for assistance from their monthly meetings, it is recommended to friends in every monthly meeting to seek out such of their members as may be thus straitened, and administer to their help; and it is desired that such will receive the salutary aid with a willing mind, and thankfulness to the great Author of all good. 1777.

It is advised that each monthly meeting appoint a solid, judicious committee, whose care it should be, to meet as often as occasion requires, and consult together, and assist in procuring friends to teach schools, and to advise and assist in the regulation thereof, and also to encourage friends to send their children to the same.

And it is our advice, that no friends send their children to any other schools but such as are kept by members of our society and under the regulation of friends, unless the particular circumstances attending are such that the school-committees of the monthly meetings may think it best. And the school committees of friends everywhere, throughout the yearly meeting, are desired to pay special attention to give the poor of society such an education as may fit them for business.

SCRIPTURES.

RECOMMENDED, as an incumbent duty on friends, to cause their children to be frequent in reading the Holy Scriptures, and to observe to them the examples of such children as in Scripture are recorded to have early learned the fear of the Lord, and hearkened to his counsel: instructing them in the fear and dread of the Lord, planting upon their spirits impressions of reverence towards God, from whom they have their daily support; showing them they ought not to offend Him, but love, serve, and honor Him in whose hand all blessings are. 1709.

It is also seriously advised, that no friend suffer romances, play-books, or other vain and idle pamphlets, in their houses or families, which tend to corrupt the minds of youth; but instead thereof, that they excite them to the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and other religious books. Let the Holy Scriptures be early taught our youth, diligently searched, and seriously read by friends, with due regard to the Holy Spirit from whence they came, and by which they are truly opened: for they contain excellent doctrine, rules and precepts, divine and moral. 1720.

And, dear friends, inasmuch as the Holy Scriptures are the external means of conveying and preserving to us, an account of the things most surely to be believed concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh, and the fulfilling of the prophecies relating thereto; we therefore recommend to all friends, especially elders in the church, and masters of families, that they would, both by example and advice, impress on the minds of the younger a reverent esteem of those sacred writings, and advise them to a frequent reading and meditating therein; and that you would, at proper times and seasons, when you find your minds rightly disposed thereunto, give the youth to understand, that the same good experience of the work of sanctification, through the operations of the Spirit of God, which the Holy Scriptures plentifully bear testimony to, is to be witnessed by believers in all generations, as well as by those in the first stages of Christianity; in which case, some account of our own experience will be helpful to them. And this we recommend as the most effectual means of begetting and establishing in their minds, a firm belief of the Christian doctrine in general, as well as of the necessity of the aid and help of the operations of the Holy Spirit of God in the hearts of men in particular, contained in that most excellent book, the Bible; and of preserving of them from being defiled with the many pernicious notions and principles, contrary to such sound doctrine, which are at this time industriously dispersed in this country, to the reproach of the Christian profession in general. 1728.

And, in order to render these advices more effectual, we further tenderly recommend to all heads of families, that they do frequently call their children and servants together; and in a solemn way, audibly read, or cause to be read, the Holy Scriptures; and, in so doing, that they humbly wait upon God, with their families, for instruction and counsel to them respecting Christian faith and practice, according to the former advices of this meeting.

SLEEPING IN OUR RELIGIOUS MEETINGS.

FORASMUCH as our religious meetings are to be attended for the honor and worship of our Almighty Creator, the promotion and enlargement of our own peace, and good example to others; it is an incumbent duty of every member of our society reverently to attend them; waiting for and obeying the measure of grace and light received. Those therefore who so far neglect their duty herein as to sleep, or by nodding or bowing the head, or other apparent signs of sleep, to reproach themselves, to bring a burthen on the faithful, and to dishonor the truth, are to be treated tenderly with for their recovery; and if, after due waiting and admonition in meekness and wisdom, any shall continue in so disreputable and dishonorable a practice, they are not to be employed nor active in any calling, business or appointment of society, until an overcoming be witnessed, to the satisfaction of the brethren. And if they be such as have usually sat facing the meeting, whether ministers, elders or others, let them withdraw from such seats, that their ill example and reproach may be les