5. Friend Broadbent read forth, in part, an Essay on Innocent Jocularity; the which, in sundry passages, provoked dissentients, as tending to a defence of levity. A stiff debate thereon, in which all the brethren were agreeable to censure. Great merriment at Friend Sexton in his rebuking, saying, “Christian gravy,” instead of gravity, by a slip of the tongue.
9. The remains of Innocent Jocularity brought on again in a decidedly grave way, and nothing savouring of offensive. Followed with silence.
[Pg 341]
12. There were not sufficient friends to make a sitting, and no chair.
 
“IT CAN’T BE HELPED.”
16. At Sister Rumble’s by course of rotation. No other member present, save mine own self, as by duty bound. A deplorable falling away from the cause. Whereof more hereafter.
******
The Record here breaks off. The society probably did not proceed farther, but died on the spot, of a complication of Innocent Jocularity and Sister Rumble, and was buried tacitly, with the fair Ruth Mumford for its chief mourner. The other papers are in verse, and a reading of them will certainly persuade the reviewers that they were premature in applying the designation of “Quaker Poetry” to foregone lays and lyrics. The first is a genuine brown study after nature; the second a hint how Peace ought not to be proclaimed.
[Pg 342]
SONNET.
BY R. M.
HOW sweet thus clad, in Autumn’s mellow Tone,
With serious Eye, the russ............