Other members again, but particularly the rich, have a
larger intercourse than the rest of them, or mix more with the world.
These again will probably dress a little differently from others, and
yet, regarding the two great objects of dress, their cloathing may come
within the limits which these allow. Indeed if there be any, whose
apparel would be thought exceptionable by the society, these would be
found among the rich. Money, in all societies, generally takes the
liberty of introducing exceptions. Nothing, however is more true, than
that, even among the richest of the Quakers, there is frequently as much
plainness and simplicity in their outward dress, as among the poor; and
where the exceptions exist, they are seldom carried to an extravagant,
and never to a preposterous extent.
From this account it will be seen, that the ideas of the world are
erroneous on the subject of the dress of the Quakers; for it has always
been imagined, that, when the early Quakers first met in religious
union, they met to deliberate and fix upon some standard, which should
operate as a political institution, by which the members should be
distinguished by their apparel from the rest of the world. The whole
history, however, of the shape and colour of the garments of the Quakers
is, as has been related, namely, that the primitive Quakers dressed like
the sober, steady, and religious people of the age, in which the society
sprung up, and that their descendants have departed less in a course of
time, than others, from the dress of their ancestors.
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