Among the prohibitions, which the Quakers have adopted in their moral education, as barriers against vice, or as preservatives of virtue, I shall consider that next, which relates to the perusal of improper books. George Fox seems to have forgotten nothing, that was connected with the morals of the society. He was anxious for the purity of its character, he seemed afraid of every wind that blew, lest it should bring some noxious vapour to defile it. And as those things which were spoken or represented, might corrupt the mind, so those which were written and printed, might equally corrupt it also. He recommended therefore, that the youth of his newly formed society should abstain from the reading of romances. William Penn and others, expressed the same sentiments on this subject. And the same opinion has been held by the Quakers, as a body of christians, down to the present day. Hence novels, as a particular species of romance, and as that which is considered as of the worst tendency, have been particularly marked for prohibition. Some Quakers have been inclined to think, that novels ought to be rejected on account of the fictitious nature of their contents. But this consideration is, by no means, generally adopted by the society, as an argument against them. Nor would it be a sound argument, if it were. If novels contain no evil within themselves, or have no evil tendency, the mere circumstance of the subject, names or characters being feigned, will not stamp them as censurable. Such fiction will not be like the fiction of the drama, where men act and personate characters that are not their own. Different men, in different ages of the world, have had recourse to different modes of writing, for the promotion of virtue. Some have had recourse to allegories, others to fables. The fables of Aesop, though a fiction from the beginning to the end, have been useful to many. But we have a peculiar instance of the use and innocence of fictitious descriptions in the sacred writings. For the author of the christian religion made use of parables on many and weighty occasions. We cannot therefore condemn fictitious biography, unless it condemn itself by becoming a destroyer of morals. The arguments against novels, in which the Quakers agree as a body, are taken from the pernicious influence they have upon the minds of those, who read them.