ledge of domestic occupations, and the various sorts of knowledge acquired by reading, must be abridged, in proportion as this science is cultivated to professional precision. And hence, independently of any arguments which the Quakers may advance against it, it must be acknowledged by the sober world. to be chargeable with a criminal waste of time. And this waste of time is the more to be deprecated, because it frequently happens that, when young females marry, music is thrown aside, after all the years that have been spent in its acquisition, as an employment either then unnecessary, or as an employment which, amidst the new cares of a family, they have not leisure to follow.

Another serious charge may be advanced against music, as it is practised at the present day. Great proficiency, without which music now ceases to be delightful, cannot, as I have just observed, be made without great application, or the application of some years. Now all this long application is of a sedentary nature. But all occupations of a sedentary nature are injurious to the human constitution, and weaken and disorder it in time. But in proportion as the body

is thus weakened by the sedentary nature of the employment, it is weakened again by the enervating powers of the art. Thus the nervous system is acted upon by two enemies at once; and in the course of the long education necessary for this science, the different disorders of hysteria are produced. Hence the females of the present age, amongst whom this art has been cultivated to excess, are generally found to have a weak and languid constitution, and to be disqualified more than others from becoming healthy wives, or healthy mothers, or the parents of a healthy progeny.

SECTION II.

Instrumental music forbidden

Quakers cannot

learn it on the motives of the world—It is not conducive to the improvement of the moral character

-affords no solid ground of comfort; nor of true elevation of mind-A sensual gratification-Remarks of Cowper-And, if encouraged, would interfere with the duty recommended by the Quakers, of frequent religious retirement.

THE reader must always bear it in his mind, if the Quakers should differ from him

on

on any particular subject, that they set themselves apart as a Christian community, aiming at Christian perfection; that it is their wish to educate their children, not as moralists or as philosophers, but as Christians; and that therefore, in determining the propriety of a practice, they will frequently judge of it by an estimate very dif

ferent from that of the world.

The Quakers do not deny that instrumental music is capable of exciting delight. They are not insensible either of its power or of its charms. They throw no imputation on its innocence, when viewed abstractedly by itself. But they do not see any thing in it sufficiently useful to make it an object of education, or so useful as to counterbalance other considerations which make for its disuse.

The Quakers would think it wrong to indulge in their families the usual motives for the acquisition of this science. Selfgratification, which is one of them, and reputation in the world, which is the other, are not allowable in the Christian system. Add to which, that where there is a desire for such reputation, an emulative disposi

tion is generally cherished, and envy and vain-glory are often excited in the pursuit.

They are of opinion also, that the learning of this art does not tend to promote the most important object of education,—the improvement of the mind. When a person is taught the use of letters, he is put into the way of acquiring natural, historical, religious, and other branches of knowledge, and of course of improving his intellectual and moral character. But music has no pretensions, in the opinion of the Quakers, to the production of such an end. Polybius, indeed, relates that he could give no solid reason why one tribe of the Arcadians should have been so civilized, and the other so barbarous, but that the former were fond, and that the latter were ignorant, of music. But the Quakers would argue, that if music had any effect in the civilization, this effect would be seen in the manners, and not in the morals, of mankind. Musical Italians are esteemed a soft and effeminate, but they are generally reputed a depraved, people. Music, in short, though it breathes soft influences, cannot yet breathe morality into the mind. It may do to soften savages:

but

any

but a Christian community, in the opinion of the Quakers, can admit of no better civilization than that which the spirit of the Supreme Being, and an observance of the pure precepts of Christianity, can produce. Music, again, does not appear to the Quakers to be the foundation of solid comfort in life. It may give spirits for the moment, as strong liquor does; but, when the effect of the liquor is over, the spirits flag, and the mind is again torpid. It can give no solid encouragement, nor hope, nor prospects. It can afford no anchorage-ground which shall hold the mind in a storm. The early Christians, imprisoned, beaten, and persecuted even to death, would have had but poor consolation if they had not had a better friend than music to have relied upon in the hour of their distress. here, I think, the Quakers would particularly condemn music, if they thought it could be resorted to in the hour of affliction, inasmuch as it would then have a tendency to divert the mind from its true and only support.

And

Music, again, does not appear to them to be productive of elevated thoughts; that is,

of