Jacob Lindley, of Chester county, was another frequent visitor at Friend Hopper’s house; and many were the lively conversations they had together.  He was a preacher in the Society of Friends, and missed no opportunity, either in public or private, to protest earnestly against the sin of slavery.  He often cautioned Friends against laying too much stress on their own peculiar forms, while they professed to abjure forms.  He said he himself had once received a lesson on this subject, which did him much good.  Once, when he was seated in meeting, an influential Friend walked in, dressed in a coat with large metal buttons, which he had borrowed in consequence of a drenching rain!  He seated himself opposite to Jacob Lindley, who was so much disturbed by the glittering buttons, that “his meeting did him no good.”  When the congregation rose to depart, he felt constrained to go up to the Friend who had so much troubled him, and inquire why he had so grievously departed from the simplicity enjoined upon members of their Society.  The good man looked down upon his garments, and quietly replied, “I borrowed the coat because my own was wet; and indeed, Jacob, I did not notice what buttons were on it.”  Jacob shook his hand warmly, and said, “Thou art a better Christian than I am, and I will learn of thee.”

He often used to inculcate the same moral by relating another incident, which happened in old times, when Quakers were accustomed to wear cocked hats turned up at the sides.  A Friend bought a hat of this description, without observing that it was looped up with a button.  As he sat in meeting with his hat on, as usual, he observed many eyes directed toward him, and some with a very sorrowful expression.  He could not conjecture a reason for this, till he happened to take off his hat and lay it beside him.  As soon as he noticed the button, he rose and said, “Friends, if religion consists in a button, I wouldn’t give a button for it.”  Having delivered this short and pithy sermon, he seated himself, and resumed the offending hat with the utmost composure.

Once, when Jacob Lindley was dining with Friend Hopper, the conversation turned upon his religious experiences, and he related a circumstance to which he said he very seldom alluded, and never without feelings of solemnity and awe.  Being seized with sudden and severe illness, his soul left the body for several hours, during which time he saw visions of heavenly glory, not to be described.  When consciousness began to return, he felt grieved that he was obliged to come back to this state of being, and he was never after able to feel the same interest in terrestrial things, that he had felt before he obtained this glimpse of the spiritual world.