ve an influence with
them in making them tender towards others on the same subject. Virgil,
who was a great master of the human mind, makes the queen of Carthage
say to Aeneas, "Haud ignara mali, miseris succurere disco," or, "not
unacquainted with misfortunes myself, I learn to succour the
unfortunate." So one would hope that the Quakers, of all other people,
ought to know how wrong it is to be angry with another for his religion.

With respect to that part of the trait, which relates to speaking
acrimoniously of other sects, there are particular circumstances in the
customs and discipline of the Quakers, which seem likely to prevent it.

It is a law of the society, enforced by their discipline, as I shewed in
a former volume, that no Quaker is to be guilty of detraction or
slander. Any person, breaking this law, would come under admonition, if
found out. This induces an habitual caution or circumspection in speech,
where persons are made the subject of conversation. And I have no doubt
that this law would act as a preventive in the case before us.

It is not a custom, again, with the Quakers, to make religion a subject
of common talk. Those, who know them, know well how difficult it is to
make them converse, either upon their own faith, or upon the faith of
others. They believe, that topics on religion, familiarly introduced,
tend to weaken its solemnity upon the mind. They exclude subjects also
from ordinary conversation upon another principle. For they believe,
that religion should not be introduced at these times, unless it can be
made edifying. But, if it is to be made edifying, it is to come, they
conceive, not through the medium of the activity of the imagination of
man, but through the passiveness of the soul under the influence of the
Divine Spirit.

SECT. III.

_Trait of benevolence includes again a tender feeling toward the brute
creation--Quakers remarkable for their tenderness to animals--This
feature produced from their doctrine, that animals are not mere
machines, but the creatures of God, the end of whose existence is always
to be attended to in their treatment--and from their opinion as to what
ought to be the influence of the Gospel, as recorded in their own
summary_.

The word benevolence, when applied to the character of the Quakers,
includes also a tender feeling towards the brute creation.

It has frequently been observed by those who are acquainted with the
Quakers, that all animals b