free of the inconveniences, with which other methods are attended; their
care and checks being so many, and such, as that no clandestine marriages
can be performed among them.

XI. It may not be unfit to say something here of their births and
burials, which make up so much of the pomp of too many called Christians.
For births, the parents name their own children; which is usually some
days after they are born, in the presence of the midwife, if she can be
there, and those that were at the birth, who afterwards sign a
certificate for that purpose prepared, of the birth and name of the child
or children; which is recorded in a proper book, in the monthly-meeting
to which the parents belong; avoiding the accustomed ceremonies and
festivals.

XII. Their burials are performed with the same simplicity. If the body
of the deceased be near any public meeting-place, it is usually carried
thither, for the more convenient reception of those that accompany it to
the burying-ground. And it so falls out sometimes, that while the
meeting is gathering for the burial, {27} some or other has a word of
exhortation, for the sake of the people there met together. After which
the body is borne away by young men, or else those that are of their
neighbourhood, or those that were most of the intimacy of the deceased
party: the corpse being in a plain coffin, without any covering or
furniture upon it. At the ground they pause some time before they put
the body into its grave, that if any there should have anything upon them
to exhort the people, they may not be disappointed; and that the
relations may the more retiredly and solemnly take the last leave of the
body of their departed kindred, and the spectators have a sense of
mortality, by the occasion then given them, to reflect upon their own
latter end. Otherwise, they have no set rites or ceremonies on those
occasions. Neither do the kindred of the deceased ever wear mourning;
{28} they looking upon it as a worldly ceremony and piece of pomp; and
that what mourning is fit for a Christian to have, at the departure of a
beloved relation or friend, should be worn in the mind, which is only
sensible of the loss: and the love they had to them, and remembrance of
them, to be outwardly expressed by a respect to their advice, and care of
those they have left behind them, and their love of that they loved.
Which conduct of theirs, though unmodish or unfashionable, leaves nothing
of the substa