But it must be observed; on the other hand,
that where men are not obliged to remain under grievous evils, and can
get rid of them, merely by changing their occupation in life, and this
honourably, it is in human nature to do it. And so far tithes, I
believe, have had an influence, in driving the Quakers into the towns.
Of later years, as the society has grown thinner in the country, I
believe new reasons have sprung up; for the Quakers have had less
opportunity of society with one another. They have been subjected, also
to greater inconvenience in attending their religious meetings. Their
children also have been more exposed to improper connexions in marriage.
To which it may be added, that the large and rapid profits frequently
made in trade, compared with the generally small and slow returns from
agricultural concerns, may probably have operated with many, as an
inducement to such a change.
But whatever reasons may have induced them to quit the country, and to
settle in the towns, no temporal advantages can make up to them, as a
society, the measure of their loss. For when we consider that the
Quakers never partake of the amusements of the world; that their worldly
pleasures are chiefly of a domestic nature; that calmness, and quietude,
and abstraction from worldly thoughts, to which rural retirement is
peculiarly favourable, is the state of mind which they themselves
acknowledge to be required by their religion, it would seem that the
country was peculiarly the place for their habitations.
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