They were of opinion also, that pride and self-conceit would be likely to arise to men from the view, and ostentatious parade, of their own persons.

They considered also, that it became them, as the founders of the society, to bear their testimony against the vain and superfluous fashions of the world.

They believed also, if there were those whom they loved, that the best method of shewing their regard to these would be not by having their fleshly images before their eyes, but by preserving their best actions in their thoughts, as worthy of imitation; and that their own memory, in the same manner, should be perpetuated rather in the loving hearts, and kept alive in the edifying conversation of their descendants, than in the perishing tablets of canvas, fixed upon the walls of their habitations.
Hence no portraits are to be seen of many of those great and eminent men in the society, who are now mingled with the dust.
These ideas, which thus actuated the first Quakers on this subject, are those of the Quakers as a body at the present day.

There may be here and there an individual, who has had a portrait of some of his family taken.
But such instances may be considered as rare exceptions from the general rule.

In no society is it possible to establish maxims, which shall influence an universal practice.
CHAP.