THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE ON QUAKERISM.

Evening Star, Issue 3284, 29 August 1873, Page 3

THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE ON QUAKERISM.

Commenting on the annual meeting of the Society of Friends at Philadelphia, the Weekly Tribune remarks The Friends, both in numbers and moral force, weigh great weight, unestimated perhaps, hut appreciable. The broad-brimmed, square-jawed Ephraim, and the dove-clad Deborah, with her white hair parted smoothly over her wrinkled, placid and still pink checks, who are sitting in solemn conclave to-day iu Philadelphia, exercise a religious, political, and social inllueuco which is altogether wholesome. They have grown out of and above the type of their founder, George Fox. Age and custom have confirmed and approved them as a peculiar people ; they will not squabble with you on points of doctrines, or split hairs of logic with regard to the virtue in a shadbellied coat or in the bad grammar of the plain language, as that venerable pioneer of their faith would probably have done. Their Christianity is in the eyes of men simple love to their brother man, and in the showing of that they have exhibited a strength and persistency and a quiet disregard of worldly considerations unsurpassed” by any other" Christian sect. You will seldom hear of your Friends’ work, yet there is no reform iu the country, from the school system to the abolition of slavery, of which they have not been inaugurators. Our drabcoated friends, Isaac and Deborah, iu fact, appear to be so exactly the opposite iu private and public of the miserable follies and vices which are now degrading us ?.s a people iu the eyes of the world, that we are tempted to lift them up as examples to this untoward generation. The bane, the antidote, arc both before us. Are we braggarts ? Hero are stillness and modesty, L)o we make a ah am show of wealth and prosperity ? Go into their plain brick dwelling on Arch street if you would know what reality is, from the welcome on the threshold to the dinner on the kiteheq Hero are uo

plated pewter-ware, no sleazy silks, no cheap Brussels. Are we reckless in trading? Make a penny from Fphcaim in a bargain if you can. Do we squander and drink and gamble our way headlong to poverty ? Who ever saw a begging Quaker ? Are our belles forward and "scheming in flirtation and match-making? Does the bare sometimes bunt the hounds ? The daughters of Deborah wear not the plain garb perhaps, but they are clothed upon with a wondrous modesty and self-respect. They are clear-eyed and clear-brained, and always able, if need be, to earn their own living by other modes than marriage. The lover who woos them will not pay homage as a carpet knight to a sham queenship, bub as the lirst man to the unknown pure mystery of the first woman. Do we find Free Love and spiritual affinities necessary to solve the problem of marriage? Who Las heard of a divored Quaker ? Or, to come to pettier matters (though just as vital), does the worldly housewife find her children nervous, her husband driven day after day to a restaurant for something to eat, chambermaids a perpetual thorn in her side, and cooks mere messengers of Satan sent to buffet her? let her go into the noiseless nurseries of the Friend Deborah, through her spotless kitchen, and beholding the serene brows of mistress and maids, lay her hand upon her mouth and her mouth in the dust and be silent.