That many of the modern Quakers should be blinded by bales of cotton, heaped up between their souls and the divine light, is not remarkable; for cotton is an impervious material.  But it is a strange anomaly in their history that any one among them should have considered himself guided by the Spirit to undertake the especial mission of discouraging sympathy with the enslaved.  A minister belonging to that branch of the Society called “Hicksites,” who usually preached in Rose-street Meeting, New-York, had imbibed very strong prejudices against all modern reforms:  and he manifested his aversion with a degree of excitement, in language, tone, and gesture, very unusual in that quiet sect.  Those who labored in the cause of temperance, anti-slavery, or non-resistance, he was wont to stigmatize as “hireling lecturers,” “hireling book-agents,” and “emissaries of Satan.”  Soon after Thomas Hughes consented to return to the South, in consequence of the fair professions of Mr. Darg, this preacher chimed in with the exulting tones of the pro-slavery press, by alluding to it in one of his public discourses as follows.  After speaking of the tendency of affliction to produce humility, he went on to say, “As a slave, who had suffered the effects of his criminal conduct, and been thus led to calm reflection, recently chose to go back with this master into slavery, and endure all the evils of that condition, notwithstanding his former experience of them, rather than stay with those hypocritical workers of popular righteousness who had interfered in his behalf.  For my own part, I commend his choice.  I had a thousand times rather be a slave, and spend my days with slaveholders, than to dwell in companionship with abolitionists.”

The state of things among Quakers in the city of New-York may be inferred from the fact that this minister was exceedingly popular, and his style of preaching cordially approved by a majority of them.  One of the editors of the Anti-Slavery Standard, at that time, wrote a severe, though by no means abusive article on the subject, headed “Rare Specimen of a Quaker Preacher.”  This gave great offence, and Isaac T. Hopper was very much blamed for it.  He, and his son-in-law James S. Gibbons, and his friend Charles Marriott, then belonged to the Executive Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society; and it was assumed to be their duty to have prevented the publication of the sarcastic article.  Charles Harriot was absent from the city when it was published, and Friend Hopper did not see it till after it was in print.  When they urged these facts, and stated, moreover, that they had no right to dictate to the editor what he should say, or what he should not say, they were told that they ought to exculpate themselves by a public expression of their disapprobation.  But as they did not believe the editorial article contained any mis-statement of facts, they could not conscientiously say any thing that would satisfy the friends of the preacher.  It would be tedious