to that of "dear bought experience." A person may come to see the beauty of virtue, when his constitution has been shattered by vice. But many will perish in the midst of so hazardous a trial.[13] [Footnote 13: Though no attempt is to be made to obtain knowledge, according to the Christian system, through the medium of customs which may be of immoral tendency, yet it does not follow that knowledge, properly obtained, is not a powerful guardian of virtue. This important subject may probably be resumed in a future volume.] SECT. II. _Quakers contend, by may of farther reply to the objections, that their education has been practically or experimentally beneficial--two facts in behalf of this assertion--the first is that young Quakers get earlier into the wisdom of life than many others--the second, that there are few disorderly persons in the society--error corrected, that the Quakers turn persons out of the society, as soon as they begin to be vicious, that it may be rescued from the disgrace of a bad character._ The answers, which have hitherto been given to the reader, may be considered as the statement of theory against theory. But the Quakers, would say farther upon this subject, that they have educated upon these principles for a hundred and fifty years, and that, where they have been attended to, their effects have been uniformly beneficial. They would be fearful therefore of departing from a path, which they conceive their own experience and that of their ancestors has shewn them to be safe, and which after all their inquiries, they believe to be that which is pointed out to them by the Christian religion. I shall not attempt to follow up this practical argument by any history of the lives of the Quakers, but shall content myself with one or two simple facts, which appear to me to be materially to the point. In the first place I may observe that it is an old saying, that it is difficult to put old heads on young shoulders. The Quakers, however, do this more effectually than any other people. It has often been observed that a Quaker boy has an unnatural appearance. This idea has arisen from his dress and his sedateness, which together have produced an appearance of age above the youth in his countenance, or the stature of his person. This, however, is confessing, in some degree, in the case before us, that the discretion of age has appeared upon youthful shoulders. It is certainly an undeniable fact, that the youth of this society, generally speaking, get earlier into a knowledge of just sentiments, or into a knowledge of human nature, or into a knowledge of the true wisdom of life, than those of the world at large. I have often been surprised to hear young Quakers talk of the folly and vanity of pursuits, in which persons older than themselves were then embarking for the purposes of pleasure, and which the same persons have afterwards found to have been the pursuits of uneasiness and pain.