The Quakers again are exempt from many of the other passions which contribute to the unhappiness of the world at large. Some men have an almost boundless ambition. They are desirous of worldly honours, or of eminent stations, or of a public name, and pursue these objects in their passage through life with an avidity which disturbs the repose of their minds. But the Quakers scarcely know any such feeling as that of ambition, and of course scarcely any of the torments that belong to it. They are less captivated by the splendour of honours than any other people, and they had rather live in the memory of a few valuable friends, than be handed down to posterity for those deeds, which generally constitute the basis of public character. Others again, who cannot obtain these honourable distractions, envy those who possess them. They envy the very coronet upon the coach, as it passes by. But the Quakers can have no such feelings as these. They pass in their pilgrimage through life regardless of such distinctions, or they estimate them but as the baubles of the, day. It would be folly therefore to suppose, that they could be envious of that which they do not covet. The Quakers again are exempt from some of the occasions of uneasiness which arise to others from considerations on the subject of religion. Some people, for example, pry into what are denominated mysteries. The more they look into these, the less they understand them, or rather, the more they are perplexed and confounded. Such an enquiry too, while it bewilders the understanding, generally affects the mind. But the Quakers avoid all such curious enquiries as these, and therefore they suffer no interruption of their enjoyment from this source. Others again, by the adoption of gloomy creeds, give rise frequently to melancholy, and thus lay in for themselves a store of fuel for the torment of their own minds. But the Quakers espouse no doctrines, which, while they conduct themselves uprightly, can interrupt the tranquillity of their lives. It is possible there may be here and mere an instance where their feelings may be unduly affected, in consequence of having carried the doctrine of the influence of the Spirit, as far as it relates to their own condition, beyond its proper bounds. But individuals, who may fell into errors of this nature, are, it is to be hoped, but few; because any melancholy, which may arise from these causes, must be the effect, not of genuine Quakerism, but of a degenerate superstition. CHAP. II.