Marriage is regarded by the Quakers as a religious, not a mere civil compact. Those who wish to enter into that state appear together, and state their intentions at one of the monthly meetings, and if not attended by parents or guardians must produce their consent in writing duly witnessed; and if no objections are raised at a subsequent meeting, they are allowed to solemnize their marriage, which is done at a public meeting for worship; towards the close of which the parties stand up and solemnly take each other for man and wife. A certificate of the proceedings is then read publicly and signed by the parties, and afterwards by the relations as witnesses. The monthly meeting keeps a register of the marriages as well as of the births and burials of the society. Children are named without any attending ceremony; neither is it held _needful_ that there should be any at burial, though the body followed by the relatives and friends is sometimes carried into a meeting house, and at the grave a pause is generally made to allow of a discourse from any friend attending if he be so inclined. The women have monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings of their own sex, but without the power of making rules. “As we believe,” they say, “that women may be rightly called to the work of the ministry, we also think that to them belongs a share in the support of Christian discipline; and that some parts of it wherein their own sex is concerned devolve on them with peculiar propriety.” But what, you will ask, are the religious tenets of this sect? The question will perhaps best be answered by an extract from their “Rules of Discipline,” a work published under the sanction of the society. “The original and immediate ground of the religious fellowship of the early Friends,” says the writer of this manual, “was _union of sentiment in regard to Christ’s inward teaching_.” They were firm believers in all that is revealed in Holy Scripture respecting our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; nor would they have allowed that any one held the truth who denied his coming in the flesh, or the benefit to fallen man by his propitiatory sacrifice. “We believe that, in order to enable mankind to put in practice the precepts of the gospel, every man coming into the world is endued with a measure of the light, grace, or good Spirit of Christ, by which, as it is alluded to, he is enabled to distinguish good from evil, and to correct the disorderly passions and corrupt propensities of his fallen nature, which _mere reason_ is altogether insufficient to overcome. For all that belongs to man is fallible, and within the reach of temptation: but the divine grace, which comes by Him, i.e. Christ, who hath overcome the world, is, to those who humbly and sincerely seek it, an all-sufficient and present help in time of need . . . whereby the soul is translated out of the kingdom of darkness, and from under the power of Satan into the marvellous light and kingdom of the Son of God.