FRIENDS’

REVIEW.

a Religions, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal. —

 

VoL ave

 

EDITED BY SAMUEL RHOADS,
To whom all Communications may be addressed.

PUBLISHED WEEKLY, ‘
At No. 109 N. Tenth street, Philadelphia.

 

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For Friends’ Review.
NOTICES OF DAVID COOPER.

NO. XI.

“¢ At the Yearly Meeting, in the fall of 1777,
under a sense of the judgments now in our land,
and the many deviations from the simplicity and
purity of our profession, into which we, as a
people, had slidden, and thereby as justly per-
haps as any other of the inhabitants, provoked
the Almighty to inflict this scourge; Friends
became deeply exercised that under this hum-
bling dispensation a reformation might take
place. For this purpose, a recommendation was
sent to Quarterly and Monthly Meetings, to ap-
point committees; which was done in our
Quarter, and they attended Conferences at the
several meetings. A select number visited the
ministers, elders, and overseers, and some time
after the families of Friends generally. In the
service [ assisted. It was a humbling, laborious
season, and the desired effect, it may be sorrow-
fully said, has too little appeared: too few of us
being sufficiently careful to confirm by example
what we recommend in words. A sense of this
brought divers things more closely into consid-
eration, whereby they appeared to me different
from what they had heretofore, as respecting
dress, Congress money, our peaceable testimony,
&e. To bear this testimony faithfully, I clearly
saw that I could do nothing which manifestly
aided or abetted those who were actually en-
gaged in war, which those who pay taxes di-
rectly raised for the purpose of supporting sol-
diery, do in an essential manner. For this
reason, I have paid no tax for war during all
these commotions, nor received a penny of their

PHILADELPHIA, SIXTH MONTH 7, 1862.

 

 

No. 40.

 

money for bedding, clothing, provisions, hay,
grain, &c., which they have taken from me,
offering money or orders therefor; nor have 1
sold to their commissioners anything I had.
Nor was I free to receive, out of a forfeited es-
tate, a large debt which was due to me, as I
considered the selling of those estates, for the
most part, cruel and unchristian. I also found ~
a restraint from having anything more to do with
continental currency, which had become a vehicle _
of such public mischief, that few could touch it
without suffering thereby, or causing others to
suffer. This was a pinching trial. My. interest
was likely to be greatly affected. I stood wholly
alone among my friends, andr expected censure
from them, for I had been an advocate for a
contrary conduct in both cases. I saw also how
feeble precept is, unless strengthened by ex-
ample, and being sometimes engaged to enjoin
simplicity, and to recommend others to confine
themselves to things necessary and useful, 1
found it obligatory to set an example in these
respects. In the alterations into which I was
thus led, I felt the reasoning and struggling of
nature harder to overcome, than ever | had in
greater matters; therefore, whoever may read
this, beware that thou account nothing to be
a little thing, which the light within thee shows
thou oughtest to deny thyself of.”

The ground here taken is a tenable one,
and a scrupulous simplicity and self-denial, re-
sulting from enlightened conviction, will har-
monize with other genuine fruits of the spirit ;
while on the other hand, in attempts to com-
mence reformation on the outside, there is
danger of a false rest, of self- righteousness ; and
a care is needful zn all external observances, lest
any degree of dependence for salvation be placed
upon something else than the mercy and the
work of Christ.

The journal continues :—

“In the winter of 1779, a number of light
horse were stationed in the neighborhood of
Woodbury, seven of whom were sent to my
house. They appeared a set of as wicked men
as could be got together ; a feeling of darkness
and distress seemed to accompany them, of
which I have never been equally sensible. They