The last good trait, which I shall notice in the character of the Quakers, is that of punctuality to their words and engagements.

This is a very ancient trait.  Judge Forster entertained this opinion of George Fox, that if he would consent to give his word for his appearance, he would keep it.  Trusted to go at large without any bail, and solely on his bare word, that he would be forth coming on a given day, he never violated his promise.  And he was known also to carry his own commitment himself.  In those days also, it was not unusual for Quakers to carry their own warrants, unaccompanied by constables or others, which were to consign them to a prison.

But it was not only in matters which related to the laws of the land, where the early Quakers held their words and engagements sacred.  This trait was remarked to be true of them in their concerns in trade.  On their first appearance as a society, they suffered as tradesmen, because others, displeased with the peculiarity of their manners, withdrew their custom from their shops.  But in a little time, the great outcry against them was, that they got the trade of the country into their hands.  This outcry arose in part from a strict execution of all commercial appointments and agreements between them and others, and because they never asked two prices for the commodities which they sold.  And the same character attaches to them as a commercial body, though there may be individual exceptions, at the present day.

Neither has this trait been confined to them as the inhabitants of their own country.  They have carried it with them wherever they have gone.  The treaty of William Penn was never violated.  And the estimation, which the Indians put upon the word of this great man and his companions, continues to be put by them upon that of the modern Quakers in America, so that they now come in deputations, out of their own settlements, to consult them on important occasions.

The existence of this trait is probable both from general and from particular considerations.

If, for example, any number of principles should have acted so forcibly and in such a manner upon individuals, as to have procured for them as a body the reputation of a moral people, they must have produced in them a disposition to keep their faith.[37]

[Footnote 37:  This character was given by Pliny to the first Christians.  They were to avoid fraud, theft, and adultery.  They were never to deny any trust, when required to deliver it up, nor to falsify their word on any occasion.]

But the discipline of the Quakers has a direct tendency to produce this feature in their character, and to make it an appendage of Quakerism.  For punctuality to words and engagements is a subject of one of the periodical enquiries.  It is therefore publicly handed to the notice of the members, as a Christian virtue, that is expected of them, in their public meetings for discipline.  And any violation in this respect would be deemed a breach, and cognizable as such, of the Quaker laws.