1715.] HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. 225 



Tliis year, the Monthly Meeting of Chester had the subject 

 of shives again under consideration, and unanimously came to 

 the conclusion, " that friends should not be concerned hereafter, 

 in the importation thereof, nor buy any." This }>uying, the 

 quarterly meeting concluded, had only reference to imported 

 slaves. If 80, the action of the monthly meeting did not go one 

 step beyond what had already been determined upon by the 

 yearly meeting. There is some reason, however, to believe that 

 the term was used in a more general sense, as will be seen by a 

 minute adopted the following year. 



Up to about this period, the dealings with offending members 

 in the Society of Friends, were, in general, for a violation of 

 discipline, or for slight offences. No one had, as yet, been dealt 

 with for a failure to pay his debts, and but few cases of a 

 scandalous nature appear upon the minutes of the Society. But 

 this generation of early Quakers, whose record for strict moral 

 rectitude has scared}' a parallel in the annals of religious sects, 

 was about passing away, to be succeeded by their descendants, 

 who were mostly members by birthright, and whose faithfulness 

 to their religious profession had not been tested by severe trials 

 and persecutions. A greater laxity of morals is observable, 

 though the number of cases brought to the notice of the several 

 meetings is by no means large. To remedy this growing evil, 

 an ill-judged public exposure of the offender was now for the 

 first time resorted to. The following minute from the Darby 

 Record is the prelude to this singular and rather unfeeling 

 practice, in that meeting: 



" This meeting having considered that inasmuch as the Book 

 of discipline, directs that all papers of condemnation be pub- 

 lished as near as may so far as the offence hath reached the 

 ears of the people. Do upon deliberation of the matter conclude 

 that for the future all papers of condemnations which the 

 monthly meeting shall judge the offence to be a publick scandal, 

 shall be read as speedily as may be at first day meeting, ami 

 published further as there may be occasion." It is but fair to 

 state that no such paper of condemnation was issued until re- 

 peated, and re-repeated efforts had been exhausted in endeavors 

 to reclaim the offender. 



There were a few Baptists located within our limits at a very 

 early date. It is said that one Able Noble, who arrived in 

 1684, " formed a society of Baptists in Upper Providence 

 Chester County, where he baptized Thomas Martin a public 

 Friend."' Noble appears to have been a Seventh-day Baptist, 

 and belonged to a community that was afterwards known as 

 Kiethian Baptists. Besides Thomas Martin, a number of bap- 



1 llaz. Ann. ii. 73. 



15 



