The Annual Monitor for 1851

We have again to present to our friends the Report of the Annual Mortality in the Society of Friends, in Great Britain and Ireland. It has frequently been observed, how nearly the number of deaths in each year has approximated, but we have this year to notice a considerable diminution in the annual return. We are not disposed, however, to attribute the diminished numbers, chiefly to any special cause connected with health, but consider it rather as one of those fluctuations which are ever found to arise in a series of years, in the mortality of a small community. The number of the dying, however, may be expected to bear, as respects the average, a pretty uniform relation to the number of the living. And if the fact be, as all our late inquiries lead us to believe it is, that we are, though slowly, a diminishing body, we must expect that our average number of deaths will also be found gradually to diminish.

We have often anxiously pondered over the question,--Why the Society of Friends should be a diminishing body? And we propose to give in this place a few of the thoughts which have been suggested to us in the course of our consideration.

In the first place, let us notice the natural causes which tend to the decrease of our Society. We have formerly shown that the mortality among our members is less than in the community at large, which so far as it extends, is of course a reason for the increase rather than the diminution of our numbers. But then we have, on the other side, the well- ascertained fact, that whilst in the community at large, the registered births exceed the deaths, by 45 per cent; in the Society of Friends, the registered deaths actually exceed the births! The cause of this fact is to be found, not only in connection with the number who marry out of the Society, but also in the operation of that prudential check on entering into the married state, which will always prevail amongst a moral people, where the means of subsistence cannot easily and with certainty be obtained. But to whatever we may attribute the cause, the fact itself is a complete answer to the question--Why we are a diminishing rather than an increasing people?

It may be said,--Why are not our religious principles aggressive?--Why, if they be true, do they not find converts among the various Christian communities of our land?--Why, as in the early times of our Society, are there not numerous conversions, and fresh bodies of warm-hearted, and sound-minded believers, added to our numbers?--These are deeply important and very interesting questions, and we are willing to offer a few thoughts upon them, with the seriousness and modesty with which it becomes us to speak on the subject.