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SETTLE

MENTS.

a friend does not gain a settlement in the accepting monthly meeting, except as hereafter provided (Rule XI.) And this regulation with respect to recommendation, and the effect of it, shall extend to the wife of any such person (whether such person continue in membership or not) during the husband's life, and for one year after his decease: and also to the children of any such person, whether such person continue in membership or not, such children being respectively under the age of sixteen years.

The wife as well as children of a person who, not being a member of the society, openly fails in the payment of his just debts, (such wife and children being in this, as well as in the former case, themselves entitled to membership,) shall be in the same situation with regard to recommendation and settlement, as if such person had been a member, and been recorded as insolvent.

As instances may occur in which the proper procedure in a recommending monthly meeting usually consequent on insolvency, may happen to be omitted, it is deemed expedient to provide, as is hereby done, that in the cases which admit of being easily ascertained, such as bankruptcy, or assignment of effects to, or composition with, creditors, a person so omitted to be recorded as insolvent, shall nevertheless for the purposes of any of these rules be considered as thus recorded.

X. Persons not coming under the provisions of either of the two last preceding rules, uniformly begin to acquire a settlement in the accepting monthly meeting, from the time of the acceptance of their respective certificates. Such settlement shall not, however, be complete, and consequently the accepting monthly meeting shall not be ultimately liable to any charge for relief, if any one or more of the three following circumstances occur:

1. Ceasing to be a member of the accepting monthly meeting, within two years from the time of acceptance :

2. Receiving relief within the like period :

3. Being, in the regular course of the exercise of the discipline, recorded, within four years immediately subsequent to the acceptance, as insolvent, either by the accepting or any other monthly meeting of which the party may be at the time a member.

XI. It being proper, in reference to the situation of persons who are placed, by these rules, under certain restrictions as to the acquisition of settlement, to provide for the removal of such restrictions, it is agreed that a settlement shall be gained, in any monthly meeting of which the party shall have been two years a member, in any of the five following

cases:

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1. By a person previously in any monthly meeting recorded as
insolvent, if he shall have fully discharged his debts, and shall
not be receiving relief:

2. By the widow of any person so recorded, if such widow shall
have survived her husband not less than one year, and shall
not have fallen into necessitous circumstances so as to have re-
ceived relief:

3. By a person having received relief from any monthly meeting,
who shall have been for three years without the repetition of
any such assistance:

4. By the widow of a person having within one year before his
decease received relief from any monthly meeting, who shall
have been for two years after the decease of the husband with-
out receiving relief herself.

5. By any child of any person so recorded, or of any person having
received relief from any monthly meeting, if such children
shall have respectively attained the age of sixteen years, and
not be themselves in the receipt of relief.

Also, and as of course, such settlement shall be gained by the
wife and children under sixteen years of age, of any person so
recorded, or so relieved, on his acquiring himself the right; with-
out respect to the length of time during which such wife and chil-
dren may have been members of the monthly meeting.

XII. In order to prevent any delay of relief, it shall be incumbent on a monthly meeting within the compass of which a friend resides at the time of his becoming necessitous, whether he be a member thereof or not, to see that suitable relief be extended. If such meeting be not the meeting in which the settlement of the friend is, any expense which the

SETTLE

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SETTLE

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former may have incurred on his account, shall on application be reimbursed by the latter.

Whenever a case of relief is taken up by one meeting on behalf of another, notice is to be conveyed without any unnecessary delay to the meeting on which the charge devolves.

A monthly meeting on which the charge of relief devolves, shall have the option of taking upon itself to administer such relief, although the party may be, and continue to be, a member of another monthly meeting, and consequently in all other respects under its care.

When the understanding between two meetings is, that relief shall be handed by one on behalf of the other, it is recommended that an arrangement be effected for reimbursement in a direct manner, without unnecessarily making any other monthly meeting of which the party may have been intermediately a member, the channel of communication.

XIII. In cases of removal from one monthly meeting in London to another, a minute of recommendation delivered by one or two members of the former meeting to the latter, in the manner that has been long practised in that city, shall operate in all respects as a certificate; provided such minute of recommendation contain the requisites of a certificate, as pointed out in these rules. If such minute is accepted when delivered, a report by the friend or friends attending with it, shall be considered sufficient, without the acknowledgment prescribed by Rule V.

XIV. It is to be understood that every provision in these rules, applicable to both sexes, extends equally to each; although for the sake of brevity, not particularly so expressed also, that the term relief or relieved uniformly implies relief from a monthly or other meeting, (or from funds under the direction of any such meeting,) to families or individuals as proper subjects of relief from a monthly meeting.

XV. It is agreed with reference to the case of friends who, after being recommended from a monthly meeting in Great Britain to one out of the limits of this yearly meeting, return to this island, and are in consequence recommended from abroad to any monthly meeting in it, that, with respect to the rules of settlement, the time between the granting of a certificate for any such individuals on going out, and

the receipt of a certificate for them on their return, shall be wholly disregarded; so that any monthly meeting in this country of which they may be members upon or after such return, shall have the same claim upon any other monthly meeting here, as if no interval whatever had taken place between the occurrence of the two above-mentioned circumstances.

XVI. With a view to remove every impediment from the efforts of monthly or other meetings, to promote the right education of children, it is concluded that any expenditure hereafter made by a monthly or other meeting for the education of a child, at a school approved by the monthly or other meeting of which such child is a member, or the payment by a monthly or other meeting of any annual sum in lieu of an apprentice fee, or for the clothing or pocket-money of an apprentice, shall not be considered as "relief" within the meaning of the rules for removals and settlements, and shall not render such child or its parents liable of the consequences attached under the said rules to the "relief” of members of our society by the monthly or other meeting to which they belong, and that such assistance shall not in any way be alluded to in certificates of removal. 1737.-1761.-1769.-1782.-1786.

to any

1789.-1801.-1820.-1822.-1824.-1831.-1833.

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No proposal for altering the rules for removals and settlements of friends, shall be received by this meeting, unless such proposal be signed Respecting proposals for in and by order of a quarterly meeting, or some other meeting which altering rules. doth directly correspond with this meeting. 1740.-1801.—1833.

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early instruct

ed in the Ho

ly Scriptures.

SCRIPTURES.

WE recommend it as an incumbent duty on friends, to cause their Children to be children to be frequent in reading the Holy Scriptures, and to observe to them the examples of such children as in scripture are recorded to have early learned the fear of the Lord, and hearkened to his counsel : instructing them in the fear and dread of the Lord, planting upon their spirits impressions of reverence towards God, from whom they have their daily support; showing them they ought not to offend Him, but love, serve, and honour Him, in whose hands all blessings are.

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1709. P. E.

It is also seriously advised, that no friends suffer romances, playbooks, or other vain and idle pamphlets, in their houses or families, which tend to corrupt the minds of youth: but that they excite them to the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and religious books. Let the Holy Scriptures be early taught our youth, and diligently searched, and seriously read by friends, with due regard to the Holy Spirit from whence they came, and by which they are truly opened. 1720. P. E.

And, dear friends, inasmuch as the Holy Scriptures are the means of conveying and preserving to us, an account of the things most surely to be believed concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ the operations in the flesh, and the fulfilling of the prophecies relating thereto; we

On the importance of the Scriptures, and on

of the Holy

Spirit.

therefore recommend to all friends, especially elders in the church, and masters of families, that they would, both by example and advice, impress on the minds of the younger a reverent esteem of those sacred writings, and advise them to a frequent reading and meditating therein; -and that you would, at proper times and seasons, when you find your minds rightly disposed thereunto, give the youth to understand, that

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