anger, as tending to raise those feelings which ought to be suppressed. A raising even of their voice beyond due bounds is discouraged, as leading to the disturbance of their minds. They are taught to rise in the morning in quietness, to go about their ordinary occupations with quietness, and to retire in quietness to their beds. Educated in this manner, we seldom see a noisy or an irascible Quaker. This kind of education is universal among true Quakers. It is adopted at home. It is adopted in their schools. The great and practical philanthropist John Howard, when he was at Ackworth, which is the great public school of the Society, was so struck with the quiet deportment of the children there, that he mentioned it with approbation in his work on Lazarettos, and gave to the public some of its rules as models for imitation in other seminaries.

3

But if the Quakers believe that this pure principle, if attended to, is an infallible guide to them in their religious or spiritual concerns; if they believe that its influences are best discovered in the quietness and silence of their senses; if, moreover, they educate with a view of producing such a

calm

calm and tranquil state; it must be obvious that they can never allow, either to their children or to those of maturer years, the use of any of the games of chance, because these, on account of their peculiar nature, are so productive of sudden fluctuations of hope, and fear, and joy, and disappointment, that they are calculated more than any other to promote a turbulence of the human passions.

SECTION IV.

Another cause of their prohibition is, that, if indulged in, they may produce habits of gamingthese habits alter the moral character-they occasion men to become avaricious; dishonest; cruel; and disturbers of the order of nature— Observations by Hartley, from his Essay on Man.

ANOTHER reason why the Quakers do not allow their members the use of cards and of similar amusements is, that, if indulged in, they may produce habits of gaming; which, if once formed, generally ruin the moral character.

It is in the nature of cards that chance should have the greatest share in the production of victory; and there is, as I have observed before, usually a moneyed stake. But where chance is concerned, neither victory nor defeat can be equally distributed among the combatants. If a person wins, he feels himself urged to proceed.

The

amusement also points out to him the possibility of a sudden acquisition of fortune without the application of industry. If he loses, he does not despair. He still perseveres in the contest; for the amusement points out to him the possibility of repairing his loss. In short, there is no end of hope upon these occasions. It is always hovering about during the contest. Cards, therefore, and amusements of the same nature, by holding up prospects of pecuniary acquisitions on the one hand, and of repairing losses that may arise on any occasion on the other, have a direct tendency to produce habits of gaming.

Now the Quakers consider these habits as of all others the most pernicious; for they usually change the disposition of a man, and ruin his moral character.

From

From being generous-hearted, they make him avaricious. The covetousness, too, which they introduce as it were into his nature, is of a kind that is more than ordinarily injurious. It brings disease upon the body, as it brings corruption upon the mind. Habitual gamesters regard neither their own health nor their own personal convenience, but will sit up night after night at play, though under bodily indisposition, if they can grasp only the object of their pursuit.

From a just and equitable, they often render him a dishonest person. Professed gamesters, it is well known, lie in wait for the young, the ignorant, and the unwary; and they do not hesitate to adopt fraudulent practices to secure them as their prey. Intoxication has also been frequently resorted to for the same purpose.

From humane and merciful, they change him into hard-hearted and barbarous. Habitual gamesters have no compassion either for men or brutes. The former they can ruin and leave destitute, without the sympathy of a tear. The latter they can oppress to death, calculating the various powers of their

their declining strength, and their capability of enduring pain.

They convert him from an orderly into a disorderly being, and into a disturber of the harmony of the universe. Professed gamesters sacrifice every thing, without distinction, to their wants; not caring if the order of nature, or if the very ends of creation, be reversed. They turn day into night, and night into day. They force animated nature into situations for which it was never destined. They lay their hands upon things innocent and useful, and make them noxious. They lay hold of things barbarous, and render them still more barbarous by their pollutions.

Hartley, in his Essay upon Man, has the following observation upon gaming:

"The practice of playing at games of chance and skill is one of the principal amusements of life; and it may be thought hard to condemn it as absolutely unlawful, since there are particular cases of persons, infirm in body and mind, where it seems requisite to draw them out of themselves by a variety of ideas and ends in view, which gently engage the attention, But this rea

son