powers and vary the topics of conversation. It would enliven the speaker. It would give him animation in discourse. 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, they found a cheerful and an agreeable companion.

if

Another charge against the Quakers 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 the Quakers are esteemed deficient in literature, their opposition to the customs of the world will always be characterized as folly. But 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

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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.

CHAP

Arguments of those of the Society examined, who may depreciate human knowledge-this depreciation did not originate with the first Quakerswith Barclay-Penn-Ellwood-but arose afterwards-Reputed disadvantages of a classical edu cation-its Heathen mythology and moralityDisadvantages of a philosophical one—its scepticism-general disadvantages of human learning -inefficacy 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 first Quakers 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

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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. But not necessary for what? 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 com

* 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.

parative

parative 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?

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