ARTICLE XVIII.,

THE PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS AND CHARACTER OF ELIAS HICKS, ACCOMPANIED WITH A LIKENESS.

Of our physiognomical doctrine that strongly-marked features indicate correspondingly prominent mental characteristics, Elias Hicks furnishes a forcible example. Unless the owner of a face thus distinct and striking in all its developments made an impression on those around him as positive as his countenance makes on the eye, our doctrine would fail in this particular instance. Yet the correspondence here is perfect. From obscurity he rose to great public consideration and influence, simply by the might and vigor of his own intellect. The sensation he created was tremendous, though less appreciated out of his denominational body than in. To move as steady and almost phlegmatic a sect as the Quakers with as violent commotion as he did, required just that innate vigor of mind and power of feeling which his Physiology and Phrenology evince.

His head was narrow and high. The animal organs were therefore small, and moral large. His governing phrenological group was his

moral: mark how strikingly this coincides with his character and life. His moral faculties towered far above all others, just as did his mora! organs. Very rarely indeed do we find either as strongly marked-the latter in the head or the former in the character.

ACQUISITIVENESS was small. See how thin the head at this point. Accordingly, he never preached for money, and cared little for property. SECRETIVENESS was also small; and with what honest boldness and power he spoke out the undisguised convictions of his mind. To see a wrong was with him to reprove it, without the least policy or reserve.

And then see how the head rises and spreads at BENEVOLENCE, VENERATION and SPIRITUALITY; yet minutely to illustrate the coincidences of these immense developments with his character, would be to detail the history of his eventful life. For disinterested goodness and fervent piety, few men have ever equalled him.

FIRMNESS was evidently very large, yet this inference is founded on his physiology. Though the aspect in which this likeness was taken hides this organ from observation, yet we never knew such a physiological constitution unless accompanied with immense Firmness; and Hick's decision of character was most extraordinary, and his perseverance indomitable. See how he held to his purposes and labors in spite of almost unparalleled opposition.

COMBATIVENESS and SELF-ESTEEM usually accompany physiologies like his; and at least the former must have been great in his character. Hence his moral boldness and fearless promulgation of TRUTH in spite of consequences.

His INTELLECTUAL lobe was also deep and high. Wherever the face is long, as his was, all the organs run UPWARD-and indeed so does the entire character. The depth from his ears forward to his intellectual regions, was evidently immense, as that from the ears upward to the moral organs has already been shown to have been. Mark, also, the great HEIGHT from the root of his nose upward. Hence the extraordinary quickness, clearness, and productiveness of his mind.

His very large INDIVIDUALITY, EVENTUALITY, and COMPARISON Coincides perfectly with his extraordinary shrewdness, sagacity, versatility of mind, penetration, and clearness of exposition, as well as effective mode of communicating his ideas, to which, also, his LANGUAGE, which this portrait shows to have been uncommonly large, greatly contributed.

Observe, moreover, his extraordinary development of Order, and see in his Journal, and throughout his entire public and private life, how perfect the coincidence between his head and character in this respect. Indeed, all his perceptions were large, and hence that eminently PRACTICAL cast of all his labors and writings.

Notwithstanding all his labors, and that tremendous excitement of which he was the mover and focus, he lived to the great age of eighty

two-conclusive evidence of an extraordinarily powerful constitution," which his physiology abundantly confirms.

Indeed, the coincidence between his head and character was most marked in every respect; as will be seen by comparing the preceding summary of his phrenological and physiological organization with the succeeding biographical account of this eminently great and good man, and with extracts from his writings.

This distinguished member of the Society of Friends was born in the town of North Hempstead, Long Island, on the 19th of March, 1748. His education was very limited; and at the age of seventeen he was placed an apprentice to the trade of a carpenter, which he industriously pursued for several years. On the 2nd of January, 1771, he married Jemima, daughter of Jonathan Seaman, of Jericho. He left several daughters, but none of his sons lived to maturity.

His birthright connection with the Society of Friends probably led him at an early age to embrace their sentiments, with which he showed himself so deeply imbued in after life, which he enforced with so much zeal and ability, and which were the means of bringing him so conspicuously before the public. He began his labors as a minister in 1765, and travelled over a great part of the United States from Maine to Ohio, and also in the province of Canada. In 1771, he visited every town upon Long Island, and held one or more meetings in each. In 1793, he travelled in New England, and went as far as Portland, in Maine, being absent five months, and passing over more than two thousand miles. In 1798, he traversed the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, a distance of sixteen hundred miles, and held one hundred and forty-three meetings. In 1800, he entered the province of Canada, and returned through Western New York to Saratoga, a distance of more than fifteen hundred miles. In 1806, he again explored New England, travelling more than one thousand miles, and held sixty meetings. In 1810, he went to Ohio, and returned through Pennsylvania and New York, performing a journey of two thousand miles. These are only a small part of the immense labors of this untiring, indefatigable man; and it is reasonable to believe that, during his public ministry, he must have travelled, at different times, more than ten thousand miles, and pronounced on these occasions, at least one thousand public discourses. In the midst of these tremendous labors, however, he found time to write and publish much upon religious subjects, upon war, and upon slavery. He was the private friend, and the public, unflinching advocate of civil and religious liberty; and throughout a long life, and amidst all the persecutions of the most virulent, malicious, and unsparing enemies, not an instance can be pointed out in which he, by speech or otherwise, violated this important principle. More than one instance indeed can be referred to in which he earnestly and strenuously contended for this liberty to his per

sonal enemies, against assaults made upon it by his friends, for the protection of himself.

Of his character and qualifications as a religious teacher, as well as the utility of his preaching, many different and conflicting opinions are, and will continue to be, entertained. The truth appears to be that the Society of Friends, before he made his appearance as a minister among them, had pretty much, both in England and this country, relapsed from the simplicity and manly truthfulness, and fervid, active piety of the first members of this sect-Fox, Barclay, Penn, and Elwood-into a lifeless body, subsisting upon the well-earned glory of its fathers, and falling into the rear, instead of standing in the front ranks, of reform. Of course, when Elias Hicks, with the boldness, firmness, and decision which so preeminently marked his character, felt himself called upon to proclaim anew, and to revive afresh, and perhaps to push still farther, the purely SPIRITUAL views of primitive Friends, it is not astonishing that the cry of "A disturber of the peace," "an innovator,”-"a heretic," etc., should be raised by those who found their peace disturbed by his truthful and manly testimonies.

Prominent among the testimonies he felt it his duty to bear, both in his public communications and in his private and every-day life, was that against slavery. So firmly and conscientiously scrupulous was he on this subject, that he would never, where it could possibly, at any sacrifice, be avoided, partake of the produce of slave labor; and on his deathbed, after the power of speech had forsaken him, but while he could yet see. he could not lie comfortably until a COTTON Coverlid was removed from his bed.

The points in his discourses against which the party in the Society called "Orthodox" took umbrage, and out of which principally grew the great separation which took place in 1825-6, were something like the following, taken from a discourse delivered by him at Chester, Pa.

"I don't want to express a great many words, but I want you to be called home to the substance. For the Scriptures and all the books in the world can do no more- -Jesus could do no more than to recommend to this Comforter, which was this light in him. 'God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. And if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another :' because the light is one in all, and therefore it binds us together in the bonds of love; for it is not only light but love, that love which casts out all fear. So that they who dwell in God dwell in love, and they are constrained to walk in it, and if they 'walk in it they have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.' But what blood, my friends? Did Jesus Christ the Saviour ever have any material blood? Not a drop of it, my friends-not a drop of it. That blood which cleanseth from all sin, was the life of the soul of Jesus. The soul of man has no material blood; but as the outward material blood, created from the dust of the earth, is the life of these bodies of flesh, so with respect to the soul, the

immortal and invisible spirit, its blood is that life that God breathed into it. As we read in the beginning, that God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul.' He poured his life into his soul, and it became alive to God."

All who are at all conversant with the writings of Friends, know that upon the "LIGHT WITHIN"-" Christ within the hope of glory"—rests the whole fabric of the Quaker faith-without which there would be nothing of it. It is interesting, therefore, to those who doubt the soundness or "orthodoxy" of that branch of the society known as "Hicksite," to know what Elias Hicks himself thought of this fundamental principle. His large organ of SPIRITUALITY fully prepares us for these highly spiritual views. In a letter to a friend in Ohio, he thus wrote:

"Some may query, what is the cross of Christ? To these I answer, it is the perfect law of God written on the tablet of the heart, and in the heart of every rational creature, in such indelible characters, that all the power of mortals cannot erase nor obliterate. Neither is there any power or means given or dispensed to the children of men but this inward law and light by which the true and saving knowledge of God can be obtained. And by this inward law and light all will be either justified or condemned, and all be made to know God for themselves, and be left without excuse, agreeably to the prophecy of Jeremiah, and the corroborating testimony of Jesus in his last counsel and command to his disciples, not to depart from Jerusalem until they should receive power from on high: assuring them that they should receive power, when they had received the pouring forth of the spirit upon them, which would qualify them to bear witness of him in Judea, Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth; which was verified in a marvellous manner on the day of Pentecost, when thousands were converted to the Christian faith in one day. By which it is evident, that nothing but this inward light and law, as it is heeded and obeyed, ever did, or ever can make a true and real Christian and child of God. And until the professors of Christianity agree to lay aside all their non-essentials in religion, and rally to this unchangeable foundation and standard of truth, wars and fightings, confusion and error will prevail, and the angelic song cannot be heard in our land, that of glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to men.' But when all nations are made willing to make this inward law and light the rule and standard of all their faith and works, then we shall be brought to know and believe alike, that there is but one Lord, one faith, and but one baptism; one God and Father, that is above all, through all, and in all; and then will all those glorious and consoling prophecies recorded in the scriptures of truth be fulfilled. He,' the Lord, 'shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.