promiscuously to the Divine
interference, would consider my friend as a prophet, and his words as a
divinely forewarning voice. But what did my friend mean? or where did he
get his foresight on this occasion? The answer is, that my friend, being
accustomed to the exercise of his rational faculties, concluded, that if
the people in question were so careless with respect to those who should
be passing by in such times of danger, they would by custom become
careless with respect to themselves, and that ultimately some mischief
would befal them. It is knowledge, then, acquired by a due exercise of
the intellectual powers, and through the course of an enlightened
education, which will give men just views of the causes and effects of
things, and which, while it teaches them to discover and acknowledge the
Divine Being in all his wondrous works, and properly to distinguish him
in his providences, preserves them from the miseries of superstition.

The world again has fixed the moral blemish of the money-getting, spirit
upon the Quaker character. But knowledge would step in here also as a
considerable corrector of the evil. It would shew, that there were other
objects besides money, which were worthy of pursuit. Nor would it point
out only new objects, but it would make a scale of their comparative
importance. It would fix intellectual attachments, next to religion, in
the highest class. Thus money would sink in importance as a pursuit, or
be valued only as it was the means of comfort to those who had it, or of
communicating comfort to others. Knowledge also would be useful in
taking off, to a certain degree, the corruptive effects of this spirit,
for it would prevent it by the more liberal notions it would introduce,
from leaving the whole of its dregs of pollution upon the mind.

The Quakers again, as we have seen, have been charged with a want of
animation, from whence an unjust inference has been drawn of the
coldness of their hearts. But knowledge would diminish this appearance.
For, in the first place, it would enlarge the powers, and vary the
topics of conversation. It would enliven the speaker. It would give him
animation in discourse. Animation again would produce a greater
appearance of energy, and energy of the warmth of life. And there are
few people, whatever might be the outward cold appearance of the person
with whom they conversed, whose prejudices would not die away, if they
found a cheerful and an agreeable com