Protests and disclaimers against the disownment of these worthy men came from several parts of the country, signed by Friends of high character; and many private letters were addressed to them, expressive of sympathy and approbation.  Friend Hopper was always grateful for such marks of respect and friendship; but his own conscience would have sustained him without such aid.  He had long felt a deep sadness whenever he was reminded of the spiritual separation between him and the religious Society, whose preachers had exerted such salutary influence on his youthful character; but the external separation was of no consequence.  He attended meeting constantly, as he had ever done, and took his seat on the bench under the preachers’ gallery, facing the audience, where he had always been accustomed to sit, when he was an honored member of the Society.  Charles Marriott, who was by temperament a much meeker man, said to him one day, “The overseers have called upon me, to represent the propriety of my taking another seat, under existing circumstances.  I expect they will call upon thee, to give the same advice.”

“I expect they won’t,” was Isaac’s laconic reply; and they never did.

His daughter, Abby H. Gibbons, soon after resigned membership in the Monthly Meeting of New-York for herself and her children; and his sons Josiah and John did the same.  The grounds stated were that “the meeting had manifestly departed from the original principles and testimonies of the Society of Friends; that the plainest principles of civil and religious freedom had been violated in the whole proceedings in relation to their father; and that the overseers had prepared an official document calculated to produce false impressions with regard to him; accusing him of ‘grossly reproachful conduct’ in the well known Darg Case; whereas there was abundant evidence before the public that his proceedings in that case were influenced by the purest and most disinterested motives.”

The Philadelphia Ledger, after stating that the Society of Friends in New-York had disowned some of their prominent members for being connected, directly or indirectly, with an Abolition Journal, added the following remark:  “This seems rather singular; for we had supposed that Friends were favorably inclined toward the abolition of slavery.  But many of their members are highly respectable merchants, extensively engaged in Southern trade.  We are informed that they are determined to discountenance all pragmatic interference with the legal and constitutional rights of their brethren at the South.  The Quakers have always been distinguished for minding their own business, and permitting others to attend to theirs.  They would be the last people to meddle with the rights of property.”

The Boston Times quoted the paragraph from the Philadelphia Ledger, with the additional remark, “There is no logician like money.”

Whether Friends in New-York felt flattered by these eulogiums, I know not; but they appear to have been well deserved.