that time, four or five persons are named in each congregation," under the title of overseers, who are expected to watch over the conduct of the flock with peculiar anxiety. The half of these are women, who take charge of their own sex only. Four or five congregations are associated together, and hold a general monthly meeting of deputies, of both sexes, from each congregation. Two or more of each sex are deputed from these monthly meetings to the general quarterly meeting, which reunites all the congregations of a county, or larger district, according to the extent of the Quaker population; and those, again, send four of each sex to the great yearly meeting or convocation, which is regularly assembled in London, and continues its sitting for ten or twelve days. The method of proceeding, where the conduct of a member has been disorderly, is, first, by private admonition, either by individuals, or by the overseers; where this is not effectual, the case is reported to the monthly meeting, who appoint a committee to deal with him, and, upon their report, either receive him back into communion, or expel him from the society by a written document, entitled, A Testimony of Disownment. From this sentence, however, he may appeal to the quarterly meeting, and from that to the yearly. These courts of review investigate the case by means of a committee; of which none of those who pronounced the sentence complained of, can be members. In the monthly meetings, all presentations of marriages are received, and births and funerals registered ;-contributions and arrangements are made for the relief of the poor;-persons are disowned, or received back ;—and cases of scruples are stated and discussed. They likewise prepare answers to a series of standing queries as to the state and condition of their congregations, which they transmit to the quarterly meeting. The quarterly meeting hears appeals,-receives the reports in answer to these queries, and prepares, in its turn, a more general and comprehensive report for the great annual meeting in London. This assembly, again, hears appeals from the quarterly meetings, and receives their reports; and finally, draws up a public or pastoral letter to the whole society, in which it communicates the most interesting particulars, as to its general state and condition, that have been collected from the reports laid before it,-makes such suitable admonitions and exhortations for their moral and civil conduct, as the complexion of the times, or the nature of these reports have suggested,-and recommends to their consideration any project or proposition that may have been laid before it, for the promotion of religion, and the good of mankind. The slave-trade has, of late years, generally formed one of the topics topics of this general epistle, which is printed and circulated throughout the society. In all their meetings, the male and female deputies hold their meetings, and transact their business, in separate apartments, meeting together only for worship, or for making up their general reports. The wants of the poor are provided for by the monthly meetings, who appoint certain overseers to visit and relieve them: the greater part of these overseers are women; and whatever they find wanting in the course of their visits, money, clothes, or medicines, they order, and their accounts are settled by the treasurer of the monthly-meeting. Where it happens that there are more poor in any one district than can easily be relieved by their more opulent brethren within it, the deficiency is supplied by the quarterly meeting to which it is subjected. The children of the poor are all taught to read and write at the public expense, and afterwards bound apprentice to trades ;-the females are generally destined for service, and placed in Quaker families. • Such, fays Mr Clarkson, with a very natural exultation on the good management of his favourites, fuch is the organization of the difcipline or government of the Quakers. Nor may it improperly be called a government, when we confider, that, befides all matters relating to the church, it takes cognifance of the actions of Quakers to Quakers, and of these to their fellow-citizens; and of thefe, again, to the state; in fact, of all actions of Quakers, if immoral in the eye of the fociety, as foon as they are known. It gives out its prohibitions. It marks its crimes. It impofes offices on its fubjects. It calls them to difciplinary duties. This government, however, notwithstanding its power, has, as I obferved before, no prefident or head, either permanent or temporary. There is no firft man through the whole fociety. Neither has it any badge of office, or mace, or conftable's staff, or fword. It may be obferved, alfo, that it has no office. of emolument by which its hands can be ftrengthened, neither minifter, elder, clerk, overfeer, or deputy, being paid: and yet its adminiftration is firmly conducted, and its laws are better obeyed than laws by perfons under any other denomination or government. I. 246, 247. We have nothing now to discuss with these good people, but their religion and with this we will not meddle. It is quite plain to us, that their founder George Fox was exceedingly insane; and though we by no means suspect many of his present followers of the same malady, we cannot help saying that their doctrines are a little too high-flown for our humble apprehension. They hold that God has at all times communicated a certain portion of the spirit, or word, or light, to mankind; but has given very different portions of it to different individuals: that, in consequence of this inward illumination, not only the antient patriarchs and prophets, but many of the old heathen philosophers, G 3 were were very good Christians: that no kind of worship and preaching can be acceptable or profitable, unless it flow from the immediate inspiration and movement of their inward spirit; and that all ordination, or appointment of priests, is therefore impious and unavailing. They are much attached to the Holy Ghost; but are supposed to reject the doctrine of the Trinity; and openly reject the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, with all other rites, ordinances, and ceremonies, known or practised in any Christian church. These tenets they justify by various citations from the New Testament, and the older fathers; as any one may see in the works of Barclay and Penn, with rather more satisfaction than in this of Mr Clarkson. We enter not at present into these disputations. Upon the whole, we are inclined to believe the Quakers to be a tolerably honest, painstaking, and inòffensive set of Christians. Very stupid, dull, and obstinate, we presume, in conversation; and tolerably lumpish and fatiguing in domestic society: active and methodical in their business, and narrow minded and ill informed as to most other particulars: beneficent from habit and the discipline of the society; but cold in their affections, and inwardly chilled into a sort of Chinese apathy, by the restraints to which they are continually subjected: childish and absurd in their religious scruples and peculiar usages, and singularly unlearned as a sect of theologians; but exemplary, above all other sects, for the decency of their lives, for their charitable indulgence to all other persuasions, for their care of their poor, and for the liberal participation they have afforded to their women in all the duties and honours of the society. We would not willingly insinuate any thing against the general sincerity of those who remain in communion with this body; but Mr Clarkson has himself noticed, that when they become opulent, they are very apt to fall off from it; and indeed we do not recollect ever to have seen either a Quaker gentleman of fortune, or a Quaker day-labourer. The truth is, that ninety-nine out of a hundred of them are engaged in trade; and as they all deal and correspond with each other, it is easy to see what advantages they must have as traders, from belonging to so great a corporation. A few follow the medical profession; and a still smaller number that of conveyancing; but they rely, in both, on the support of their brethren of the society. It is rather remarkable, that Mr Clarkson has not given us any sort of estimate or calculation of their present numbers in England, though, from the nature of their government, it must be known to most of their leading members. It is the general opinion, it seems, that they are gradually diminishing. ART. ART. VII. The Stranger in America: Containing Observations made during a Long Residence in that Country, on the Genius, Manners, and Customs of the People of the United States; with Biographical Particulars of Public Characters; Hints and Facts relative to the Arts, Sciences, Commerce, Agriculture, Manufactures, Emigration, and the Slave Trade. By Charles William Janson Esq., late of the State of Rhode Island, Counsellor at Law. 4to. pp. 500. London. Cundee. 1807. THIS large and most ill arranged volume contains, apparently, whatever Mr Janson could recollect of America, aiding his memory by a few notes and memorandums: for he went thither without any view of becoming an author; made no regular tour; and kept no constant journal of his excursions, or register of his observations. He repaired to the New World to gratify a longing which he had to see it: he was soon tired of it as a sight, and engaged in different speculations;-a land speculation, which failed; a trading adventure, which shared the same fate;--and, most strange of all, a law speculation,-for he was, in the course of his rambles, called to the bar, and to practice, but found it did not answer. He resided, in this way, above thirteen years in the United States; and on his return, as the custom is, he wrote his book. According to another still more ancient custom, he begins by appealing to the persuasions of friends' as an apology for publishing it. Year after year, it seems, the desire of communicating to the public the result of his observations respecting our once transatlantic brethren' has been restrained, by plating the many volumes which have appeared on the subject. This struggle, however, during successive years, must have happened in America; for as he was above thirteen years there, and left Europe in May 1793, he must have returned to England late in 1806, and his book is in the shops early in 1807. It is indeed a most hasty performance; by a person neither accustomed to laborious composition, nor qualified to write without labour; neither capable of selecting his materials, nor of arranging them; and not very eminent in that acuteness, which enables a man well to observe, or profitably to reflect, on what he has witnessed. contem A vast mass of anecdotes, facts, declamations, pictures, quotations from noted works, excerpts from unknown books, songs and other verses, newspaper advertisements, and many other articles, are thrown together by a sort of manual exertion; then made into chapters by the same kind of labour, adorned with preface, index, and title-pages; and then advertised for sale. In Ꮐ Ꮞ all all this the hand is more employed than the head; and the reader's mental fatigue is perhaps nearly equal to the author's. A little amusement he nay derive from wading through the volume; a stray fact of some value he may catch here and there; but he must not hope for that average proportion between the number of pages and the amount of instruction, which encourages him in his perusal of ordinary books. We shall endeavour to save our readers a part of this labour, and to communicate a fair and just share of the profit. Mr Janson left England in a very incommodious merchant vessel, commanded by a captain who treated him ill, and kept him nearly the whole voyage on short allowance; and filled with passengers, for whom he seems to have contracted no great degree of friendship. The voyage presented nothing remarkable, except a visit from a French privateer, and a squall. The former occurrence threw our author into a violent passion; the latter gave him a great fright. The behaviour of the captain, too, kept him in constant bad humour; and one of the passengers, an American, provoked him, by shewing a dislike of England; and Bob, the cook-boy, comported himself rudely ;-all which irritations had so visible an effect on Mr Janson, that he obtained the appellation of the Grumbler;' a name which, from the temper of his whole remarks on America, and indeed on every thing he discusses, we must admit to be sufficiently applicable to him, both on shore and at sea. He asserts, it is true, that his present unfavourable opinion of America and the Americans must be founded in justice, because he went over with the strongest prepossessions in their favour. But such prepossessions are as likely to mislead minds of a certain description, as the most violent prejudices of an unfavourable sort. And we cannot help imputing a great deal of the invective against the manners and productions of the United States, which is so prevalent both in English society and in late books of travels, to this very circumstancethat the persons who speak from their own observation, instead of making up their minds, when they left Europe, to a privation of many comforts, for the sake of other advantages, formed ridiculous expectations of enjoying in the New World something superadded to the best of what they had ever tasted in the Old. If a man desires to contemplate the spectacle of an infant community rising to enormous wealth and power, with a celerity distinctly visible, or is curious to see large forests, lakes and rivers, he must not repine at a temporary exclusion from the refined society of London and Paris. If an emigrant seeks the region of cheap land, he must lay his account with finding labour and manufactures costly. What were Mr Janson's motives for visiting America |