to say.
But it will always be a pleasing consideration to me, to have tried to
prevent the decrease of a virtuous people.

[Footnote 47: Against this decrease we cannot set off any great increase
by admission into membership. The dress, the language, the fear of being
singular, the discipline with its various restraints, the unwillingness
of men to suffer where suffering can be avoided, these and other
circumstances are great impediments in the way of an entrance into this
society; and to this I may add, that applications for admission into it
are not always complied with.]

With respect then to the causes of this decline, to which I shall
confine myself in this chapter, they will be found in the causes of
disownment. Now of these, some may be called original and immediate, and
others original and remote.

Of original and immediate, the first is what the Quakers call mixed
marriage. It has been before stated, that those who marry out of the
society are disowned, and the reasons for such disownments have been
given.

A second will be found in tithes. They who pay these are ultimately
disowned. And they are disowned as well for the payment of lay-tithes,
as of those which are ecclesiastical.

Of the original and remote, a very prolific cause is the pursuit of
trade, connected as it is with the peculiar habits of the society, and a
residence in the towns.[48]

[Footnote 48: Owing perhaps to the causes alleged by the author, the
society may have decreased in England, yet it is certain that in this
country the number of Quakers has very considerably increased. AMERICAN
EDITOR.]

To shew this I must observe, first, that the poor, comparatively
speaking, are seldom disowned, for they know that they[49] shall never
be so well provided for in any other society. I must observe again, that
the members of the middle classes are also, comparatively speaking, but
seldom disowned. These must live by trade, but if so, they cannot be
better off than as Quakers. The direct conclusion then, from these
observations, will be, that the greater number of those who are
disowned, will be found among the rich, or among such as are growing
rich. Hence it appears, that, as far as this original and remote cause
is concerned, my enquiry must be, how it happens, that members of this
particular class should be excluded from membership more than those of
any other.

[Footnote 49: I by no means intend to say, that the poor do not remain
in