The quarterly meeting of the Quakers, which comes next in order, is much more numerously attended than the monthly.  The monthly, as we have just seen, superintend the concerns of a few congregations or particular meetings which were contained in a small division of the county.  The quarterly meeting, on the other hand, superintends the concerns of all the monthly meetings in the county at large.  It takes cognizance of course of the concerns of a greater portion of population, and, as the name implies, for a greater extent of time.  The Quaker population of a [25] whole county is now to assemble in one place.  This place, however, is not always the same.  It may be different, to accommodate the members in their turn, in the different quarters of the year.

[Footnote 25:  I still adhere, to give the reader a clearer idea of the discipline, and to prevent confusion, to the division by county, though the district in question may not always comprehend a complete county.]

In the same manner as the different congregations in a small division of a county have been shewn to have sent deputies to the respective monthly meetings within it, so the different monthly meetings in the same county send each of them, deputies to the quarterly.  Two or more of each sex are generally deputed from each monthly meeting.  These deputies are supposed to have understood, at the monthly meeting, where they were chosen, all the matters which the discipline required them to know relative to the state and condition of their constituents.  Furnished with this knowledge, and instructed moreover by written documents on a variety of subjects, they repair at a proper time to the place of meeting.  All the Quakers in the district in question, who are expected to go, bend their direction hither.  Any person travelling in the county at this time, would see an unusual number of Quakers upon the road directing their journey to the same point.  Those who live farthest from the place where the meeting is held, have often a long journey to perform.  The Quakers are frequently out two or three whole days, and sometimes longer upon this occasion.  But as this sort of meeting takes place but once in the quarter, the loss of their time, and the fatigue of their journey, and the expences attending it, are borne cheerfully.

When all of them are assembled, nearly the same custom obtains at the quarterly, as has been described at the monthly meeting.  A meeting for worship is first held.  The men and women, when this is over, separate into their different apartments, after which the meeting for discipline begins in each.

I shall not detail the different kinds of business, which come on at this meeting.  I shall explain the principal subject only.

The society at large have agreed upon a number of questions, or queries as they call them, which they have committed to print, and which they expect to be read and answered in the course of these quarterly meetings The following is a list of them.