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Show ! Peace Made The Quaker Pace ; What made the Quaker face? Not a broad brimmed hat or a gray bonnet, as the flippant assert. as-sert. Costume will not make it. as you may prove for yourself at the next masquerade. In part, It was the mysticism, the reserve and the self-reliance of the Quaker mind. These things were the very essence of the society, and they led to a subconscious command to be silent, to be calm, to hide the emotions of the too often rebellious heart, which in turn helped to mold the faces one sees in the portraits and among the Friends still left who belong to the old rule. It used to be said in our Quaker town that one could tell by their manners the children who had been sent to the Friends' school, because once a week in meeting they had to sit for an hour In perfect quiet. Think of a family, of a community, where the heart was put under discipline for life! But this Is not all, for I have left out the causes which were chiefly responsible for the most charming charm-ing element of the features of the old Friends an enduring peace. There have been unpeaceful Quakers and unpeaceful Quarkeresses. More than one member of our meeting, so I am told, stamped out of First Day service and slammed the door behind be-hind them when the unorthodox HIcksiteg began their preaching. I have heard that one of our ancestresses an-cestresses was a scold, and there was Cousin Amelia, who used to shake her finger at an obstinate ob-stinate driver when he refused to uncbeck his horse, and say: "Just wait till thee gets to the next world. Then thee'll see what will happen!" As I have remarked, the Quaker project was not always successful. But for once popular opinion is quite right the Quaker face, particularly the Quaker woman's face, was transfused with peace. Is it not natural? Where could be found "the world's sweet Inn from pain and wearisome turmoil," tur-moil," if not in the older communities of Friends communities in which prudence and self-control kept away poverty; where not only war, but strife also, and civil and domestic discord, were banned so expllclty that it was forbidden to decide by majorities ma-jorities at meeting; where rivalry in dress and In station were restrained as far as fallible human nature would permit? How could peace fall to be resident in a society which believed that God was not In his heaven, but among us, and that as long as1 one lived without affectation, did the dally task, kept the heart tender and the body pure, all was right with the world? Henry Seidel Canby, In the Century MagazlDe. j |