monition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." Shall we wonder if, professing to be wise, it has often become foolish; if, boasting of its light, that light has sometimes been darkness.

The error in this case has been closely connected with one formerly noticed, on the rule of faith. The annals of the holy nation are contained in the books written by "holy men of God." And to study the elders it would be necessary to consult the apostles and prophets. Till, therefore, Friends estimate more highly the character of the revelation, it is scarcely to be expected that they should study the things which have been revealed.

CHAPTER VI.

QUAKER PECULIARITIES OF PRACTICE.

THE most important of these may be comprehended in what Friends call their "plainness of speech, behaviour, and apparel." To many, a Quaker is better known as a man with a broad-brim, and a cut-away coat, making use of "thee" and "thou," and avoiding the customary salutations, than by any doctrinal tenets. And, though those may appear small matters to many, they cannot be properly overlooked in an essay like the present. These things must have proved a source either of strength or of weakness. Either, being right where all the world besides is wrong, Friends must have found, in their attachment to the line of duty, in the stand they have made for the right, the firmness they have displayed in overcoming the petty annoyances to which it has perpetually exposed them, that which will brace them for greater efforts of self-denial in matters of acknowledged importance. Or, on the other hand, being punctilious where it was not required, having bound themselves down where God has left them free, having raised a needless wall of

separation between themselves and others, and shaped out a course in which consistency was impracticable, they must have contracted their sympathies, expended much of their strength on what has really nothing to commend it, and hampered their actions by petty and frivolous distinctions without any warrant in the divine word. It cannot be that a body of men should have persisted in so singular a course for two centuries, without its telling in other directions, making them either more conscientious, or more weakly formal.

Perhaps this is to state the matter too simply. The two classes of effects which appear so opposite, may both have been experienced to some extent. Some may have been more largely affected by the one, and some by the other, according as their minds have been occupied with the general doctrine, or with the details in which it has usually found expression. The doctrine is good that men should be truthful in their expressions, their actions, their appearance; that that fulsome mode of address should be avoided which implies the use of flattery; that those actions should be eschewed which give token of servility; that care should be taken in apparel that we do not feed vanity. This general doctrine, we say, is highly commendable, and Friends may be allowed their fair meed of praise in proclaiming it, for protesting against the follies and extravagances of the world, and silently checking them. What we are by no means so sure of is the propriety of making a stand at exactly the point at which they have done so, and whether they have not been contending for what could not be defended, and protesting against what is not really blameable. Our object at present being to point out the causes which have contributed to the weakness of Quakerism, without animadverting on all the peculiarities of practice to which we have alluded, we proceed to specify one or two instances in which we believe Friends have failed by mistaking punctilios for truths of philosophic accuracy, and raised a standard which, if carried out to all its legitimate consequences, would be found to be really impracticable.

PRONOUNS, SINGULAR AND PLURAL.

To this subject Gurney refers as follows: "Among the various modes of expression upon which it is my present object to treat, the most common, and, at the same time, most absurd, is the application to individuals of pronouns and verbs in the plural number. The use of the plural form of the first personal pronoun, instead of the singular, is commonly adopted, in their public rescripts and other documents, by monarchs, and, sometimes, by other persons placed in a situation of high authority.

Such

a custom, in its early commencement, was probably adopted only as a mark of respect to superiors; and, unquestionably, for a long time, it found no place in addresses to inferiors. But even this distinction is gradually wearing away; a form of speech, which was at one time a mark of distinction, is become universally familiar. The thou and thee, in the daily communications between man and man, are disused; and every individual, as if supposed to consist of several persons, is addressed with plural pronouns and verbs. Now, we apprehend that our heavenly Guide, whose Spirit is expressly called "the Spirit of truth," and whose will is directly opposed to all unrighteous vanities, of whatsoever magnitude and description they may be, has taught us, in our communications one with another, and with our fellow-men, to abstain from the use of these various complimentary fictions." —(On the Society of Friends, chap. xii., pp. 419, 420.) Such language shews the importance which Friends attach to. this particular. Is it borne out by reason and by Scripture?

1. As to the reason of the thing, it may be observed that the use of words to denote definite ideas is purely arbitrary. There seems to be no reason but what arises from use and wont why one set of vocables should represent one individual, and another two or more-why one should be used to the person addressed, and another be representative of the person addressing. In fact, in diffe

rent languages we find that the same sounds stand for very different ideas. For instance, the third personal pronoun masculine and feminine, in Hebrew (as read with the points), is pronounced very much as our words who and he. And we do not feel guilty of any violation of truth when we say that hoo means he, and he means she. In our own language we have often several words for the same idea, as, for instance, felicity and happiness, lexicon and dictionary, monarch and sovereign, &c. &c. To call a coach a vehicle, and a rider a horseman does not imply any breach of truth. Then again words change their meaning in the lapse of time. Take the following as examples:-"Almost all such words as 'acre,' 'furlong,' 'yard,' 'gallon,' 'peck,' were once of a vague and unsettled use, and only at a later day, and in obedience to the requirements of commerce and social life, exact measures and designations. Thus every field was once an 'acre;' and this remains so still with the German acker,' and in our 'God's acre,' as a name for a churchyard; it was not till about the reign of Edward the First that 'acre' was commonly restricted to a determined measure and portion of land. Here and there even now a glebeland will be called the acre; and this, even while it contains not one but many of our measured acres. A 'furlong' was a 'furrow-long,' or length of a furrow. Any pole was a 'yard,' and this vaguer use survives in 'sailyard,' 'halyard,' and in other sea-terms. Every pitcher was a 'galon' (Mark xiv. 13, Wiclif), while a 'peck' was no more than a 'poke' or bag. And the same has no doubt taken place in all other languages."―(Trench's English Past and Present, Lecture iv., pp. 187, 188.) Again:-"Take 'equivocal,' equivocate,' equivocation.' These words, which belonged at first to logic, have slipped down into common use, and in so doing have lost all the accuracy of their first employment. 'Equivocation' is now almost any such dealing in ambiguous words with the intention of deceiving, as falls short of an actual lie; but according to its etymology and in its primary use, 'equivocation,' this fruitful mother of so much error, is the calling by the same name of things es

sentially diverse, hiding intentionally or otherwise a real difference under a verbal resemblance."-(p. 190, 191.)

Now the sounds and letters which compose the words ye and you are quite as simple as those which enter into thou and thee; and there is no reason, in the nature of the thing, why the first pair should not indicate a single individual as well as the second. Neither is there any reason why, having first stood for the plural only, they should never be used of the singular, any more than why the words "preposterous," ," "equivocate," "prevaricate," having once had a strict and well-defined shade of meaning proper to them, should not be now used in a wider and looser signification. The Quaker, to be consistent, should not only adhere to thee and thou, but should refuse to attach to any word a new shade of meaning, or to depart, in the slightest, from the usage of Johnson.

But the truth is, that modern Friends, in the use of thee and thou, are adhering formally, rather than really, to the practice of their predecessors. This follows from the words of Gurney quoted above, in which it is stated that the plural pronouns have been gradually extending in their application, from a class to a common use. But it comes

out more strongly in the following extract from a work quoted above:— "In the seventeenth century it was with 'thou' in English as it is still with 'du' in German, with 'tu' in French; being, as it then was, the sign of familiarity, whether that familiarity was of love, or of contempt and scorn. It was not unfrequently the latter. Thus, at Sir Walter Raleigh's trial (1603), Coke, when argument and evidence failed him, insulted the defendant by applying to him the term 'thou': 'All that Lord Cobham did was at thy instigation, thou viper! for I thou thee, thou traitor!' And when Sir Toby Belch, in Twelfth Night, is urging Sir Andrew Aguecheek to send a sufficiently provocative challenge to Viola, he suggests to him that he 'taunt him with the licence of ink; if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss.' To keep this in mind will throw considerable light on one early peculiarity of the Quakers, and give a certain dignity to it, as once main