A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 1: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of FriendsClarkson, Thomas
Religion
A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 1: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends
Clarkson, Thomas
Society of Friends
Let us stop for a while, just to look at the situation of some of those
young persons, who, in consequence of a different education, are
introduced to the pleasures of the world, as to those, which are to
constitute their happiness. We see them running eagerly first after this
object, then after that. One man says to himself "this will constitute
my pleasure." He follows it. He finds it vanity and vexation of spirit.
He says again "I have found my self deceived. I now see my happiness in
other pleasures, and not in those where I fancied it." He follows these.
He becomes sickened. He finds the result different from his
expectations. He pursues pleasure, but pleasure is not there.
[14]"They are lost
In chase of fancied happiness, still woo'd,
And never won. Dream after dream ensues;
And still they dream, that they shall still succeed
And still are disappointed."
[Footnote 14: Cowper.]
Thus after having wasted a considerable portion of his time, he is
driven at last by positive experience into the truth of those maxims,
which philosophy and religion have established, and in the pursuit of
which alone he now sees that true happiness is to be found. Thus, in
consequence of his education, he looses two thirds of his time in tedious
and unprofitable, if not in baneful pursuits. The young Quaker, on the
other hand, comes, by means of his education, to the same maxims of
philosophy and religion, as the foundation of his happiness, at a very
early period of life, and therefore saves the time, and preserves the
constitution which the other has been wasting for want of this early
knowledge. I know of no fact more striking, or more true in the
Quaker-history, than this, namely, that the young Quaker, who is educated
as a Quaker, gets such a knowledge of human nature, and of the paths to
wisdom and happiness, at an early age, that, though he is known to be a
young mariner by the youth displayed in his countenance, he is enabled to
conduct his bark through the dangerous rocks and shoals of life, with
greater safety than many others, who have been longer on the ocean of this
probationary world.
I may observe again, as the second fact, that it is not unusual to hear
persons say, that you seldom see a disorderly Quaker, or, that a
Quaker-prostitute or a Quaker criminal is unknown. These declarations,
frequently and openly made, shew at least that there is an opinion among
the world at large, that the Quakers are a moral people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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