friend told me she knew not who he was, and, that she re-
gretted I had heard so poor a preacher. After he had con-
cluded, a gentleman-like old man (a physician by profes-
sion) arose, and delivered a few moral sentences in an
agreeable manner; soon after he had sat down, the whole
congregation rose, I know not at what signal, and made
their exit. It is a singular kind of worship, if worship it
may be called, where all prayer is forbidden; yet it ap-
peared to me, in its decent quietness, infinitely preferable to
what I had witnessed at the Presbyterian and Methodist
meeting-houses. A great schism had lately taken place
among the Quakers of Philadelphia; many objecting to
the over-strict discipline of the orthodox. Among the
seceders there are again various shades of difference; I
met many who called themselves Unitarian Quakers, others
were Hicksites, and others again, though still wearing the
Quaker habit, were said to be Deists.

We visited many churches and chapels in the city, but
none that would elsewhere be called handsome, either in-
ternally or externally.

I went one evening, not a Sunday, with a party of ladies
to see a Presbyterian minister inducted. The ceremony
was woefully long, and the charge to the young man
awfully impossible to obey, at least if he were a man, like
unto other men. It was matter of astonishment to me to
observe the deep attention, and the unwearied patience with
which some hundreds of beautiful young girls who were
assembled there, (not to mention the old ladies,) listened
to the whole of this tedious ceremony; surely there is no
country in the world where religion makes so large a part of
the amusement and occupation of the ladies. Spain, in its
most catholic days, could not exceed it: besides, in spite of
the gloomy horrors of the Inquisition, gaiety and amusement

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