almost prophetic authority, to turn their hearts towards "the
Stillness and the Quietness."

It was the pleasant custom of the community to arrive at the
meeting-house some fifteen or twenty minutes before the usual time
of meeting, and exchange quiet and kindly greetings before taking
their places on the plain benches inside. As most of the families
had lived during the week on the solitude of their farms, they
liked to see their neighbors' faces, and resolve, as it were,
their sense of isolation into the common atmosphere, before
yielding to the assumed abstraction of their worship. In this
preliminary meeting, also, the sexes were divided, but rather from
habit than any prescribed rule. They were already in the vestibule
of the sanctuary; their voices were subdued and their manner
touched with a kind of reverence.

If the Londongrove Friends gathered together a few minutes earlier
on that September First-day; if the younger members looked more
frequently towards one of the gates leading into the meeting-house
yard than towards the other; and if Abraham Bradbury was the centre
of a larger circle of neighbors than Simon Pennock (although both
sat side by side on the highest seat of the gallery),--the cause of
these slight deviations from the ordinary behavior of the gathering
was generally known. Abraham's son had died the previous Sixth-
month, leaving a widow incapable of taking charge of his farm on
the Street Road, which was therefore offered for rent. It was not
always easy to obtain a satisfactory tenant in those days, and
Abraham was not more relieved than surprised on receiving an
application from an unexpected quarter. A strange Friend, of
stately appearance, called upon him, bearing a letter from William