also deeply engaged for the right administration of discipline and order in the church, and that all might be kept sweet and clean, consistent with the nature and purity of the holy profession we were making; so that all stumbling-blocks might be removed out of the way of honest inquirers, and that truth's testimony might be exalted, and the Lord's name magnified, 'who is over all, God blessed forever.'"[14] [14] Journal, p. 15. Still it appears that his concern for the maintenance of the discipline was more than a slavish allegiance to the letter of the law. More than once he spoke a warning word as to the danger of allowing the administration of the written rule to lead to mere formalism. Once begun, his development in public service was rapid, and his recognition by Friends cordial and appreciative to a marked degree. Just how long Elias Hicks spoke in the meetings for worship, before his "acknowledgment," is not known. The records of Westbury Monthly Meeting, however, give detailed information as to this event. From them we make the following extract: "At a monthly meeting held at Westbury ye 29th of Fourth month, 1778, William Seaman and William Valentine report that they have made inquiry concerning Elias Hicks, and find nothing to hinder his being recommended to the meeting of Ministers and Elders, whom this meeting recommends to that meeting as a minister, and directs the clerk to forward a copy of this minute to said meeting." The acknowledgment of the ministry of Elias Hicks took place a little over seven years after his marriage. From various references in the Journal the inference is warranted that he did not begin to speak in the meeting for worship until a considerable time after this event. It is, therefore, probable that his service in this line had not been going on, at the most, more than three or four years when his acknowledgment took place. He had only been a recorded minister something over a year when his first considerable visit was undertaken. Unfortunately, the preserved personal correspondence of Elias Hicks does not cover this period in his life, so that we are confined to what he chose to put in his Journal, as the only self-interpretation of this interesting period. It appears that the New York Yearly Meeting was held at the regularly appointed times all through the period of the Revolutionary War. Previous to 1777 the meeting met annually at Flushing, but in that year the sessions were removed to Westbury. In 1793 it was concluded to hold future meetings in New York. During the war the British controlled Long Island, and for some time the meeting house in Flushing was occupied as a barracks by the king's troops, which probably accounts for moving the yearly meeting further out on the island to Westbury.