person; but I was greatly surprised to see him come the Sunday following
and take me with him to the Quakers' meeting. There are several of these
in London, but that which he carried me to stands near the famous pillar
called The Monument. The brethren were already assembled at my entering
it with my guide. There might be about four hundred men and three
hundred women in the meeting. The women hid their faces behind their
fans, and the men were covered with their broad-brimmed hats. All were
seated, and the silence was universal. I passed through them, but did
not perceive so much as one lift up his eyes to look at me. This silence
lasted a quarter of an hour, when at last one of them rose up, took off
his hat, and, after making a variety of wry faces and groaning in a most
lamentable manner, he, partly from his nose and partly from his mouth,
threw out a strange, confused jumble of words (borrowed, as he imagined,
from the Gospel) which neither himself nor any of his hearers understood.
When this distorter had ended his beautiful soliloquy, and that the
stupid, but greatly edified, congregation were separated, I asked my
friend how it was possible for the judicious part of their assembly to
suffer such a babbling? "We are obliged," says he, "to suffer it,
because no one knows when a man rises up to hold forth whether he will be
moved by the Spirit or by folly. In this doubt and uncertainty we listen
patiently to everyone; we even allow our women to hold forth. Two or
three of these are often inspired at one and the same time, and it is
then that a most charming noise is heard in the Lord's house." "You
have, then, no priests?" say I to him. "No, no, friend," replies the
Quaker, "to our great happiness." Then opening one of the Friends'
books, as he called it, he read the following words in an emphatic
tone:--"'God forbid we should presume to ordain anyone to receive the
Holy Spirit on the Lord's Day to the prejudice of the rest of the
brethren.' Thanks to the Almighty, we are the only people upon earth
that have no priests. Wouldst thou deprive us of so happy a distinction?