A raising even of
their voices beyond due bounds is discouraged, as leading to the
disturbance of their minds. They are taught to rise in the morning in
quietness, to go about their ordinary occupations with quietness, and to
retire in quietness to their beds. Educated in this manner, we seldom
see a noisy or an irascible Quaker. This kind of education is universal
among the Quakers. It is adopted at home. It is adopted in their
schools. The great and practical philanthropist, John Howard, when he
was at Ackworth, which is the great public school of the Quakers, was so
struck with the quiet deportment of the children there, that he
mentioned it with approbation in his work on Lazarettos, and gave to the
public some of its rules, as models for imitation in other seminaries.
But if the Quakers believe that this pure principle, when attended to,
is an infallible guide to them in their religious or spiritual concerns;
if they believe that its influences are best discovered in the quietness
and silence of their senses; if, moreover, they educate with a view of
producing such a calm and tranquil state; it must be obvious, that they
can never allow either to their children, or to those of maturer years,
the use of any of the games of chance, because these, on account of
their peculiar nature, are so productive of sudden fluctuations of hope,
and fear, and joy, and disappointment, that they are calculated, more
than any other, to promote a turbulence of the human passions.
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