It is a lamentable fact, when we consider that we live in an age, removed above eighteen hundred years from the first promulgation of Christianity, one of the great objects of which was to insist upon the subjugation of the passions, that our children should not have been better instructed, than that we should now have to behold men, of apparently good education, settling their disputes by an appeal to arms. It is difficult to conceive what preposterous principles can actuate men, to induce them to such a mode of decision. Justice is the ultimate wish of every reasonable man in the termination of his casual differences with others, But, in the determination of cases by the sword, the injured man not unfrequently falls, while the aggressor sometimes adds to his offence, by making a widow or an orphan, and by the murder of of a fellow-creature. But it is possible the duellist may conceive that he adds to his reputation by decisions of this sanguinary nature. But surely he has no other reputation with good men, than that of a weak, or a savage, or an infatuated creature; and, if he fells, he is pitied by these on no other motive than that of his folly and of his crime. What philosopher can extol his courage, who, knowing the bondage of the mind while under the dominion of fashion, believes that more courage is necessary in refusing a challenge, than in going into the field? What legislator can applaud his patriotism, when he sees him violate the laws of his country? What Christian his religion, when he reflects on the relative duties of man, on the law of lore and benevolence that should have guided him, on the principle that it is more noble to suffer than to resist, and on the circumstance, that he may put himself into the doubly criminal situation of a murderer and a suicide by the same act? George Fox, in his doctrine of the influence of the spirit as a divine teacher, and in that of the necessity of the subjugation of the passions in order that the inward man might be in a fit state to receive its admonitions, left to the society a system of education, which, if acted upon, could not fail of producing peaceable and quiet characters; but foreseeing that among the best men differences would unavoidably arise from their intercourse in business and other causes, it, was his desire that these should be settled in a Christian manner. He advised therefore that no member should appeal to law; but that he should refer his difference to arbitration, by persons of exemplary character in the society. This mode of decision appeared to him to be consistent with the spirit of Christianity, and with the advice of the apostle Paul, who recommended that all the differences among the Christians of his own time should be referred to the decision of the saints, or of such other Christians, as were eminent for their lives and conversation.