242 SAMUEL FOTHERGILL CHAP. 



It was no hasty journey. Wherever he went, it was 

 his aim to visit every small meeting of the Friends, and 

 many of their families, and when that was done he would 

 collect four or five meetings together to give them his 

 farewell charge. Some places he visited three, four or 

 even six times, until he felt in his soul that he was clear 

 of any further duty. Near Philadelphia he once attended 

 five Monthly Meetings on successive days, commencing at 

 10 A.M. and continuing till 5 P.M. without breaking up or 

 refreshment. 



He found the state of the society low in America as 

 in England. In Pennsylvania there was a very great 

 body of people who bore the name of Friends. Too few 

 of the aged had kept their garments clean. Their fathers' 

 holdings of land had endowed them with large estates, 

 and they had " a profession of religion, which was partly 

 national, which descended like the patrimony, and cost 

 as little." They were settled in ease and affluence, but 

 the plantation of God was uncultivated and the discipline 

 had decayed. Yet there was a noble seed among them, 

 a remnant that deserved well. The offspring were ill- 

 instructed, but a visitation of soul had come to many, and 

 there was hope in the prospect. In Maryland, Virginia 

 and North Carolina the gain of oppression due to the 

 keeping of slaves had checked the spiritual life : Friends 

 were diminished and their testimonies not kept. But 

 the alarm of the heavenly trumpet had been heard, and 

 the blessed Hand was at work; especially among the 

 young. In South Carolina and Georgia Friends were 

 very few. In the Jerseys there was a valuable body of 

 members, but much chaff. In the Yearly Meetings of the 

 New England provinces there were large bodies of Friends, 

 but few were truly faithful ; their leaders had caused 

 them to err, or divisions had come in, or they had gone 

 after the world. He left them too often with a pained 

 heart ; yet sorrow was mixed with hope. There was a 

 small but valuable company of members in New York 

 city. Samuel Fothergill had thus often to record a severe 

 judgment of his friends' condition. He writes of a 



