season of anarchy and destruction, the Society of Friends lost more than one of its members by the violence of war. And this was a young man who had deviated from their principles, in a faithful adherence to which, his brethren in profession were so wonderfully preserved. This youth, apprehending that he could find no safety for his life but by outward means of defence, resolved to put on a military uniform, and to associate with armed men. Telling his connections that they would all be murdered, if they remained in the country in so defenceless a state, he fled to a neighboring garrison-town. But this very place was attacked and taken; the door of the house where he had been firing from a window, was forced open by the enraged enemy; and though, in terror for his life, he sought concealment in the chimney of an upper chamber, he was discovered and put to death; furnishing an awful example of the sad result of casting away confidence in the protecting arm of the Almighty, and bartering the pure principles of Christianity for a reliance on the arm of flesh.

But the follower of a crucified Lord must not expect always to escape from suffering, nor make his allegiance depend on a hope of security in this life. He may be required at times even to offer up his natural life, as a seal to his testimony for a good conscience. At Kilbroney, in the county of Wexford, were two brothers, named John and Samuel Jones: neither of whom was ever in membership with Friends, but the latter had attended their meetings, and was attached to their principles. The following affecting circumstances will scarcely be denied to entitle them (particularly the younger) to the name of Christian martyrs.

Samuel was of a meek and gentle spirit, and remarked for the benevolence of his disposition. He had of late become increasingly serious, and expressed on different occasions an apprehension of being shortly taken away. The two brothers were taken prisoners by the insurgents, con

veyed to Scullabogue, and confined in a house close to a barn, in which a few days afterwards, a large number of their fellow-creatures, men, women, and children, were horribly burnt to death. Upwards of two hundred were massacred in this way, and by shooting them in the adjacent lawn. John Jones, the elder brother, was now brought into a close searching of heart, and found cause to lament that in time past he had not sought after a preparation for death; but was encouraged by his brother to faithfulness. Samuel's wife was permitted to accompany them to their prison; and on the morning of the day when the barn was burnt, as they were reading the New Testament, she inquired of one of the guards, the cause of the peculiar smell, which she perceived, like burning animal matter. He coolly told her, it was some beefsteaks preparing for breakfast! To a further inquiry, "What was meant by the firing of guns?" he replied, "that it was some criminals. they were shooting." About five minutes after this, the three were taken from the prison into the lawn, and Samuel was required to turn to the Romish religion. He replied, "Where shall I turn, but where my God is?" And being urged to have his children undergo the ceremony of water-baptism, he said, "My children are innocent; and I will leave them so." Some person now saying that these prisoners "were Quakers," it was replied that if they could make it appear that they were so, they should not be put to death. But as they were neither of them really members, this could not be done. Some of them now took Samuel aside, and offered him his life on certain conditions; but finding these to conflict with his sense of religious duty, he firmly rejected them; and when the "holy water," as they termed it, was brought to them, he turned his back upon it, in testimony against their bigotry.

He encouraged his brother John to faithfulness to the last, fearing lest his steadfastness might give way; and re

minded him of the words of our blessed Saviour; "Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven;" and "he that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it." John was then shot by the insurgents. Samuel desired his love to be given to certain Friends, whom he named; but the party endeavored to work upon his feelings, by falsely asserting that they had already forfeited their lives at the camp. To this however he meekly replied, "then they died innocent." He now took an affectionate leave of his wife, who with admirable fortitude stood by him and held his hand, until he was shot by the side of his brother. His last words were those with which he had endeavored to encourage his brother, and which now afforded inexpressible support to himself; "He that loseth his life for My sake, shall find it."

A

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE SEPARATION IN IRELAND, IN 1799, ETC.

LTHOUGH many were thus faithful in maintaining their testimony to the peaceable nature of the Gospel, during a season of sore trial, yet there were at this time in various parts of the nation, those under our name who had imbibed more or less of a sceptical and self-righteous spirit. These deluding themselves and others by false pretensions to spirituality, and greater light on religious subjects than their brethren in that or former ages, began to promulgate many wild and unsound notions relative to certain important doctrines of the Christian religion. In

flated by a fond conceit of their own attainments, and by the presumptuous idea that they possessed the plenary inspiration of the Spirit, and therefore needed not the fainter. light of external evidence, they boldly rejected a large portion of the sacred volume, renounced the epithet “Holy,” as applied to the Scriptures, and set up in their stead the wild vagaries of their own feverish imaginations. They strenuously advocated the propriety of bringing every subject to the test of reason; and deciding on its credibility, by its accordance with their ideas of what such a Being as they chose to consider the Creator, ought to require of his rational creatures. But while they were high in profession of "rational belief," they adopted and openly professed many absurd and extravagant notions.

Discontented and restless in themselves, and conscious that they were professing to be what the Searcher of hearts knew they were not, they seemed ready to catch at any novelty, either in faith or practice, which promised to make them conspicuous as reformers of the Society, or, by occupying their attention, to divert them from a sense of their own corruptions, and their great need of a change of heart. Renouncing the faith of their fathers, and disdaining the pure and simple doctrines of Christianity, they struck out for themselves a new system; a primary feature of which was, a denial of the truths recorded in the Bible, under the specious pretence, that the "light within," as they irreverently termed what was nothing more than their own fallen reason, or the workings of a morbid imagination, had enabled them to see beyond all outward evidence. Hence they rejected as untrue, the doctrine of the "eternal power and godhead" of our Lord Jesus Christ, his propitiatory sacrifice on the cross for the sins of mankind, his mediation, and his intercession; regarding him in no higher point of view, than as a blessed example and holy pattern. Indeed, with the confidence which they had

in their own righteousness, it was impossible that they should believe in a necessity of His atonement for their sins. Not satisfied with the clear and sublime account written by Moses, of the creation of the world, they declared it an allegory: they mysticized the description of the garden of Eden into a mere metaphorical account of the human heart and its propensities, asserting that it was never intended to be construed literally: and by the same method they evaded the force of other parts of the Bible, which did not comport with their own notions.

Conceiving that no act connected with religion was obligatory upon them without a special and immediate impulse of duty, they declined the salutary practice of observing the First-day of the week as a day of rest and religious exercises, pursued their usual avocations, and refused to assemble at stated times for the purpose of Divine worship; only attending when they considered themselves particularly moved thereto, which would sometimes happen to be at the time the assembly were about to separate.

Against the consistent members of the Society of Friends, they inveighed with much acrimony and zeal, as formal, traditional, and lapsed professors, resting in the commandments of their fathers, and adding thereto the superstitions and corruptions of other religious societies. The excellent code of discipline which for many years had proved a means of preservation and strength to the church, they became dissatisfied with, wishing to remove all restraints, and leave every man at liberty to "do that which was right in his own eyes."

About this time, Hannah Barnard, of Hudson in the state of New York, who occupied the station of a minister, opened to her Monthly Meeting a desire to visit Great Britain and Ireland. Friends of that place, though probably in some degree influenced by affectionate feelings in