hat this correction is
universally practicable, for that there are as various dispositions in
this society as in any other in proportion to its numbers. They shew,
that Christianity can alter the temper, that it can level enmities, and
that there is no just occasion for any to despair. And they are living
proofs, in the second, as to what kind of character Christianity, where
it is rightly received, will produce; They are living proofs, that it
can produce sobriety, inoffensiveness, simplicity, charity, peace, and
the domestic and other virtues. Now though every private Christian can
shew in himself an example of these effects, yet the Quakers shew it,
not by producing solitary instances, but as a body; the temper of the
great mass of their members being apparently cast in the same mould, and
their character, as a society, being acknowledged to be that of a moral
people.

And here I cannot but stop for a moment to pay a just tribute to the
Quaker system, as one of the best modes of the Christian Religion; for
whether the doctrines which belong to it, or whether the discipline
which it promotes, or whether both of them conjointly, produce the
effects which have been just related, certain it is, that they are
produced.[44] But that system of religion is surely the most excellent,
which produces, first, the greatest, and, secondly, the most universal
effect upon those who profess it. For what is the use of any particular
creed, or where is the advantage of any one creed above another, if it
cannot give the great characteristic marks of a Christian, a subjugated
mind and a moral character? What signifies the creed of any particular
description of Christian professors, if it has no influence on the
heart, or if we see professors among these giving way to their passions,
or affording an inconsistent example to the world.

[Footnote 44: Many of the Quakers in America, influenced by custom,
Adopted the practice of holding slaves. But on a due recurrence to their
principles they gave freedom to these unconditionally, thus doing
another public good in the world, and giving another example of the
power of religion on the mind.]

The Quakers have given, again, in the reforms, which, in the first
volume, I described them to have introduced into legislation, a
beautiful and practical lesson of jurisprudence to the governors of all
nations. They have shewn the inefficacy of capital punishments; that the
best object in the punishmen