In these sentiments of the poets the Quakers, as a religious body, have long joined.  George Fox specifically reprobated hunting and hawking, which were the field diversions of his own time.  He had always shewn, as I stated in the introduction, a tender disposition to brute-animals, by reproving those, who had treated them improperly in his presence.  He considered these diversions, as unworthy of the time and attention of men, who ought to have much higher objects of pursuit.  He believed also, that real christians could never follow them; for a christian was a renovated man, and a renovated man could not but know the works of creation better, than to subject them to his abuse.

Edward Burroughs, who lived at the same time, and was an able minister of the society, joined George Fox in his sentiments with respect to the treatment of animals.  He considered that man in the fall, or the apostate man, had a vision so indistinct and vitiated that he could not see the animals of the creation, as he ought, but that the man, who was restored, or the spiritual christian, had a new and clear discernment concerning them, which would oblige him to consider and treat them in a proper manner.

This idea of George Fox and of Edward Burroughs seems to have been adopted or patronized by the Poet Cowper.

   “Thus harmony, and family accord,
   Were driven from Paradise; and in that hour
   The seeds of cruelty, that since have swell’d
   To such gigantic and enormous growth,
   Were sown in human natures fruitful soil. 
   Hence date the persecution and the pain,
   That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
   Regardless of their plaints.  To make him sport,
   To gratify the frenzy of his wrath,
   Or his base gluttony, are causes good,
   And just, in his account, why bird and beast
   Should suffer torture—­”

Thus the Quakers censured these diversions from the first formation of their society, and laid down such moral principles with respect to the treatment of animals, as were subversive of their continuance.  These principles continued to actuate all true Quakers, who were their successors; and they gave a proof, in their own conduct, that they were influenced by them, not only in treating the different animals under their care with tenderness, but in abstaining from all diversions in which their feelings could be hurt.  The diversions however, of the field, notwithstanding that this principle of the brute-creation had been long recognized, and that no person of approved character in the society followed them, began in time to be resorted to occasionally by the young and thoughtless members, either out of curiosity, or with a view of trying them, as means of producing pleasure.  These deviations, however from the true spirit of Quakerism became at length known.  And the Quakers, that no excuse might be left to any for engaging in such pursuits again, came to a resolution in one of their yearly meetings, giving advice upon the subject in the following words.