and

spurs, for a trial of speed, in consequence of a moneyed stake, is considered by them to be criminal. The horse was made for the use of man, to carry his body and transport his burthens; but he was never made to engage in painful conflicts with other horses, on account of the avarice of his owner. Hence, the pitting together of two cocks for a trial of victory is considered as equally criminal. For the cock, whatever may be his destined object among the winged creation, has been long useful to man in awakening him from unseasonable slumber, and in sounding to him the approach of day. But it was never intended that he should be employed to the injury and destruction of himself, or to the injury and destruction of his own species. In the same manner the Quakers condemn the hunting of animals, except on the plea of necessity, or that they cannot be destroyed, if their death be required, in any other way. For, whatever may be their several uses, or the several ends of their existence in creation, they were never created to be so used by man, that they should suffer, and this entirely for his sport. Whoever puts animals

to

to cruel and unnatural uses, disturbs, in the opinion of the Quakers, the harmony of creation, and offends God.

They are of opinion, in the second place, that the renovated man must have in his own benevolent spirit such an exalted sense of the benevolent spirit of the Creator, as to believe that he never constituted any part of animated nature, without assigning it its proper share of happiness during the natural time of its existence; or, that it was to have its moment, its hour, its day, or its year of pleasure. And if this be the case, he must believe also, that any interruption of its tranquillity, without the plea of necessity, must be an innovation of its rights as a living being.

They believe also, that the renovated man, who loves all the works of the Creator, will carry every divine law, which has been revealed to him, as far as it is possible to be carried on account of a similarity of natures, through all animated creation, and particularly that law, which forbids him to do to another what he would dislike to be done unto himself. Now this law is founded on the sense of bodily, and on the

sense

sense of mental, feeling. The mental feelings of men and brutes, or the reason of man and the instinct of animals, are different. But their bodily feelings are alike, and they are in their due proportions susceptible of pain. The nature, therefore, of man and of animals is alike in this particular. He can anticipate and know their feelings by his own. He cannot, therefore, subject them to any action unnecessarily, if on account of a similar construction of his own organs such an action would produce pain to himself. His own power of feeling strongly commands sympathy with all that can feel. And that general sympathy, which arises to a man when he sees pain inflicted on the person of any indivi dual of his own species, will arise, in the opinion of the Quakers, to the renovated man, when he sees it inflicted on the body of any brute.

CHAP

CHAPTER VIII.

Objections started by philosophical moralists to the preceding system of education-"This system a prohibitory one-Prohibitions sometimes the cause of greater evils than they prevent they may confuse morality, and break the spiritthey render the vicious more vicious--and are not to be relied upon as effectual, because built -on a false foundation-Ignorance is no guardian of virtue Causes, not sub-causes, are to be contended against-No certain security but in knowledge and a love of virtue-Prohibitions, where effectual, produce but a sluggish virtue."

I

HAVE now mentioned the principal prohibitions that are to be found in the moral edu cation of the Quakers and I have annexed to these the various reasons which they themselves give why they were introduced into their Society. I have therefore finished this part of my task, and the reader will expect me to proceed to the next subject. But as I am certain that many objections will be started here, I shall stop for a few minutes to state and to consider them.

The

The Quakers differ on the subject of moral education very materially from the world, and indeed from those of the world, who, having had a more than ordinarily liberal education, may be supposed to have, in most cases, a more than ordinarily correct judgment. The Quaker system, as we have seen, consists principally of specific prohibitions. These prohibitions, again, are extended occasionally to things which are not in themselves vicious. They are extended, again, to these, because it is possible that they may be made productive of evil. And they are founded apparently on the prin→ ciple, that ignorance of such things secures innocence; or that ignorance, in such cases, has the operation of a preventive of vice, or a preservative of virtue.

Philosophical moralists, on the other hand, are friends to occasional indulgencies. They see nothing inherently or necessarily mischievous, either in the theatre, or in the concert-room, or in the ball-room, or in the circulating library, or in many other places of resort. If a young female, say they, situated in a provincial town, were to see a play annually, would it not give her animation,

and