For living much at home, and mixing
almost solely with one another, they consider their education as
sufficient for their wants.
If the Quakers could view the two different systems abstractedly, that
of filling the heart with virtue, and that of shutting it out from a
knowledge of vice, so that they could be acted upon separately, and so
that the first of the two were practicable, and practicable without
having to go through scenes that were dangerous to virtue, they would
have no hesitation in giving the preference to the former; because if
men could be taught to love virtue for virtue's sake, all the trouble of
prohibitions would be unnecessary.
But the Quakers would conceive that the system of filling the mind with
virtue, if acted upon abstractedly, or by itself, would be impracticable
with respect to youth. To make it practicable children must be born with
the full grown intellect and experience of men. They must have an innate
knowledge of all the tendencies, the bearings, the relations, and the
effects of virtue and vice. They must be also strong enough to look
temptation in the face; whereas youth have no such knowledge, or
experience, or strength, or power.
They would consider also the system of filling the mind with virtue, as
impossible, if attempted abstractedly or alone, because it is not in
human wisdom to devise a method of inspiring it with this essence,
without first teaching it to abstain from vice.
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