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Beyond Penn's Treaty

Journal of Joshua Evans

Page out of 80
21st.

The Yearly Meeting

of Ministers and Elders began, at wch
were our Friends John Wigham and Martha Rowuth from Europe, with
others out of other Parts; a second sitting thereof was in the afternoon,
low times to me: I thought many of us were got into a state of easy
indulgence in many things, and are not soon to be removed from
Beds of Ease: I tried at it a little, yet not to much purpose. I hinted
that the benefit & well ordering of this large Yearly Meeting, wou'd
much depend on the wise Conduct of those in high Stations: guarding
well their own Example & Conversation, and then watching over younger
People carefully; checking their going on formal visits from house
to house; that if favoured to receive a little good, they might lose it's Sa-
vour, or learn bad fashions or unprofitable Customs, by getting into Com-
panies, and indulging Vanities, so as to be in danger of returning
from such a Solemnity worse than when they came to it: That of sitt-
ing up late in the Evenings, & laying in bed late in the mornings I had also to
mention my belief, it was unprofitable for Body and Soul. I thought
this kind of Doctrine seemed rather hard or close for me to deliver
among Brethren & Sisters of high rank in a large City, and though
lately visited with alarming mortality, I fear too many are not enough
humbled.

23d.

The meeting of Business began, which in most of it's Sittings
seem'd times of exercise, the Stream being low, as I thought; Members being
too generally tinctured more or less with a Worldly Spirit, know not the
proper value of the precious Truth, & thus become captivated,
barren & dwarfish.
At