It would have required an intimate familiarity with the habitual demeanor of the people of
Londongrove to detect in them an access of interest (we dare not say excitement), of
whatever kind. Expression with them was pitched to so low a key that its changes might
be compared to the slight variations in the drabs and grays in which they were clothed.
Yet that there was a moderate, decorously subdued curiosity present in the minds of
many of them on one of the First-days of the Ninth-month, in the year 1815, was as
clearly apparent to a resident of the neighborhood as are the indications of a fire or a riot
to the member of a city mob.
The agitations of the war which had so recently come to an end had hardly touched this
quiet and peaceful community. They had stoutly "borne their testimony," and faced the
question where it could not be evaded; and although the dashing Philadelphia militia had
been stationed at Camp Bloomfield, within four miles of them, the previous year, these
good people simply ignored the fact. If their sons ever listened to the trumpets at a
distance, or stole nearer to have a peep at the uniforms, no report of what they had seen or
heard was likely to be made at home. Peace brought to them a relief, like the awakening
from an uncomfortable dream: their lives at once reverted to the calm which they had
breathed for thirty years preceding the national disturbance. In their ways they had not
materially changed for a hundred years. The surplus produce of their farms more than
sufficed for the very few needs which those farms did not supply, and they seldom
touched the world outside of their sect except in matters of business. They were satisfied
with themselves and with their lot; they lived to a ripe and beautiful age, rarely
"borrowed trouble," and were patient to endure that which came in the fixed course of
things. If the spirit of curiosity, the yearning for an active, joyous grasp of life, sometimes
pierced through this placid temper, and stirred the blood of the adolescent members, they
were persuaded by grave voices, of almost prophetic authority, to turn their hearts
towards "the Stillness and the Quietness."
It was the pleasant custom of the community to arrive at the meeting-house some fifteen
or twenty minutes before the usual time of meeting, and exchange quiet and kindly
greetings before taking their places on the plain benches inside. As most of the families
had lived during the week on the solitude of their farms, they liked to see their neighbors'
faces, and resolve, as it were, their sense of isolation into the common atmosphere, before
yielding to the assumed abstraction of their worship. In this preliminary meeting, also, the
sexes were divided, but rather from habit than any prescribed rule. They were already in
the vestibule of the sanctuary; their voices were subdued and their manner touched with a
kind of reverence.
If the Londongrove Friends gathered together a few minutes earlier on that September
First-day; if the younger members looked more frequently towards one of the gates
leading into the meeting-house yard than towards the other; and if Abraham Bradbury
was the centre of a larger circle of neighbors than Simon Pennock (although both sat side
by side on the highest seat of the gallery),--the cause of these slight deviations from the
