notice by Elias, in his account of his visit to this place in 1781.

"We then rode that afternoon about twelve miles towards Albany, and lodged at an inn; and the next day we reached Saratoga, since called Easton, and lodged with our friend, Daniel Cornell. It was late in the night before we arrived, and the evening snowy; and the country being newly settled, Friends' houses were generally but poor, so that several times, while in these parts, I felt the snow fall on my face while in bed. This affected me with a heavy cold when I first came here, but I was afterwards much favored during the journey, having in a good measure become inured to the hardships we had to go through."

In this journey, which would perhaps among other sects of Christians be called a missionary journey, he rode eight hundred and fifty miles, attended thirty-two meetings, and visited about ninety families. In the autumn of this year he was attacked by a severe illness, in the shape of a fever, which lasted several months, and brought him near to the grave. To one who is acquainted with the laws of health, it will readily suggest itself that there was a near connection between this fever and the snowblanket under which he slept at Saratoga.

Similar visits were made by him to different parts of New England and New York, in the years 1783, 1784, 1790, 1791, 1792, and 1793. In 1790, he made a journey to Vermont, where some impression seemed to have been already made in favor of the principles of the Quakers in the town of Strafford. The enterprise was at first successful, and a society was organized, but it afterwards fell into weakness and discord. The reasons given by Elias are significant, and are calculated to strengthen the hands of the advocates of practical preaching in preference to doctrinal:

"For want of keeping inward enough to the principle of Divine light and grace, they became weak; and those who apprehended it their duty to teach had got too much out into words and speculative preaching and doctrines, which soon produced discord and schism among them."

Here, moreover, is a sad presage of the troubles into which he was destined to see the whole society fall, in after years, from the same cause.

This missionary journey was extended over the greater

part of New England, as he records his having preached in some of the chief towns of New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. He did not altogether abstain from doctrinal preaching himself, for he tells us that at Portland, Maine, he preached to a promiscuous assembly in the Court-house, and says: "Many doctrines of the Gospel were clearly opened, and the unsound doctrines of original sin and predestination, also the schemes of the Universalists, Atheists, and Deists, were confuted from Scripture and reason."

This ministerial visitation occupied five months, and in the course of it this zealous preacher travelled, he tells us, two thousand two hundred and eighty-three miles. He visited every Quaker society in New England, besides preaching often out of the bounds of his

sect.

Elias Hicks was now in the meridian of life, his powers and faculties were in their full vigor, and his reputation as an able and efficient minister was fully established. It was natural that he should wish to extend his usefulness beyond the sphere in which he had hitherto moved. The great body of the Friends lay in the Middle States. These brethren he had never seen, except on a short visit to Philadelphia during the war. In the year 1797, he carried into effect a design which he had long cherished, of paying them a visit. His record of this undertaking is interesting to those who are unacquainted with the manner in which things are done among the Quakers.

Having for several years felt my mind drawn at times in Gospel love to visit Friends of the yearly meeting of Pennsyl vania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and some parts of Virginia, in the fall of the year 1797, apprehending the time to be nigh for the performance of the visit, I laid my concern before Friends of the monthly and quarterly meetings, of which I was a member, and received certificates of their unity and concurrence."

On his way south he stopped at New York, and attended some meetings which were held there at that time. He then visited Staten Island, and passed on to New Jersey. Everywhere he was well received, edifying and comforting his brethren, and experiencing great enjoyment himself in the exercise of the ministerial func

tion. His arrival at Philadelphia, the seat of the principles he professed, and the city of Penn, was a season of peculiar enjoyment. Passing on, he remained a short time at Chester, and from Wilmington he made a tour of Delaware, preaching not only to Quakers, but to Christians of other sects, who were drawn to hear him by his reputation for piety and eloquence. Returning, he passed round the head of the Chesapeake Bay, and, visiting small communities of his people, journeyed on to Baltimore.

Maryland has always contained a strong representation of the followers of George Fox. In Baltimore, they early attained to great respectability as regards numbers, intelligence, influence, and wealth. He tells us that he here bore strong testimony against conformity to the world. It was in the same meeting-house that we listened to him thirty-one years afterwards. During this visit he preached to the poor at the almshouse, and to the colored people. That his reputation had preceded him, we learn from a record he makes of one of the Friends' meetings at which he was present.

"The 11th being the first of the week, we attended Friends' meeting in the forenoon, and some notice being given among the towns-people of our being there, it was large; and after sitting a considerable time in silent labor, wherein my mind was baptized into the states of those present, I stood up with a prospect of the hurtful tendency of pride, both in religion and society."

This was his first visit to a slave State, and we find him courageously bearing the Quaker testimony against that institution in the midst of its upholders. At a place in the country called "Indian Spring," of course in the midst of plantations worked by slaves, he tells us :

"In this meeting, I was led in a plain and full manner to expose the enormous sin of oppression, and of holding our fellowcreatures in bondage, with the pernicious fruits and effects of it to those who are guilty thereof, especially to their children; who, being supported by the labors of those held in slavery, and thereby brought up in idleness, were led into pride, and a very false and dark idea respecting God, and his superintending providence, and into many other evils fatal to their present and eternal well-being, and tending to disqualify them from being useful

in almost every respect, either to themselves or society, and thereby rendering them unworthy of the respect of wise and good men."

Such was the language which it was safe for a Northern man to use at the South in the year 1797, before these days of ill-blood and mutual exasperation. In this way he travelled on through Maryland and a part of Virginia, returning through Pennsylvania to Philadel phia. Here there was a meeting of ministers and elders, which lasted for three days. Having attended this, he journeyed towards home, taking in his way several societies of Friends, among whom he labored. He was absent on this journey five months, travelled sixteen hundred miles, and attended one hundred and forty-three meetings.

Such then was the life of Elias Hicks. Such gifts, united with so much industry, could not fail to acquire extensive influence. His preaching was almost wholly practical, and we do not find that his doctrinal views met with any opposition. Whatever differences of opin ion prevailed among the Society at that time, they were held in perfect tolerance and charity. There was no breach of unity throughout the whole country, and the connection enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity. At intervals of two or three years, our laborious minister made similar journeys to various parts of the country as long as he lived, and thus performed an amount of what we may call missionary duty which reminds us of the labors of Wesley, and even the Apostles themselves.

His latter days, however, were destined not to be so serene. Between the years 1810 and 1820 serious difficulties began to arise, terminating in a total disruption of that great Society for which he had labored for more than half a century. The blame of that disruption is attempted to be laid at his door. With how much reason, we shall see in the course of this article.

From the first establishment of Penn and the Quakers in America, a friendly correspondence had been kept up between them and their brethren in England, though there was no ecclesiastical connection or dependence. Each connection of affiliated societies was perfectly independent of the other. No doctrinal creed had ever

been proposed or assented to. The platform of their church, if church it may be called, was not doctrinal, but practical. George Fox commenced his public ministra tions about the year 1648, and one of his first public declarations precludes all possibility, not only of forcing a creed upon the minds of men, but of trying any man's creed by the letter of Scripture. On a clergyman's saying that all doctrines, opinions, and religions are to be tried by the Holy Scriptures, he rose and exclaimed, “O, no! it is not the Scriptures, but the Holy Spirit, by which opinions and religions are to be tried, for it was the spirit that led thirty people into all truth, and gave them the knowledge of it." Accordingly, no creed was ever laid down by him or the Society as necessary to membership. His only peculiar doctrine, apart from the practical principles he enforced, was this doctrine of "the inward light" given to every man in such measure, that, if obeyed, it must necessarily lead him to salvation.

William Penn, the ablest and best educated of all the early Quakers, became a preacher of the sect in the year 1668. He was eminently acceptable and successful. Within a few years, he published a tract with this title: "The Sandy Foundation shaken, or those generally believed and applauded Doctrines, One God subsisting in Three distinct and separate Persons, The Impossi-. bility of God's pardoning Sinners without a Plenary Satisfaction, The Justification of Impure Persons by imputative Righteousness, confuted from the Authority of Scripture and right Reason, by William Penn, a Builder on that Foundation that cannot be moved." A short time previous to the publication of this tract, William Penn had been accompanied by George Whitehead, another Quaker preacher of great eminence, in a public dispute, the subject of which was "Whether they owned one Godhead subsisting in three distinct and separate persons." Penn and Whitehead denied that this was a Scripture doctrine. This same Whitehead had an unquestioned standing and reputation among the Quakers, and had written nine-and-twenty pamphlets in defence of their tenets.

We hear of no outcry of heresy raised against these men. There was no "disownment" by their brethren. It is fair to conclude, then, that there was no doctrinal