t." She was, in fact, a rigid old
Conservative follower of George Fox, from the top of her close-bordered
cap to the skirts of her grey silk gown. I am afraid my countenance
expressed incredulity as to her rationale of the decay; for, as I rose
to go, she said, "Thou dost not agree, friend, with what I have said to
thee--nay, never shake thy head; it would be wonderful if thou didst,
when our own people don't. Stay; I'll give thee a note to my son in
London, though he will gainsay much of what I have told thee." She gave
me the letter, which was just what I wanted, for I felt I had gained
little beyond a pleasant experience of old-world life from my morning's
jaunt. I partook of her kindly hospitality, was shown over her
particularly cosy house, gardens, and hothouses, and meditated, on my
return journey, upon many particulars I learnt for the first time as to
the early history of Fox; realizing what a consensus there was between
the experiences of all illuminati. I smiled once and again over the
quaint title of one of Fox's books which my venerable friend had quoted
to me--viz., "A Battle-door for Teachers and Professors to learn Plural
and Singular. _You_ to _Many_, and _Thou_ to _One_; Singular, One,
_Thou_; Plural, Many, _You_." While so meditating, my cab deposited me
at the door of a decidedly "downy" house, at the West End, where my
prospective friend was practising in I will not mention which of the
learned professions. Both the suburban cottage of the mother and the
London menage of the son assured me that they had thriven on Quakerism;
and it was only then I recollected that a poor Quaker was as rare a
personage as an infantile member of the Society.

The young man--who neither in dress, discourse, nor manner differed
from an ordinary English gentleman--smiled as he read his mother's
lines, and, with a decorous apology for disturbing the impressions which
her discourse might have left upon me, took precisely the view which had
been latent in my own mind as to the cause of the Society's decay.
Thoroughly at one with them still on the doctrine of the illuminating
power of the Spirit in the individual conscience, he treated the archaic
dress, the obsolete phraseology, the obstinate opposition to many
innocent customs of the age, simply as anachronisms. He pointed with
pride to the fact that our greatest living orator was a member of the
Society; and claimed for the underlying principle of Quakerism--namely,
the s