Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

A CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE.

There is now at Newport, Rhode Island, a French preacher among the Friends, who is much admired and followed. He was an officer in the French cavalry until converted to quakerism. His life and manners are irreproachable, his doctrines simple, and strictly conformable to the purity and spirituality of the tenets of that respectable sect. This military convert, this modern Cornelius, does not attempt to dazzle his hearers by that glow of oratory so natural to his countrymen, but speaks with all that deliberation and mildness so remarkable among the Friends. He preaches but seldom, and when he does, he frequently pauses more than half a minute between his sentences. The purity of the heart, the worshiping in the spirit, the futility of ceremonies, and the joys of new Jerusalem, are the faultless themes which fall from his deliberate tongue.

Although he is so perfect a friend in his doctrines and manner of public speaking, yet his drab coloured plain clothes cannot conceal the genteel movements of the Frenchman, nor his broad beaver wholly veil that sagacious physiognomy, and eye of fire, which ever distinguishes the sons of old Gaul. The Friends esteem him a remarkable and very valuable convert, raised up on the great head of the church, for some good and glorious purpose, while some of the wicked and uncharitable, hesitate not to whisper their suspicions that he is an artful man, who means to become the father confessor of the whole flock. He may be what he seems a well meaning, conscientious man, yet it cannot be deemed illiberal, if so extraordinary a character should be followed by the eye of suspicion, seeing he comes from a nation who have systematized intrigue, even before Ignatius Loyola founded that influential order, the society of Jesuits; who by their machinations, were at one time in a fair way of governing all Europe.