"Not a single action of life, whether spiritual or temporal, from the
initiative of confession, or cleansing the habitation of Christ, to that
of dressing the right side first, stepping first with the right foot as
you ascend a flight of stairs, folding the hands with the right-hand
thumb and fingers above those of the left, kneeling and rising again
with the right leg first, and harnessing first the right-hand beast, but
that has a rule for its perfect and strict performance.
"The children, or all under the age of sixteen, unless very precocious,
live, eat, work, play, sleep, and worship, accompanied only by their
caretakers. Once upon the Sabbath do they worship with the adults. Their
meetings are not so long, neither do they retire but fifteen minutes
before them. They never attend union meetings until they emerge into the
adult's degree. Stubborn children are sometimes corrected with a rod;
but any child or beast that requires an extreme severity of coercion to
induce them to conform, the society are not allowed to keep. The
contumacious child must be returned to his parents or guardian, and the
perverse beast must be sold.
"Prayer, supplication, persuasion, and keen admonition constitute the
only means used to incline the disposition and bend the will of those
arrived to years of understanding and reason.
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