guardians, or in the absence of these, with certificates of their consent, and propose their intention. A committee is appointed to inquire if they are clear of other engagements respecting marriage. At a public meeting, if no such obstacle appears, the meeting consents to the marriage. The two persons then stand up and take each other for husband and wife. A certificate is read aloud, and these two persons sign, as do the relations and any others as witnesses."

F's wife. "A bride of our society is not allowed to wear a veil."

I. "A fortunate edict, since the Quakeresses are generally too pretty to require aid from any such outward adorning."

F. 66 'George Fox taught that we were not to give compliments, as they belonged to the marks of a wicked world."

I. "But I am sure Elias Hicks is silent upon that subject. He lived under a newer light" (glancing at the Friend's daughters.)

F. (very gravely.) "We bury our dead also in a manner peculiar to ourselves. We did not believe in arraying a corpse in fine dress. The body, covered in a simple manner, was sometimes carried into meeting before being followed to the grave. At the grave a pause is made. Almost always some one of our ministers speaks a few words. This is the sum of our rite. But of late years we conform more to the world in the matter of the raiment for our dead."

I. "Do you believe in a resurrection of the natural body, or, in other words, a literal resurrection?"

F.

"Some of us do and some do not."

I. "Probably the opinions of Quakers differ as

much as do their dress."

F.

I.

"We support our own poor."

"Do you require any subscription to your articles of faith in order to membership?"

F. "We do not. We expect those who come into our society as members to be convinced of our belief; and after the usual inquiries and deliberation, they are formally admitted."

I. "Why do you say First day instead of Sunday, and Fourth day, as also the months by figures instead of their names?"

F. "The common names of months and days we hold to be relics of Paganism. They came from the heathen, who by these names intended compliments to their heroes or gods. We prefer the ordinal numbers."

I. "Why do you address each other and sometimes others not of your own body, by Thee and Thou, instead of the usual way?"

F. "The plural number used in address, comes from what one of our writers calls motives of adula-. tion.' We believe in a sensible simplicity in all things."

F's wife. "It seems more friendly to say these words."

F.

"We do not always use them to our friends who are not accustomed to us, lest they might feel that we wished to make them strangers. In all things we wish to be what our name teaches — friends.”

Israel thought that they could not readily wish a better or nobler object; but he remembered the injunction upon compliments, and was silent.

The next day Israel was in a public library. By chance his eye fell upon a book entitled "Quakerism, or the Story of My Life." He took it and read it with avidity. He paused not till he had concluded the last page.

This, with the account of the doctrines of Elias Hicks, decided him to go farther in search of The City. Yet he ever accounted these "Friends" as some of the truest and most valuable of his life.

AMONG THE SWEDENBORGIANS.

CHAPTER I.

CONVERSATION WITH A SWEDENBORGIAN.

A YOUNG man, who boarded with Israel Knight, sickened and died under circumstances of trial. All the inmates of the house, save one, were gloomy; some were affrighted. Israel was both. From his earliest memory he had a morbid dread of contact with death and the cerements of the tomb. He absented himself from a funeral whenever he could in decent regard for the feelings of the living. In fearful words he ever spoke of the dying and the dead.

He thought this feeling arose from having lost his parents at a tender age; but persons in all favoring conditions often are not unlike him in this respect.

There was one of his fellow boarders who was never more serenely cheerful, more hopeful and happy than in this time of general gloom.

"How is it," asked Israel of this friend, "that you seem as tranquil as though this distressing event had not happened?"

"I can well remember when it was not so with me," he replied; "once I regarded such scenes as gloomily as any other person. Not until the true idea of death was taught me, did I come to a different mind."

"The true idea of death!" repeated Israel; "what have you of this which men of science and religion have not?"

"I have the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I have faith," answered his friend Stilwell.

Israel remembered that this man was a Swedenborgian, and knowing scarcely more of this belief than the name, he quickly rejoined

"Faith! Yes, so had the followers of Mahomet when they credited the prophet's assertion that he rode to the third heaven on his white horse Alborak, in one night." Stilwell calmly continued:

"A beautiful alabaster results from the slow dripping of water in stalactitic caves; so does the quality of joyful faith form itself by temperate degrees, in the recesses of that soul which is blessed with the influences of a true doctrine."

"Whatever helps to rob death in the article, or in its associating idea, of its real terror, is worth considering," said Israel: "your fruits appear to be good, and I would know of your doctrine."

"Emanuel Swedenborg," said Stilwell, "is reckoned either an impostor or a madman by the majority of the Christian world. When I say Christian, I mean in distinction from Pagan or Mahometan. This is the result of crude reflection and the pitifulest superficial investigation. Many a theologian opens one of his books, and discovers at random some such words as these:

(Stilwell took a book entitled "Heaven and Hell," and after carefully turning the leaves, read aloud a short passage, then continued,) "This reader soon