Lydia Maria Child, Isaac T. Hopper: a true life

[257] were the lively conversations they had together. He was a preacher in the Society of Friends, and missed no opportunity, either in public or private, to protest earnestly against the sin of slavery. He often cautioned Friends against laying too much stress on their own peculiar forms, while they professed to abjure forms. He said he himself had once received a lesson on this subject, which did him much good. Once, when he was seated in meeting, an influential Friend walked in, dressed in a coat with large metal buttons, which he had borrowed in consequence of a drenching rain! He seated himself opposite to Jacob Lindley, who was so much disturbed by the glittering buttons, that ‘his meeting did him no good.’ When the congregation rose to depart, he felt constrained to go up to the Friend who had so much troubled him, and inquire why he had so grievously departed from the simplicity enjoined upon members of their Society. The good man looked down upon his garments, and quietly replied, ‘I borrowed the coat because my own was wet; and indeed, Jacob, I did not notice what buttons were on it.’ Jacob shook his hand warmly, and said, ‘Thou art a better Christian than I am, and I will learn of thee.’

He often used to inculcate the same moral by relating another incident, which happened in old times, when Quakers were accustomed to wear cocked hats turned up at the sides. A Friend bought a hat of