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description. Female Quakers excel in these points. But if he looks into the world at large, he will in general find a contrast in the females there. These in general are but badly educated. They are taught to place' a portion of their happiness in finery and show. Utility is abandoned for fashion, The knowledge of the etiquette of the drawing-room usurps the place of the knowledge of the domestic duties. A kind of false and dangerous taste predominates. Scandal and the card-table are preferred to the pleasures of a rural walk. Virtue and modesty are to be seen with only half their energies, being overpowered by the noxiousness of novel-reading-principles, and by. the moral taint which infects those who engage in the varied rounds of a fashionable life. Hence a want of knowledge, a love of trifles, and a dissipated turn of mind, generally characterize those who are considered as having had the education of the world.

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We see, therefore, a good reason why Quaker-men should confine themselves in their marriages to their own Society.

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the same reason which thus operates with Quaker-men in the choice of Quaker-women, operates with men who are not of the Society in choosing them also for their wives. These are often no strangers to the good education and the high character of the Quaker-females. Fearful often of marrying among the badly educated women of their own persuasion, they address themselves to those of this Society, and not unfrequently succeed.

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To this it may be added, that if Quakermen were to attempt to marry out of their own Society, they would not in general be well received. Their dress and their manners are considered as uncouth in the eyes of the female world, and would present themselves as so many obstacles in the of their success. The women of this description generally like a smart and showy exterior. They admire heroism and spirit. But neither such an exterior nor such spirit is to be seen in the Quaker-men. The dress of the Quaker-females, on the other hand, is considered as neat and elegant, and their modesty and demeanour as worthy of admiration.

admiration. From these circumstances they captivate. Hence the difference, both in the inward and outward person, between the men and the women of this Society, renders the former not so pleasing, while it renders the latter objects of admiration and even choice.

СНАР

CHAPTER II.

SECTION 1.

Funerals-Most nations have paid extravagant attention to their dead-The moderns follow their example-This extravagance, or the pageantry of funerals, discarded by the Quakers-Their reasons for it-Plainness of Quaker-funerals.

IF

we look into the history of the world, we shall find, from whatever cause it has arisen, whether from any thing connected with our moral feelings, such as love, gratitude, or respect, or from vanity and ostentation, that almost all nations, where individuals have been able to afford it, have incurred considerable expense in the interment of their dead. The Greeks were often very extravagant in their funerals. Many persons ornamented with garlands followed the corpse, while others were employed in singing and dancing before it. At the funerals of the great, among the Romans, couches were carried containing the waxen

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or other images of the family of the deceased, and hundreds joined in the procession. In our own times, we find a difference in the manner of furnishing or decorating funerals, though but little in the intention of making them objects of outward show. A bearer of plumes precedes the procession. The horses employed are dressed in trappings. The hearse follows, ornamented with plumes of feathers, and gilded and silvered with gaudy escutcheons, or the armorial bearings of the progenitors of the deceased. A group of hired persons range themselves on each side of the hearse and attendant carriages, while others close the procession. These, again, are all of them clad in long cloaks, or furnished in regular order with scarfs and hatbands. Now all these outward appendages, which may be called the pageantry of funerals, the Quakers have discarded, from the time of their institution, in the practice of the burial of their dead.

The Quakers are of opinion that funeral processions should be made, if any thing is to be made of them, to excite serious reflections, and to produce lessons of morality,

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