during these meetings of the men, one of them held
the office of drawing up and recording the minutes
of the proceedings or resolutions that had taken
place, The women also appoint one of their own
body to the same office. I stated again, that, in
these meetings of the men, some were chosen as a
committee to act in particular cases. So also are
women chosen to act as a committee by their own
meetings. I explained the nature of the office of
overseer, and I observed that there were overseers
among the men. There are also overseers among
the women.
I explained the nature of the office of
elder, and I observed that there were elders among
the men.
The women have their elders likewise.
The men were said to preach as in other societies.
The women are permitted to preach also. In short,
if the men consider themselves to be qualified for
any office belonging their religious discipline, they
believe their women to be equally capable of holding
the same. No distinction is made as to the powers of
usefulness between the men and the women of this
society. There are few offices held by men, but there
is a corresponding one for those of the other sex.*

The execution of these and other public offices, by which the Quaker women have an important

*The principal exceptions are, that they are not correspondents, arbitrators, legislators, or on committees of appeal,

station allotted them in society, cannot but have an important influence on their minds. It gives them, in fact, a new cast of character. It imparts to them, in the first place, a considerable knowledge of human nature. It produces in them thought, and foresight, and judgment. It creates in them a care and concern for the distressed.* It elevates their ideas. It raises in them a sense of their own dignity and importance as human beings, which sets them above every thing that is little and trifling, and above all idle parade and shew. Fond as they are of the animal creation, you do not see them lavishing their caresses on lap-dogs, to the contempt of the poor and miserable of their own species. You never see them driving from shop to shop to make up a morning's amusement, by examining and throwing out of order the various articles of tradesmen, giving them great trouble, and buying nothing in return. You never find them calling upon those whom they know to be absent from their homes, thus making their mimic visits, and leaving their useless cards. Nothing, in short, so ridiculous or degrading, is known among them. Their pursuits are rational, useful, and dignified. And they may be said in general to exhibit a model for the employment of time, worthy of the character they profess.

Miscellaneous Particulars

RELATIVE TO THE

QUAKERS.

MISCELLANEOUS PARTICULARS

RELATIVE TO THE

QUAKER S.

CHAP. I.

Quakers a happy people-Subordinate causes of this happiness namely, their comfortable situationtheir attachment to domestic life-their almost constant employment-this happiness not broken like that of others, by an interruption of the routine of constituted pleasures-or by anger and other passions or by particular enquiries and notions about religion.

IF a

a person were to judge of the Quakers by the general gravity of their countenances, and were to take into consideration, at the same time, the circumstance, that they never partook of the amusements of the world, in which he placed a part of his own pleasures, he would be induced to conclude, that they had dull and gloomy minds, and that they could not be upon the whole a happy people. Such a conclusion, however, would be contrary to the