The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1873-07-03
TIE FRIENDS, or r0UAKERs
\ just Tribute TO their Char
sE aeler and Influence.

D lHHueHces
The N. Y. Tribune, in a recent article on
''Vnal'er Meeting" pays this deserved
tribute to the moral character and infu-
enee Of the society of Friends:
With the beginning of this week do the
grave tribes of Quakers, both Orthodox
and Hicksite, go upon their annual pilgrim
age to their Jerusalem, the City of Penn
we confess to a sudden sense of relief and
security whenever our staid, shrewd breth-
rem and quiet sisters thus come to the
'front.' The country, we think, cannot
during this week govery far astray. There
are certain parts of our body politic to
which, when bribery and corruption are
most Hinmphant, we always Etarn with
e2Inpiaeency,saso one remembers the sound
tih1bers at the keel of good ship aNl1sn,her
pilot or engineer threatens to run her on
shoals.
The Friends, both in numbers and moral
force, weigh great weight, unestirAated per-
haps, but appreciable. The broad-brimmed.
square-jawed Ephraim, and the dove-clad
Deborah, with her white hair parted smooth
ly over her wrinkled, placid and still pink
cheeks, who are sitting in solemn conclave
to-day in Philadelphia, exercise religious,
political and social influence which is alto
gether wholesome. They have grown out
of and above the type of their founder.
George Fox. Age and custom having con-
firned and approved them as a peculiar
people, they will not siuabble with YOU on
points of doctrine, or split hairs of lopie
with regard to the virtue in shad-bellied
coat or in the bad grammar of the plain
language, as the 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 show
ing of that they have exhibited strength
and persistency and a quiet disregard of
worldly considerations unsurpassed by any
other Christian sect. You will seldom hear
of the Friends work, yet there is no re-
form III the country, from the public school |
system to the abolition of slavery, of which |
they have not been inaugurators. Our drab- |
coated friends, Isaac and Deborah, in fact. |
appear to be 50 exactly theoppositein in private
and public of the miserable follies and
vices which are now degrading us as peo-
pie in the eyes of the world, that we are
tempted to lift them up as examples to this
untoward generation. The bane, the anti
dote, are both before rs. Are we braggarts:
Here are stiffness and modesty. Do we
make sham show of wealth and property
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 kitchen fire. Here is no
plated pewter ware, no sleazy silks, no cheap
Brussels. Are reckless in trading?
Make penny from Ephraim in bargain
if you can. Do we squander and drink
and gamble our way headlong to poverty ? !
Who ever saw a begging Quaker? Are our
bellies forward and scheming in Irritation
and matchmaking? Does the hare some
times hunt the hounds? The daughters of
Deborah wear not the plain garb perhaps,
but they are clothed upon with a wonder
Gus modesty and self-respect They are
cleared-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, but as the first |
man to the unknown pure mystery of the |
first woman. Do We find Free Love and /
spiritual affnities necessary to solve the |
problem of marriage? Who has heard of a |
divorced Quaker? Or, to come to pettier
matters (though Just as vital does the
worldly housewife find her children nerv-
Gus, her husband driven day after day to II
for something to eat, chamber
maids perpetual thorn in her side, and |
cooks mere messengers of Satan sent to
buffet her? Let her go into the noiseless
nurseries of our Friend Deborah, through
her spotless kitchen, and beholding the
serene brows of mistress and maid, lay her
hand upon her mouth and her mouth in the
dust and be silent.
Oar Friendly brethren in Philadelphia are
about, We perceive, to give to the Indian
problem their gravest consideration. We
are tempted to wish that they would takeall
those other muddles of life which prove too
much for us, and with their keen eyes and
placid fingers set them to rghts-now and
forever