It has been an established rule with the Quakers, from the formation of their society, not to temporize, or to violate their consciences, or, in other words, not to do that which as a body of Christians they believe to be wrong, though the usages of the world, or the government of the country under which they live, should require it, but rather to submit to the frowns and indignation of the one, and the legal penalties annexed to their disobedience by the other.  This suffering in preference of the violation of their consciences, is what the Quakers call “the bearing of their testimony,” or a demonstration to the world, by the “testimony of their own example,” that they consider it to be the duty of Christians rather to suffer, than to have any concern with that which they conceive to be evil.

The Quakers, in putting this principle into practice, stand, I believe, alone.  For I know of no other Christians, who as a body[34] pay this homage to their scruples, or who determine upon an ordeal of suffering in preference of a compromise with their ease and safety.

[Footnote 34:  The Moravians, I believe, protest against war upon scriptural grounds.  But how far in this, or in any other case, they bear a testimony, like the Quakers, by suffering, I do not know.]

The subjects, in which this trait is conspicuous, are of two kinds, first as they relate to things enjoined by the government, and secondly as they relate to things enjoined by the customs or fashions of the world.

In the first case there was formerly much more suffering than there is at present, though the Quakers still refuse a compliance with as many injunctions of the law as they did in their early times.

It has been already stated that they refused, from the very institution of their society, to take a civil oath.  The sufferings, which they underwent in consequence, have been explained also.  But happily, by the indulgence of the legislature, they are no longer persecuted for this scruple, though they still persevere in it, their affirmation having been made equal to an oath in civil cases.

It has been stated again, that they protested against the religious observance of many of those days, which the government of the country for various considerations had ordered to be kept as holy.  In consequence of this they were grievously oppressed in the early times of their history.  For when their shops were found open on Christmas day, and on Good Friday, and on the different fast-days which had been appointed, they were taken up and punished by the magistrates on the one hand, and insulted and beaten by the people on the other.  But, notwithstanding this ill usage, they persevered as rigidly in the non-observance of particular days and times, as in their non-compliance with oaths, and they still persevere in it.  It does not appear, however, that their bearing of their testimony in this case is any longer a source of much vexation or trouble to them:  for though the government of the country still sanctions the consecration of particular days, and, the great majority of the people join in it, there seems, to have been a progressive knowledge or civilization in both, which has occasioned them to become tender on account of this singular deviation from their own practice.