providence for social creatures."




CHAP. III.....SECT. I.

_Music forbidden--general apology for the Quakers on account of their
prohibition of so delightful a science--music particularly abused at the
present day--wherein this abuse consists--present use of it almost
inseparable from the abuse._


Plato, when he formed what he called his pure republic, would not allow
music to have any place in it. George Fox and his followers were of
opinion, that it could not be admitted in a system of pure Christianity.
The modern Quakers have not differed from their predecessors on this
subject; and therefore music is understood to be prohibited throughout
the society at the present day.

It will doubtless appear strange that there should be found people, to
object to an art, which is capable of being made productive of so much
pleasurable feeling, and which, if it be estimated either by the extent
or the rapidity of its progress, is gaining in the reputation of the
world. But it may be observed that "all that glitters is not gold." So
neither is all, that pleases the ear, perfectly salubrious to the mind.
There are few customs, against which some argument or other may not be
advanced: few in short, which man has not perverted, and where the use
has not become, in an undue measure, connected with the abuse.