brutes of the field.  Their discipline, again, has a tendency to produce in them an anxious concern for the good of their fellow-creatures.  Man is considered, in the theory of this discipline, as a being, for whose spiritual welfare the members are bound to watch.  They are to take an interest in his character and his happiness.  If he be overtaken in a fault, he is not to be deserted, but reclaimed.  No endeavour is to be spared for his restoration.  He is considered, in short, as a creature, worthy of all the pains and efforts that can be bestowed upon him.

The religion of the Quakers furnishes also a cause, which occasions them to consider man in an elevated light.  They view him, as may be collected from the preceding volume, as a temple of the Spirit of God.  There is no man, so mean in station, who is not made capable by the Quakers of feeling the presence of the Divinity within him.  Neither sect, nor country, nor colour, excludes him, in their opinion, from this presence.  But it is impossible to view man as a tabernacle, in which the Divinity may reside, without viewing him in a dignified manner.  And though this doctrine of the agency of the Spirit dwelling in man belongs to many other Christian societies, yet it is no where so systematically acted upon as by that of the Quakers.

These considerations may probably induce the reader to believe, that the trait of benevolence, which has been affixed to the Quaker character, has not been given it in vain.  There can be no such feeling for the moral interests of man, or such a benevolent attention towards him in his temporal capacity, where men have been accustomed to see one another in low and degrading characters, as where no such spectacles have occurred.  Nor can there be such a genuine or well founded love towards him, where men, on a signal given by their respective governments, transform their pruning-hooks into spears, and become tygers to one another without any private provocation, as where they can be brought under no condition whatever, to lift up their arm to the injury of any of the human race.  There must, in a practical system of equality, be a due appreciation of man as man.  There must, in a system where it is a duty to watch over him, for his good, be a tender attention towards him as a fellow creature.  And in a system, which considers him as a temple in which the Divine Being may dwell, there must be a respect towards him, which will have something like the appearance of a benevolent disposition to the world.

SECT.  II.

Trait of benevolence includes again good will towards man in his religious capacity—­Quakers said to have no spirit of persecution, nor to talk with bitterness, with respect to other religious sects—­This trait probable—­because nothing in their doctrines that narrows love—­their sufferings on the other hand—­and their law against detraction—­and their aversion to making religion a subject of common talk—­all in favour of this trait.