superior to another but by his virtue, and not to feel a disposition that must support it?  Can the maxim of never doing evil that good may come, when called into exercise, do otherwise than cherish it?  And can reasoning upon principle have any other effect than that of being promotive of its growth?

These then are the ways in which these customs and principles operate.  Now the advantage to be derived from seeing this manner of their operation, consists in this:  First, that we know to a certainty, that they act towards the production of virtue.  Knowing again what these customs and principles are, we know those which we are bound to cherish.  We find also, that there are various springs which act upon the moral constitution for the formation of character.  We find some of these great and powerful, and others inferior.  This consideration should teach us not to despise even those which are the least, if they have but a tendency to promote our purity.  For if the effect of any of them be only small, a number of effects of little causes or springs, when added together, may be as considerable as a large one.  Of these again we observe, that some are to be round where many would hardly have expected them.  This consideration should make us careful to look into all our customs and principles, that we may not overlook any one which we may retain for our moral good.  And as we learn the lesson of becoming vigilant to discover every good spring, and not to neglect the least of these, however subtle its operation, so we learn the necessity of vigilance to detect every spring or cause, and this even the least, whether in our customs or our principles, if it should in its tendency be promotive of vice.

And in the same manner we may argue with respect to other productions of these customs and principles of the Quakers.  As we have seen the latter lead to character, so we have seen them lead to happiness.  The manner of their operation to this end has been also equally discernible.  As we value them because they produce the one, so we should value them because they produce the other.  We have seen also which of them to value.  And we should be studious to cherish the very least of these, as we should be careful to discard the least of those which are productive of real and merited unhappiness to the mind.