Indeed no one day, in the estimation of the Quakers, can be made by human appointment either more holy or more proper for worship than another. They do not even believe that the Jewish Sabbath, which was by the appointment of God, continues in Gospel times, or that it has been handed down by divine authority as the true Sabbath for Christians. All days with the Quakers are equally holy, and all equally proper for the worship of God. In this opinion they coincide with the ever memorable John Hales. "For prayer, indeed, says this venerable man, was the Sabbath ordained: yet prayer itself is Sabbathless, and admits of no rest, no intermission at all. If our hands be clean, we must, as our Apostle commands us, lift them up every where, at all times, and make every place a church, every day a Sabbath-day, every hour canonical. As you go to the market; as you stand in the streets; as you walk in the fields--in all these places, you may pray as well, and with as good acceptance, as in the church: for you yourselves are temples of the Holy Ghost, if the grace of God be in you, more precious than any of those which are made with hands." Though, however, the Quakers believe no one day in the sight of God to be holier than another, and no one capable of being rendered so by human authority, yet they think that Christians ought to assemble for the public worship of God. They think they ought to bear an outward and public testimony for God; and this can only be done by becoming members of a visible church, where they may be seen to acknowledge him publicly in the face of men. They think also, that the public worship of God increases, as it were, the fire of devotion, and enlarges the sphere of spiritual life in the souls of men. "God causes the inward life, says Barclay, the more to abound when his children assemble themselves diligently together, to wait upon him; so that as iron sharpeneth iron, the seeing the faces of one another, when both are inwardly gathered unto the life, giveth occasion for the life secretly to rise, and to pass from vessel to vessel: and as many candles lighted and put in one place, do greatly augment the light and make it more to shine forth, so when many are gathered together into the same life, there is more of the glory of God, and his power appears to the refreshment of each individual; for that he partakes not only of the light and life raised in himself, but in all the rest. And therefore Christ hath particularly promised a blessing to such as assemble in his name, seeing he will be in the midst of them." For these and other reasons, the Quakers think it proper, that men should be drawn together to the public worship of God: but if so, they must be drawn together at certain times. Now as one day has never been, in the eyes of the Quakers, more desirable for such an object than another, their ancestors chose the first day in the week, because the Apostles had chosen it for the religious assembling of