A Colonial Wooing
of the flesh. But while the worthy elders did their best by precept and example to rob the young of many of life's pleasures, they could not make existence an altogether colorless, songless pilgrimage. Nature was never set aside by a sermon, and the joys of existence denied to the eye and ear were compensated for, not occasionally, but daily, by these same elders in gluttonous feasting, to the point of clogging the intellect; a custom coeval with the rise of their faith. To be sure, Aunt Lydia Blaylock said even more than this, but what led to her being turned out of meeting was the remark, "The certainty of a good dinner nerves them to the infliction of a long sermon."
The young Friends that subscribed to their parents' views frequently made many a mental reservation, resolving to question more closely for themselves when of maturer years; but when these came, life had so many added responsibilities, it too often happened that an indifferent acquiescence to the forms of the society resulted. But there was another and possibly less doleful aspect of
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