To the latter, in a profligate age, where the fashions were still raging from without, and making an inroad upon the minds and morals of individuals, some cautions were necessary for the preservation of their innocence in such a storm. For these were the reverse of their parents. Young in point of age, they were Quakers by name before they could become Quakers in spirit. Robert Barclay, therefore, and William Penn, kept alive the subject of dress, which George Fox had been the first to notice in the Society. They followed him on his scriptural ground. They repeated the arguments, that extravagant dress manifested an earthly spirit, and that it was productive of vanity and pride. But they strengthened the case by adding arguments of their own. Among these I may notice, that they considered what were the objects of dress. They reduced these to two, to decency and comfort,-in which latter idea was included protection from the varied inclemencies of the weather. Every thing, therefore, beyond these they considered as superfluous: of course, all ornaments would become censurable, and

all

all unreasonable changes indefensible, upon such a system.

These discussions, however, on this subject never occasioned the more antient Quakers to make any alteration in their dress; for they continued, as when they had come into the Society, to be a plain people. But they occasioned parents to be more vigilant aver their children in this respect, and they taught the Society to look upon dress as a subject connected with the Christian religion, in any case where it could become injurious to the morality of the mind. In process of time, therefore, as the fashions continued to spread, and as the youth of the Society began to come under their dominion, the Quakers incorporated dress among the other subjects of their discipline. Hence, no member, after this period, could dress himself preposterously, or follow the flecting fashions of the world, without coming under the authority of friendly and wholesome admonition. Hence, an annual inquiry began to be made, if parents brought up their children to dress consistently with their Christian profession. The Society, however,

however, recommended only simplicity and plainness to be attended to on this occasion. They prescribed no standard, no form, no colour, for the apparel of their members. They acknowledged the two great objects of decency and comfort, and left their members to clothe themselves consistently with these, as it was agreeable to their convenience or their disposition.

A new æra commenced from this period. Persons already in the Society continued of course in their antient dresses. If others had come into it by convincement, who had led gay lives, they laid aside their gaudy garments, and took those that were more plain and the children of both, from this time, began to be habited from their youth as their parents were.

But though the Quakers had thus brought apparel under the disciplinary cognisance of the Society, yet the dress of individuals was not always alike; nor did it continue always one and the same even with the primitive Quakers; nor has it continued one and the same with their descendants. For, decency and comfort having been declared to be the true and only objects of dress, such a lati

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tude

tude was given as to admit of great variety in apparel. Hence, if we were to see a group of modern Quakers before us, we should probably not find any two of them dressed alike. Health, we all know, may require alterations in dress. Simplicity may suggest others. Convenience, again, may point out others and yet all these various alterations may be consistent with the objects before specified. And here it may be observed that the Society, during its existence for a century and a half, has without doubt, in some degree, imperceptibly followed the world, though not in its fashions, yet in its improvements of clothing.

It must be obvious, again, that some people are of a grave and that others are of a lively disposition, and that these will probably never dress alike. Other members, again, but particularly the rich, have a larger intercourse than the rest of them, or mix more with the world. These, again, will probably dress a little differently from others ; and yet, regarding the two great objects of dress, their clothing may come within the limits which these allow. Indeed, if there be any whose apparel would be thought exception

I

exceptionable by the Society, these would be found among the rich. Money, in all societies, generally takes the liberty of introducing exceptions. Nothing, however, is more true than that even among the richest of the Quakers there is frequently as much plainness and simplicity in their outward dress as among the poor: and, where the exceptions exist, they are seldom carried to an extravagant, and never to a preposterous, extent.

From this account it will be seen, that the ideas of the world are erroneous on the subject of the dress of the Quakers; for it has always been imagined that, when the early Quakers first met in religious union, they met to deliberate and fix upon some standard which should operate as a political institution, by which the members should be distinguished by their apparel from the rest of the world. The whole history, however, of the shape and colour of the garments of the Quakers is as has been related, namely, that the primitive Quakers dressed like the sober, steady, and religious people of the age in which the Society sprung up, and that their descendants have departed less, in a course

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