were worthy of pursuit. Nor would it point out only new objects: it would make a scale of their comparative importance. It would fix intellectual attainments, next to religion, in the highest class. Thus money would sink in importance as a pursuit, or be valued only as it was the means of comfort to those who had it, or of communicating comfort to others. Knowledge also would be useful in taking off to a certain degree the corruptive effects of this spirit; for it would prevent it, by the more liberal notions it would introduce, from leaving the whole of its dregs of pollution upon the mind.

The Quakers, again, as we have seen, have been charged with a want of animation: from whence an unjust inference has been drawn of the coldness of their hearts. But knowledge would diminish this appearance. For, in the first place, it would enlarge the powers and vary the topics of conversation. It would enliven the speaker. It would give him animation in discouree. Animation, again, would produce a greater appearance of energy, and energy of the warmth of life. And there are few people, whatever might be the outward cold appearance of the person, with whom they conversed, whose prejudices would not die away, if they found a cheerful and an agreeable companion.

Another charge against the members of this Society was obstinacy. This was shown to be unjust. The trait in this case should rather have been put down as virtue. Knowledge, however, would even operate here as a partial remedy. For, while they

are esteemed deficient in literature, their opposition to the customs of the world will always be characterized as folly. By if they were to bear in the minds of their countrymen a different estimation as to intellectual attainments, the trait might be spoken of under another name. For persons are not apt to impute obstinacy to the actions of those, however singular, whom they believe to have paid a due attention to the cultivation of their minds.

It is not necessary to bring to recollection the other traits that were mentioned, to see the operation of a superior education upon these. It must have already appeared, that, whatever may be the general advantages of learning, they would be more than usually valuable to the Quaker-character.

CHAPTER VI.

Arguments of those of the Society examined, who may depreciate human knowledge-this depreciation did not originate with the first members-with Barclay-Penn-Ellwood—but arose afterwards-Reputed disadvantages of a classical education-its Heathen mythology aud moralityDisadvantages of a philosophical one—its scepticism-general disadvantages of human learning -inefficiency of all the arguments advanced.

HAVING shown the advantages, which generally accompany a superior education, I shall exhibit the disadvantages, which may be thought to attend it; or I shall consider those arguments which some persons of this Society, who have unfortunately depreciated human learning, though with the best intentions, might use against it, if they were to see the contents of the preceding chapter.

But before I do this, I shall exonerate the primitive members from the charge of such a depreciation. These exhibited in their own persons the practicability of the union of knowledge and virtue. While they were eminent for their learning, they were distinguished for the piety of their lives. They were, indeed, the friends of both. They did not.

patronise the one to the prejudice and expulsion of the other.*

Barclay, in his celebrated Apology, no where condemns the propriety or usefulness of human learning, or denies it to be promotive of the temporal comforts of man. He says that the knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, or of Logic and Philosophy, or of Ethics, or of Physics and Metaphysics, is not necessary. Mark his own meaning. Not necessary to make a minister of the Gospel. But where does he say that knowledge, which he himself possessed to such a considerable extent, was not necessary; or that it did not contribute to the innocent pleasures of life? What would have been the character of his own book, or what would have been its comparative value and usefulness, if he had not been able to quote so many authors to his purpose in their original texts, or to have detected so many classical errors, or to have introduced such apposite history, or to have drawn up his propositions with so much logical and mathematical clearness and precision; or if he had not been among the first literary characters of his day?

But not necessary for what?

William Penn was equally celebrated with Barclay as a scholar. His works afford abundant proof

* George Fox was certainly an exception to this as a scholar. He was also not friendly to classical learning, on account of some of the indelicate passages contained in the classical authors, which he, and Furley, and Stubbs, took some pains to cite, but if these had been removed, I believe his objection would have ceased.

of his erudition, or of the high cultivation of his mind. Like the rest of his associates, he was no advocate for learning as a qualification for a minister of the Gospel; but he was yet a friend to it on the principle that it enlarged the understanding, and that it added to the innocent pleasures of the mind. He entreated his wife, in the beautiful letter that he left her before he embarked on his first voyage to America, "not to be sparing of expense in procuring learning for his children; for that by such parsimony all was lost that was saved." And he recommended also, in the same letter, the mathematical and philosophical education, which I have described.

Thomas Ellwood, a celebrated writer among the early Quakers, and the friend of the great John Milton, was so sensible of the disadvantages arising from a want of knowledge, that he revived his learning with great industry even after he had become a Quaker. Let us hear the account, which he gives of himself in his own Journal. "I mentioned before," says he, "that when I was a boy I made some progress in learning, and that I lost it all again before I came to be a man. Nor was I

rightly sensible of my loss therein, till I came amongst the Quakers. But there I both saw my loss and lamented it, and applied myself with the utmost diligence at all leisure times to recover it. So false I found that charge to be, which in those times was cast as a reproach upon the Quakers, that they despised and decried all human learning, because they denied it to be essentially necessary to a