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HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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THE Society of Friends, though a small, is not an unimportant part of the community. The active benevolence of its members; their correct moral habits, and their general aversion to frivolous pursuits and pleasures, not only give them a great degree of respectability in a worldly point of view, but also a weight and an influence among their fellow citizens which mere wealth is insufficient to command, and which is vastly superior to what they are entitled to from their numerical position in the state.

Though they are not accustomed to obtrude their peculiar opinions upon the notice of their fellow christians, enough is known of their principles to make them the subject of much comparison and reflection in connection with various important topics which claim attention at the present day.

They have existed for nearly two centuries without a regular priesthood; they believe all preaching for hire or gain to be forbidden, and are consequently the determined opposers of the payment of tithes and other ecclesiastical demands, which they invariably refuse to pay, and of course call loudly by their practice for Church Reform. That their mode of testifying against Tithes has not produced relief may perhaps be cause of surprise, but the editor conceives that the Friends have not so uniformly publicly protested before the Magistrates when their property has been about to be forcibly taken from them, and given their reasons for refusing to obey the law,—as those who may wish to see this obnoxious tax abolished could have wished,—and thus their reasons for refusing to pay it, have not become sufficiently known and understood.*

* We have inserted in the Appendix the "Brief Statement of Reasons for Objecting to the Payment of Tithes," which was issued by the Yearly Meeting of London, 1832, and is well worthy the serious attention of the reader.

Viewing the solemnization of Marriage by priests as an interference unwarranted by Scripture, and opposed to the Spirit of christian liberty which the gospel was designed to introduce, they have from the first rise of the society refused to have recourse to them, substituting a plan of their own which they conceive more accordant with Scripture usage. The result of this conscientious adherence to what they thought right, in spite of the inconvenience it might subject them to, has been that the legislature has accorded to them the privilege of solemnizing their own marriages.

The same unbending refusal to take Oaths,

under any circumstances, has also obtained for them immunities possessed by no other class of christians in the country, while to the honor of the Society it should be stated, that in no instance has it been known that this confidence has been misplaced. The Friends consider that no true christian is at liberty to disobey the positive injunction of his Master, "Swear not at all.”

Indeed the conduct of the Society of Friends

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