This religious itinerating was a part of the economic life of those days
as well; for the Friends never separated the one from the other.
Wherever they went they "testified," and to every place they came with
shrewd appreciation of its value as a place of settlement. Says James
Wood: "Each Quaker home as it was settled became a resting-place for
those who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quaker
hospitality to keep open house for all fellow-members, under all
circumstances."[17]

The development of the hospitality that was a part of the religion of
the Quakers would be itself a sufficient study. It has furnished some of
the most interesting chapters of the history of the Hill. It is now
completely transformed, through the pressure of competitive economic
life; and, with undiminished activities, has become a means of revenue
in "the keeping of boarders." Seven of the old Quaker homes, in the
period of the Mixed Community, took on the aspect of small hotels. For
this business the Quakers have a preparation in their history and
traditions. They have an inbred genius for hospitality. They have also a
thrift and capacity for "management" which have made their efforts
successful. One is impressed in their houses by a union of abundance
with economy, impossible to imitate.

Like other American pioneer neighborhoods, of a religious type, the
Quaker community at Oblong had a history in the matter of sexual
morality. The relations of the sexes offered to the Friends a field in
which their favorite doctrine of the indwelling divine spirit produced
moral harvests. The records of Oblong Meeting are filled with cases of
moral discipline. There is scarcely a meeting in whose minutes some case
is not mentioned, either its initial, intermediate or final stages. No
family was exempt from this experience. The best families furnished the
culprits as often as they supplied the committees to investigate and to
condemn.

The regular method of procedure in marriage will best exhibit the moral
standards of the time. When a couple would marry, they indicated to the
Meeting their intention; and a committee was at once appointed to
investigate their "clearness." That is, these two must be free of other
engagements, and must be free of debt or other incumbrance of such sort
as would render marriage impossible or unadvisable. At the next monthly
meeting the report of the committee advanced the case one stage; and if
they were found "cl