If a Quaker, after this inspection of his affairs, should find himself
unable to pay his just debts, he is immediately to disclose his affairs
to some judicious members of the society, or to his principal creditors,
and to take their advice how he is to act; but to be particularly
careful not to pay one creditor in preference to another.
When a person of the society becomes a bankrupt, a committee is
appointed by his own monthly meeting, to confer with him on his affairs.
If the bankruptcy should appear, by their report, to have been the
result of misconduct, he is disowned. He may, however, on a full
repentance, (for it is a maxim with the society, that "true repentance
washes put all stains,") and by a full payment of every man his own, be
admitted into membership again; or if he has begun to pay his creditors,
and has made arrangements satisfactory to the society for paying them,
he may be received as a member, even before the whole of the debt is
settled.
If it should appear, on the other hand, that the bankruptcy was the
unavoidable result of misfortune, and not of imprudence, he is allowed
to continue in the society.
But in either of these cases, that is, where a man is disowned and
restored, or where he has not been disowned at all, he is never
considered as a member, entitled to every privilege of the society,
till he has paid the whole of the debts.
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