Thomas Clarkson

“ The first Quakers never had their portraits taken with their own knowledge and consent. Considering themselves as poor and helpless creatures, and little better than dust and ashes, they had but a mean idea of their own images. They were of opinion also, that pride and self-conceit would be likely to arise to men from the view, and ostentatious parade, of their own persons. They considered also, that it became them, as the founders of the society, to bear their testimony against the vain and superfluous fashions of the world. ”

“ But the Quakers would argue, that if music had any effect in the civilization, this effect would be seen in the manners, and not in the morals of mankind. Musical Italians are esteemed a soft and effeminate, but they are generally reputed a depraved people. Music, in short, though it breathes soft influences, cannot yet breathe morality into the mind. It may do to soften savages, but a christian community, in the opinion of the Quakers, can admit of no better civilization, than that which the spirit of the supreme being, and an observance of the pure precepts of christianity, can produce. ”

“ And here I think the Quakers would particularly condemn music, if they thought it could be resorted to in the hour of affliction, in as much as it would then have a tendency to divert the mind from its true and only support.
Music, again, does not appear to them to be productive of elevated thoughts, that is, of such thoughts as raise the mind to sublime and spiritual things, abstracted from the inclinations, the temper, and the prejudices of the world. The most melodious sounds that human instruments can make, are from the earth earthly. But nothing can rise higher than its own origin. ”

“ Thus, if vice be not represented as odious, he may lose his love of virtue. If buffoonery should be made to please him, he may lose the dignity of his mind. Love-tales may produce in him a romantic imagination. Low characters may teach him low cunning. If the laws of honour strike him as the laws of refined life, he may become a fashionable moralist. If modes of dissipation strike him us modes of pleasure in the estimation of the world, he may abandon himself to these, and become a rake. ”

“ There is one trait in the Quaker-manners, which runs through the whole society, as far as I have seen in their houses, and which is worthy of mention. The Quakers appear to be particularly gratified, when those, who visit them, ask for what they want. Instead of considering this as rudeness or intrusion, they esteem it as a favour done them. The circumstance of asking, on such an occasion, is to them a proof, that there visitors feel themselves at home. Indeed they almost always desire a stranger who has been introduced to them "to be free." ”

“ They frequently threaten enemies with new chastisements, and new victories, and breathe the spirit of revenge. But the Quakers consider all wars, whether offensive or defensive, as against the spirit of the christian religion. They cannot contemplate scenes of victory but with the eye of pity, and the tear of compassion, for the sufferings of their fellow-creatures, whether countrymen or enemies, and for the devastation of the human race. ”

“ Might not thankful feelings be excited in our hearts, that the crime of idolatry had ceased among us, and that the only remnant of it was a useful signature of the times? In fact, if it be the tendency of the corrupt part of our nature to render innocent things vicious, it is, on the other hand, in the essence of our nature, to render vicious things in process of time innocent; so that the remnants of idolatry and superstition may be made subservient to the moral improvement of mankind. ”

“ We are taught also that men, independently of their accountableness to their own governments, are accountable for their actions in a future state, and that punishments are unquestionably to follow. But where are our forbearance and our love, where is our regard for the temporal and eternal interests of man, where is our respect for the principles of the gospel, if we make the reformation of a criminal a less object than his punishment, or if we consign him to death, in the midst of his sins, without having tried all the means in our power for his recovery? ”

“ Each deviation is a sign of a temper for desertion. Each deviation brings them in appearance nearer to the world. But the nearer they resemble the world in this respect, the more they are found to mix with it. They are of course the more likely to be seduced from the wholesome prohibitions of the society. The language therefore of the Quakers has grown up insensibly as a wall of partition, which could not now, it is contended, be taken away without endangering the innocence of their youth. ”

“ The latter pleasure, as it seems natural, so, under certain limitations, it seems innocent. The first tendency of music, I mean of instrumental, is to calm and tranquillize the passions. The ideas, which it excites, are of the social, benevolent, and pleasant kind. It leads occasionally to joy, to grief, to tenderness, to sympathy, but never to malevolence, ingratitude, anger, cruelty, or revenge. For no combination of musical sounds can be invented, by which the latter passions can be excited in the mind, without the intervention of the human voice. ”

“ I am afraid I shall be thought more cynical than just, more prejudiced than impartial, more given to censure than to praise, if in temples, apparently dedicated to good humour, cheerfulness and mirth, I should say that sources were to be found, from whence we could trace the rise of immoral passions. But human nature is alike in all places, and, if circumstances should arise in the ball-room, which touch as it were the strings of the passions, they will as naturally throw out their tone there as in other places. ”

“ Some Quakers have been inclined to think, that novels ought to be rejected on account of the fictitious nature of their contents. But this consideration is, by no means, generally adopted by the society, as an argument against them. Nor would it be a sound argument, if it were. If novels contain no evil within themselves, or have no evil tendency, the mere circumstance of the subject, names or characters being feigned, will not stamp them as censurable. Such fiction will not be like the fiction of the drama, where men act and personate characters that are not their own. ”

“ I may observe also, that a peculiarity of gait, which might be mistaken for awkwardness, might not unreasonably be expected in those, who had neither learned to walk under the guidance of a dancing, master, nor to bow under the direction of the dominion of fashion. If those and those only are to be esteemed really polished and courteous, who bow and scrape, and salute each other by certain prescribed gestures, then the Quakers will appear to have contracted much rust, and to have an indisputable right to the title of a clownish and inflexible people. ”

“ To drink to a man, when he is lifting his victuals to his mouth, and by calling off his attention, to make him drop them, or to interrupt two people, who are eating and talking together, and to break the thread of their discourse, seems to be an action, as rude in its principle, as disagreeable in its effects, nor is the custom often less troublesome to the person drinking the health, than to the person whose health is drank. If a man finds two people engaged in conversation he must wait till he catches their eyes, before he can drink himself. ”

“ In the same manner as the spirit of gaming has seized upon these different institutions and amusements of antiquity, and turned them from their original to new and destructive uses, so there is no certainty, that it will not seize upon others, which may have been innocently resorted to, and prostitute them equally with the former. The mere prohibition of particular amusements, even if it could be enforced, would be no cure for the evil. The brain of man is fertile enough, as fast as one custom is prohibited, to fix upon another. ”

“ He sees all equal but he sees none superior, to himself. He may give his advice on any question. He may propose new matter. He may argue and reply. In the quarterly meetings he is called to the exercise of the same privileges, but on a larger scale. And at the yearly meeting he may, if he pleases, unite in his own person the offices of council, judge, and legislator. But when he leaves the society, and goes out into the world, he has no such station or power. He sees there every body equal to himself in privileges, and thousands above him. ”

“ Plays therefore, or novels, or public dances, are only the sub-causes, or the occasions of calling forth the passions in question. The real cause is in the infected state of the mind, or in the want of knowledge, or in the want of a love of virtue."
"Prohibitions therefore, though they may become partial checks of vice, can never, they believe, be relied upon as effectual guardians of virtue. Bars and bolts seldom prevent thieves from robbing a house. But if armed men should be in it, who would venture to enter in? In the same manner the mind of man should be armed or prepared. ”

“ Hence if we were to see a groupe of modern Quakers before us, we should probably not find any two of them dressed alike. Health, we all know, may require alteration in dress. Simplicity may suggest others. Convenience again may point out others; and yet all these various alterations may be consistent with the objects before specified. And here it may be observed that the society, during its existence for a century and a half, has without doubt, in some degree, imperceptibly followed the world, though not in its fashions, yet in its improvements of cloathing. ”

“ The Quakers and the poet Cowper likewise, in their laudable zeal for the happiness of the brute-creation, have given an improper description of the nature of the crime of these diversions. They have made it to consist in a man's deriving pleasure from the sufferings of the animals in question, whereas it should have been made to consist in his making a pleasure of a pursuit which puts them to pain. The most abandoned sportsman, it is to be presumed, never hunts them because he enjoys their sufferings. His pleasure arises from considerations of another nature. ”

“ It is not to make a man odious, but to make him more respectable. It is never an interference with innocence. The watchfulness begins to be offensive only, where delinquency is begun.
The discipline, again, has been considered as too great an infringement, of the liberty of those, who are brought under it. Against this the Quakers would contend, that all persona who live in civil society, must give up a portion of their freedom, that more happiness and security may be enjoyed. So, when men enter into Christian societies, they must part with a little of their liberty for their moral good. ”

“ For it cannot be doubted that it has an immediate tendency, in this case, to produce a frivolous levity, to generate vanity and pride, and to call up passions of the malevolent kind. Now in this point of view it is, that the Quakers generally consider dancing. They never view it, as I observed before, abstractedly, or solely by itself. They have therefore forbidden it to their society, believing it to be the duty of a Christian to be serious in his conversation and deportment; to afford an example of humility; and to be watchful and diligent in the subjugation of his evil passions. ”

“ When we consider the depravity of heart, and the misery and ruin, that are frequently connected with gaming, it would be strange indeed, if the Quakers, as highly professing Christians, had not endeavoured to extirpate it from their own body.
No people, in fact, have taken more or more effectual measures for its suppression. They have proscribed the use of all games of chance, and of all games of skill, that are connected with chance in any manner. Hence cards, dice, horse-racing, cock-fighting, and all the amusements, which come under this definition, are forbidden. ”

“ But words are the representatives of ideas, and, as for as these ideas are pure or otherwise, so far may vocal music be rendered innocent or immoral.
The mere singing, it must be obvious, can be no more immoral than the reading, of the same song, singing is but another mode of expressing it. The morality of the action will depend upon the words which it may contain. If the words in a song are pure, if the sentiments in it are just, and if it be the tendency of these to awaken generous and virtuous sympathies, the song will operate no otherwise than a lesson of morality. ”

“ Civilized as we are beyond all the people who have been mentioned, and living where the Christian religion is professed, we have the misfortune to see our own countrymen engaged in similar pursuits, and equally to the disturbance of the tranquillity of their minds, and equally to their own ruin. They cannot, it is true, stake their personal liberty, because they can neither sell themselves, nor be held as slaves. ”

“ The wisdom, therefore, of the Quakers, in making it to be considered as a law of the society, that no member is to lay wagers, or reap advantage from any doubtful event, by a previous agreement upon a monied stake, is particularly conspicuous. For, whenever it can be enforced, it must be an effectual cure for gaming. For we have no idea, how a man can gratify his desire of gain by means of any of the amusements of chance, if he can make no monied arrangements about their issue. ”

“ I have seen aged Quakers gently reprove others of tenderer years, with whom they happened to be in company, for having started them. It is not that the Quakers have not the same feelings as other men, or that they are not equally interested about humanity, or that they are incapable of opinions on the changeable political events, that are passing over the face of the globe, that this subject is so little agitated among them. ”

“ The arguments which have hitherto appeared against the admission of music into education, are those which were nearly coeval with the society itself. The incapability of music to answer moral ends, the sensuality of the gratification, the impediments it might throw in the way of religious retirement, the impurity it might convey to the mind, were in the mouths of the early Quakers. Music at that time was principally in the hands of those, who made a livelihood of the art. ”

“ For if people are taught to love virtue for virtue's sake, and, in like manner, to hate what is unworthy, because they have a genuine and living knowledge of its unworthiness, neither the ball, nor concert-room, nor the theatre, nor the circulating library, nor the diversions of the field, will have charms enough to seduce them, or to injure the morality of their minds. ”

“ One of the effects, which the Quakers consider to be produced by novels upon those who read them, is an affectation of knowledge, which leads them to become forward and presumptuous. This effect is highly injurious, for while it raises them unduly in their own estimation, it lowers them in that of the world. Nothing can be more disgusting, in the opinion of the Quakers, than to see persons assuming the authoritative appearance of men and women before their age or their talents can have given them any pretensions to do it. ”

“ It is impossible, they would say, for a man to be virtuous, or to be in love with virtue, except he were to lay aside his vicious practices. The first step to virtue, according both to the Heathen and the Christian philosophy, is to abstain from vice. We are to cease to do evil, and to learn to do well. This is the process recommended. Hence prohibitions are necessary. Hence sub-causes as well as causes are to be attacked. Hence abstinence from vice is a Christian, though it may be a sluggish, virtue. Hence innocence is to be aimed at by an ignorance of vice. ”

“ In fact it may be truly said that if satisfaction in visiting depends upon a man's own freedom to do as he likes, to ask and to call for what he wants, to go out and come in as he pleases; and if it depends also on the knowledge he has, that, in doing all these things, he puts no person out of his way, there are no houses, where people will be better pleased with their treatment, than in those of the Quakers. ”