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As water cannot penetrate the same bodies, which fire can, so neither can reason the same subjects as the spiritual faculty. The Quakers, however, do not deny, that human reason is powerful within its own province. It may discover in the beautiful structure of the Universe, and in the harmony and fitness of all its parts, the hand of a great contriver.
The Quakers of 1659 were quite different from that honorable body of people of the present age. Horrified by their blasphemies and indecencies, the authorities of Massachusetts passed some cruel laws. At first they forbade all persons "harboring Quakers," imposing severe penalties for each offence, then followed mild punishment on the Friends themselves.
Some years later the missionary meeting possessed great attraction, when a deputation composed of Egerton Ryerson and Peter Jones, the latter with his Indian curiosities, drew the people in such numbers that half of them could not get into the house. There were a good many Quakers, and as my father's people belonged to that body we frequently went to their meeting.
When Friend Hopper arrived in Ireland, he found many of the Quakers prejudiced against him, and many untrue stories in circulation, as he had expected. Sometimes, when he visited public places, he would overhear people saying to each other, in a low voice, "That's Isaac T. Hopper, who has given Friends so much trouble in America."
In Charleston, South Carolina, there was a Friends' meeting-house where two old Quakers still met at the appointed time and sat for an hour in solemn silence. Angelina donned the Quaker garb, joined this meeting, and for an entire year was the third of the silent worshipers.
Some Quakers at Hasington, in Northumberland, coming to the minister on the Sabbath day, and speaking to him, the people fell upon the Quakers, and almost killed one or two of them, who, going out, fell on their knees, and prayed God to pardon the people, who knew not what they did; and afterwards speaking to the people, so convinced them of the evil they had done in beating them, that the country people fell a quarrelling, and beat one another more than they had before beaten the Quakers.
And here it may be observed, that the Quakers believe also, that in the same manner as the spirit of God enlightened the different Gentile nations previously to the time of the apostle, so it continues to enlighten those, which have been discovered since; for no nation has been found so ignorant, as not to make an acknowledgment of superior spirit, and to know the difference between good and evil.
Christopher, where he made his observations, and studied the laws, relative to the treatment of slaves, for nineteen years. That Granville Sharp acted on grounds distinct from those in any of the other classes is certain. For he knew nothing at this time either of the Quakers in England or of those in America, any more than that they existed by name.
With these strange people in 1863 there combined a number of different types: the still stranger, still less creditable visionary, of whom much hereafter; the avowed friends of the principle of state rights; all those who distrusted the Government because of its anti-slavery sympathies; Quakers and others with moral scruples against war; and finally, sincere legalists to whom the Conscription Act appeared unconstitutional.
The more they look into these, the less they understand them, or rather, the more they are perplexed and confounded. Such an enquiry too, while it bewilders the understanding, generally affects the mind. But the Quakers avoid all such curious enquiries as these, and therefore they suffer no interruption of their enjoyment from this source.
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