1829 July 13, Woodbourne, to Brother, Philadelphia

              Woodbourne 7 month 13th 1829

Dear Brother:



Thine of 29th ult. has been rece'd. I was pleased to learn that our parents were well, and hope that Edward & Alfred may be benefited by their proposed excursion and that thou may’st also find time to enjoy ye benefits of ye same kind of recreation. Ye country is now enlivened by visitors from ye City and Susquehanna Co. is favoured with a share of them. James Holly Biddle bro't back with them from Phila. their sisters Sarah Biddle and Mary Drinker, and E. Walker's family have ye company of ye widow Morris, and her daughters, Susan & Elizabeth. We have lately been favoured also with a visit from Joel Woolman and Alvin Keyser, appointed by Abington Quarterly Meeting to visit Friendsville Preparative Meeting. they appeared to be man of plain, unassuming humble manners, and were well received by both Hicksites & Orthodox. Cha's Shoemaker accompanied them as far as a Stroudsburg, where he became so ill, as to present his proceeding further. We have subsequently had a visit from Ja's Bell, another orthodox friend and an elder, appointed by Stroudsburg Monthly Meeting.
 

	
Dan'l Stroud has been indisposed, or he also wd. probably have visited this part of his flock.  he occasionally writes excellent letters of advice to afford thee an idea of his decisive and at the same time affectionate letters of language & manner, I will give thee an extract from one of them, recently addressed to E. Walker: "distressing as is ye fact, yet it certainly is the case, that the Hicksites are a distinct Society from Friends, and ye separation proceeded from ye leaders of that seccession having become corrupted with anti-christian doctrines, mostly Socinian, but compounded with some other speculative notions, made up into bills to suit ye subjects to whom they were to be administered, and gilt with specious professions of great spirituality, to captivate members and professors with Friends. this with various practices, such as are too commonly used in electioneering, have beguiled & seduced many, who have not or had not previously embraced those awfully dreadful notions, not fitting to be styled doctrines, when we are speaking of religion, and whether these will become leavened into the mass of infidelity with their leaders, or separate from them remains among the things which futurity must disclose. that thou & I, and ye dear children Providentially entrusted to our care, may be preserved from this direful contagion, I have earnestly craved, feeling some hope, that we may resist every temptation that may beset us, to unsettle us and loss about with every wind of doctrine.
 


If we ever knew anything, "as we ought to know", le us "walk by ye same rule and mind the same thing." Let us be satisfied with and established in "the faith once delivered to ye saints",