Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman (SRSC 12)

Chapter 5: Looking Further (1760–1763)

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Lord, to whom alone I looked for help in the dangers before me. I had a prospect of the English along the coast for upward of nine hundred miles where I traveled, and their favorable situation and the difficulties attending the natives as well as Black people* in many places were open* before me. A weighty and heavenly care came over my mind, and love filled my heart toward all humankind, in which I felt a strong engagement that we might be obedient to the Lord while in tender mercy He is yet calling to us, and that we might so attend to pure universal righteousness as to give no just cause of offence to the Gentiles, who do not profess Christianity, whether they be the Black people* from Africa, or the native inhabitants of this continent. Here I was led into a close and laborious inquiry whether I, as an individual, kept clear from all things which tended to stir up or were connected with wars, either in this land or in Africa; my heart was deeply concerned* that in the future I might in all things keep steadily to the pure truth,* and live and walk in the plainness and simplicity of a sincere follower of Christ. In this lonely journey I did greatly bewail the spreading of a wrong spirit, believing that the prosperous, convenient situation of the English would require a constant attention in us to divine love and wisdom, in order to their being guided and supported in a way answerable to the will of that good, gracious, and Almighty Being, who has an equal regard to all humankind. And here luxury and covetousness, with the numerous oppressions and other evils attending them, appeared very afflicting to me, and I felt in that which is immutable that the seeds of great calamity and desolation are sown and growing fast on this continent. Nor have I words sufficient to set forth the longing I then felt, that we who are placed along the coast, and have tasted the love and goodness of God,