When the religious visit is over, the
minister, if there be occasion, takes some little refreshment with the
family, and converses with them; but no light or trifling subject is
ever entered upon on these occasions. From one family he passes on to
another, till he has visited all the families in the district, for which
he had felt a concern.
Though Quaker ministers frequently confine their spiritual labours to
the county or quarterly meeting in which they reside, yet some of them
feel an engagement to go beyond these boundaries, and to visit the
society in particular counties, or in the kingdom at large. They who
feel a concern of this kind, must lay it before their own monthly
meetings. These meetings, if they feel it right to countenance it, grant
them certificates for the purpose. These certificates are necessary;
first, because ministers might not he personally known as ministers out
of their own district; and secondly, because Quakers, who were not
ministers, and other persons who might counterfeit the dress of Quakers,
might otherwise impose upon the society, as they travelled along.
Such persons, as thus travel in the work of the ministry, or public
friends as they are called, seldom or never go to an inn at any town or
village, where Quakers live. They go to the houses of the latter. While
at these, they attend the weekly, monthly, and quarterly meetings of the
district, as they happen on their route.
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