st the
temper and disposition of man to be singular, or to resist the tide of
custom and fashion, and to undergo an ordeal of suffering on these
accounts, we shall wonder that it has not been long ago extinct.

That many are disowned by the society, in consequence of which its
numbers are diminished, is true. That others come into it from other
quarters, by which an increase is given to it, independently of its own
natural population, is true also. But whether the new members exceed the
disowned, or the disowned the new, is the question to be resolved. Now
no people have had better opportunities of ascertaining this point,
than the Quakers themselves. By means of their monthly meetings they
might with ease have instituted a census on a given day. They might have
renewed such a census. They might have compared the returns in every
case. But as no such census has ever been made, the Quakers themselves,
though they have their ideas, cannot speak with particular accuracy, on
this subject.

The general opinion, however, is, and the Quakers, I apprehend, will not
deny but lament it, that those who go out of the society are upon the
whole more numerous than those who come into it by convincement, and
therefore that there is, upon the whole, a decrease among them.

Of the truth of this opinion, some have adduced as a proof, that the
quarterly meetings have been reduced to three fourths of their original
number. But this is not to be considered as a certain criterion of the
fact. For it is by no means uncommon to find, if the Quakers decrease in
one county, that they increase in another. It has also been adduced,
that many particular meetings have been broken up, or that
meeting-houses in the country are standing deserted, or without Quakers
to worship in them. But neither can this be considered as any
infallible proof of the point. For it frequently happens, that if the
Quakers become less numerous in any particular village, they become more
so in some of the towns of the same county. Thus no true judgment can be
formed upon these principles. The Quaker population, in this respect, on
account of its movements, resembles the sea, which, while it loses on
one part of its shores or boundaries, gains upon another.

There are, however, considerations, which may be more decisive of the
fact.

In the time of George Fox the number of those converted to his
principles was immense.[46] This number, if we consult all the facts
that