It is usual, when the women have finished the business of their own meeting, to send one of their members to the apartments of the men, to know if they have any thing to communicate. This messenger having returned, and every thing having been settled and recorded in both meetings, the monthly meeting is over, and men, women, and youth of both sexes, return to their respective homes.
In the same manner as the different congregations, or members of the different meetings, in any one division of the county, meet together, and transact their monthly business, so other different congregations, belonging to other divisions of the same county, meet at other appointed places, and dispatch their business also. And in the same manner as the business is thus done in one county, it is done in every other county of the kingdom once a month.
_Quarterly court or meeting--constitution of this meeting--one place in each county is now fixed upon for the transaction of business-this place may be different in the different quarters of the year--deputies from the various monthly meetings are appointed to repair to this place--nature of the business to be transacted--certain queries proposed--written answers carried to these by the deputies just mentioned--Queries proposed in the womens meeting also, and answered in the same manner_.--
The quarterly meeting of the Quakers, which comes next in order, is much more numerously attended than the monthly. The monthly, as we have just seen, superintend the concerns of a few congregations or particular meetings which were contained in a small division of the county. The quarterly meeting, on the other hand, superintends the concerns of all the monthly meetings in the county at large. It takes cognizance of course of the concerns of a greater portion of population, and, as the name implies, for a greater extent of time. The Quaker population of a [25] whole county is now to assemble in one place. This place, however, is not always the same. It may be different, to accommodate the members in their turn, in the different quarters of the year.
[Footnote 25: I still adhere, to give the reader a clearer idea of the discipline, and to prevent confusion, to the division by county, though the district in question may not always comprehend a complete county.]
