Quakers

QUAKERS Rules of Discipline and Christian Advices of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for the State of New-York and Parts Adjacent. Agreed on by said Meeting held in New-York in the Fifth Month 1800

1800 · 11885 — New York: Printed by Isaac Collins 1800. Hardcover. Very good. First edition. viii 141 pages. Evans 37474. Printed on heavy paper with one or two leaves bound between each of the chapters. According to a note following the introduction "The book is printed with blank pages for the purpose of making future additions which are to be inserted in the manner and in the page in which they will be directed to be placed by the yearly meeting. No other additions are to be made.". The present copy is annotated and corrected in various ways presumably by someone who attended this annual meeting. On the first free endpaper there is a contemporary annotation: "Abraham Barker Lives in Ohio Huron Co. Town of Brunson." On the blank leaf following p. 50 there is the note: " To the monthly Meeting of . . . Dear friend We the subscriber A B son of . . . . do propose taking each other in marriage between us which we submit to your approbation then dated AB / CJ"; the inscription is somewhat illegible owing to some soiling; however it follows the chapter on "Marriages" and reproduces in part the "Form of Marriage Certificate" that appears on p. 49. In the next chapter "Removals and Certificates" at the top of the page the following annotation is added: "it shall be the duty of such monthly Meeting to accept the same unless there be some manifest objections." On p. 123 in the chapter "Queries" the following annotation appears at the bottom of the page: "B. Are the answers to the Queries introduced to the Quarterly and Yearly Meetings the substance of and founded on the answers from the prepositive Meetings." On the preceding page three lines of text have been x'ed out and an "a" has been inserted before the word "priest" in the second line from the bottom and the words "or magistrate" have been crossed through. And on p. 124 the last page of this chapter the entire ten lines of text have been crossed out. Similar crossings have been made to the chapter "Meetings of Ministers and Elders". <br /> <br /> It would appear that these annotations and corrections were made by one of those attending the Meeting in New York presumably perhaps Abraham Barker. The chapters in the book cover the following topics which however do not appear in the order given in the Table of Contents: Appeals Apprentices Books Burials Certificates Civil government Children Dealing with offenders Differences and Arbitrations Diversions Defamation and detraction Days and times Distilled spirits &c. Donations Elders Gaming Meetings for worship for discipline of ministers and elders for sufferings; Ministry Meeting-houses and ground Marriages Memorials Overseers Oaths Poor Plainness Priests wages or hireling ministry Queries Requests to be received into membership Removals Scandal publick Slavery Schools Sufferings Subscriptions Scriptures of the Old and New Testament Taverns Trade and commerce Women's meetings War Wills. In the short chapter on "Slavery" it is stated: "No friend is to import buy or sell negroes or other slaves; or hire any that are held in bondage; or wake any that are young or others by indenture or otherwise unless they are first set free. Any friend disregarding the advice above expressed after deliberate dealing with except satisfaction be given is to be disowned. . . ." The Meeting House on Pearl Street was established in 1795-96 but demolished in 1828. <br /> <br /> Light foxing but a very good copy of a rare publication very few locations known including AAS and Haverford College. Printed by Isaac Collins hardcover