On the 14th we were at Sandy Spring meeting, to satisfaction. The 15th, we attended Friends’ preparative meeting at Alexandria. It was a small weak meeting, very few manifesting any real concern for the support of our Christian testimonies. They gathered there from different parts of the country, mostly for the advancement of their temporal interest; and this being uppermost with them, they were disqualified for improvement in religious experience. O that we, as a people, were more weaned from the world and its fading enjoyments, and our affections placed on celestial treasure; then would the light of the Church break forth out of obscurity, and her darkness become as the noonday; thousands would then be gathered from the highways and hedges, and flock to the brightness of her arising, with everlasting joy upon their heads. The 16th we rode to Fairfax, about forty-six miles. The 17th we attended their select quarterly meeting. The 18th, the first of the week, we attended the meeting at this place, which was large, composed of Friends and others. I was led to open the great advantages attendant on a life of righteousness, from that scripture passage, “Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people;” and showing the difference between a righteousness, founded on the laws, maxims, and precepts of men, and the righteousness that is witnessed by faith in the Son of God, as revealed to the hearts and souls of the children of men through the holy spirit. Although there were many raw, and uncultivated persons present, yet truth came into a good degree of dominion and victory, and, I trust, it was a profitable season to some. The 19th we attended the quarterly meeting for discipline, in which I had some service, in opening the nature and end of discipline, and encouraging Friends to an improvement therein, to the solid satisfaction of the honest in heart. The next day was the youth’s meeting for the last time; the quarterly meeting, the day before, having concluded to discontinue the same thereafter, from a belief that its usefulness was over; and that it had become more hurtful than beneficial. A great concourse of idle people came together at that time, not so much for the sake of the meeting, as to see and be seen, and to make it a place of diversion. I had considerable to say among them, but got but little relief; by reason, as I apprehended, of a spirit of infidelity and licentiousness, too generally prevailing among the people. I was satisfied the quarterly meeting had done right in discontinuing that meeting; believing, if continued, it would have been very prejudicial to the youth, for whose good, in the first institution thereof, it was intended.