A city of Peace, this little house, for the same severely-gentle
decorum reigned in the kitchen as elsewhere: and now, where is
such a haunt to be found?
In the earlier part of this century the Friends bore a most
important witness. They were a standing rebuke to rough manners,
rude speech, and to the too often mere outward show of religion.
No one could fail to be impressed by the atmosphere of peace
suggested by their bearing and presence; and the gentle, sheltered,
contemplative lives lived by most of them undoubtedly made them
unusually responsive to spiritual influence. Now, the young birds
have left the parent nest and the sober plumage and soft speech;
they are as other men; and in a few short years the word Quaker
will sound as strange in our ears as the older appellation Shaker
does now.
This year I read for the first time the Journal of George Fox. It
is hard to link the rude, turbulent son of Amos with the denizens
in my city of Peace; but he had his work to do and did it, letting
breezy truths into the stuffy 'steeple-houses' of the 'lumps of
clay.'
"Come out from among them and be ye separate; touch not the
accursed thing!" he thundered; and out they came, obedient to his
stentorian mandate; but alack, how many treasures in earthen
vessels did they overlook in their terror of the curse! The good
people made such haste to flee the city, that they imagined
themselves as having already, in the spirit, reached the land that
is very far off; and so they cast from them the outward and visible
signs which are vehicles, in this material world, of inward graces.
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