A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3: 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 3: 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
resorted to, they will have got into the habit as the necessary
enjoyments of life. Take away then from persons in such habits the power
of these their ordinary gratifications, and you will make them languid,
and even wretched. There will be a wide chasm, which they will not know
how to fill up; a dull vacuum of time, which will make their existence
insipid; a disappointment, which will carry with it a lacerating sting.
In some of the higher circles of life, accustomed to such rounds of
pleasure, who does not know that the Sunday is lamented as the most
cruel interrupter of their enjoyments?--No shopping in the morning--no
theatre or route in the evening--Nothing but dull heavy church stares
them in the face. But I will not carry this picture to the length to
which I am capable. I shall only observe that, where persons adopt a
routine of constituted pleasures, they are creating fictitious wants for
themselves, and making their own happiness subject to interruption, and
putting it into the power of others. The Quakers, however, by the total
rejection of all the amusements included in the routine alluded to, know
nothing of the drawbacks or disadvantages described.
The Quakers again are exempt from several of the causes of uneasiness,
which attach to the world at large. Some go to the gaming-table, and
ruin themselves and their families, and destroy the peace of their
minds. But the Quakers are never found injuring their fortunes or their
happiness by such disreputable means.
Others disturb the harmony of their lives by intemperate sallies of
passion. It has been well observed, that, whatever may be the duration
of a man's anger, so much time he loses of the enjoyment of his life.
The Quakers, however, have but few miserable moments on this account. A
due subjugation of the passions has been generally instilled into them
from early youth. Provocation seldom produces in them any intemperate
warmth, or takes away, in any material degree, from the apparent
composure of their minds.
Others again, by indulging their anger, are often hurried into actions
of which the consequences vex and torment them, and of which they often
bitterly repent. But the Quakers endeavour to avoid quarrelling, and
therefore they often steer clear of the party and family feuds of
others. They avoid also, as much as possible, the law, so that they have
seldom any of the lawsuits to harass and disturb them, which interrupt
the tranquillity of others by the heavy expence, and by the lasting
enmities they occasion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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