The mention of this last fact leads me to the notice, and the
correction, of an error, which I have found to have been taken up by
individuals. It is said by these that the Quakers are very wary with
respect to their disorderly members, for that when any of them behave
ill, they are expelled the society in order to rescue it from the
disgrace of a bad character. Thus if a Quaker woman were discovered to
be a prostitute, or a Quaker man to be taken up for a criminal offence,
no disgrace could attach to this society as it would to others; for if,
in the course of a week, after a discovery had been made of their
several offences, any person were to state that two Quaker members had
become infamous, it would be retorted upon him, that they were not
members of the society.
It will be proper to observe upon the subject of this error, that it is
not so probable that the Quakers would disown these, after the discovery
of their infamy, to get rid of any stain upon the character of the
society, as it is that these persons, long before the facts could be
known, had been both admonished and disowned. For there is great truth
in the old maxim "Nemo fecit repente 'turpissimus;" or "no man was ever
all at once a rogue."
So in the case of these persons, as of all others, they must have been
vicious by degrees: they must have shewn symptoms of some deviations
from rectitude, before the measure of their iniquity could have been
completed.
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