serable moments on this account. A
due subjugation of the passions has been generally instilled into them
from early youth. Provocation seldom produces in them any intemperate
warmth, or takes away, in any material degree, from the apparent
composure of their minds.

Others again, by indulging their anger, are often hurried into actions
of which the consequences vex and torment them, and of which they often
bitterly repent. But the Quakers endeavour to avoid quarrelling, and
therefore they often steer clear of the party and family feuds of
others. They avoid also, as much as possible, the law, so that they have
seldom any of the lawsuits to harass and disturb them, which interrupt
the tranquillity of others by the heavy expence, and by the lasting
enmities they occasion.

The Quakers again are exempt from many of the other passions which
contribute to the unhappiness of the world at large. Some men have an
almost boundless ambition. They are desirous of worldly honours, or of
eminent stations, or of a public name, and pursue these objects in their
passage through life with an avidity which disturbs the repose of their
minds. But the Quakers scarcely know any such feeling as that of
ambition, and of course scarcely any of the torments that belong to it.
They are less captivated by the splendour of honours than any other
people, and they had rather live in the memory of a few valuable
friends, than be handed down to posterity for those deeds, which
generally constitute the basis of public character.

Others again, who cannot obtain these honourable distractions, envy
those who possess them. They envy the very coronet upon the coach, as it
passes by. But the Quakers can have no such feelings as these. They pass
in their pilgrimage through life regardless of such distinctions, or
they estimate them but as the baubles of the, day. It would be folly
therefore to suppose, that they could be envious of that which they do
not covet.

The Quakers again are exempt from some of the occasions of uneasiness
which arise to others from considerations on the subject of religion.
Some people, for example, pry into what are denominated mysteries. The
more they look into these, the less they understand them, or rather, the
more they are perplexed and confounded. Such an enquiry too, while it
bewilders the understanding, generally affects the mind. But the Quakers
avoid all such curious enquiries as these, and therefore they suffer no