mittee to investigate and to labor with the accused. On receiving
its report, if guilt was evidenced, the Meeting pressed the matter,
often increasing the size of the committee. It always demanded an
expression of repentance, and the restoration of right conduct, without
which no satisfaction was to be had. If the accused persons, being found
guilty, did not repent, they were in the end "disowned." The disownment
by the Meeting was a serious penalty. It diminished a man's business
opportunities, it shut the door of social life to him, and it
effectually forbade his marriage within the Meeting.

Its power is shown in a number of cases recorded in the minutes, in
which the ban of the Meeting had been laid upon some one, who was
compelled later to come to the Meeting, make a tardy acknowledgement,
and be restored, before he could proceed freely in some of the communal
activities controlled by the Meeting. Often the committee appointed by
the Meeting reported that they were not satisfied with the repentance
offered, seeing in it evidently more of policy than penitence. Usually
they received, in later visitations of the accused, sufficient tokens
of submission, and the Meeting was satisfied; but not always.

The most curious instance of the working out of this control exercised
by the Meeting, especially over the sexual relations, is in the marriage
of Joseph ---- with Elizabeth ----. The first act in the little drama
was the formal written statement of Joseph that he was sorry for "having
been familiar with his wife before his marriage to her." The Monthly
Meeting appointed a committee, as usual, after making record of this
"acknowledgment." After a month the committee reported that they had
visited Joseph, and found his repentance sincere; and another committee
was appointed to draw up a testimony against his former misconduct, to
which Joseph was required to subscribe; and in a later month to hear it
read from the steps of the Preparative Meeting in the neighborhood where
he lived--or perhaps in that in which the offence was best known. After
this had all been done, with patient detail, and reported and recorded,
a further month elapsed, and then announcement was made at the Meeting
of the intention of Joseph and Elizabeth to marry. The reader is
astonished, thinking that Joseph has already evidenced his loyalty to
his wife. A closer re-reading of the stages of the incident shows that
the wife mentioned in the original of