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

Chapter 6 The Reform of Church and State (1763–1768)

Chapter Summary After a brief segment of Woolman’s records from 1760, the remainder of this chapter covers the years 1763–1768. In these years, the condition of the Society of Friends and their relationship with colonial government were weighty concerns for many leading Friends, and John Woolman was no exception. Matters related to the Seven Years’ War 1 had already shaken the confidence of many Quakers. Woolman, discovering a slave sale sponsored by a Quaker in Newport, NJ, turned his attention to the state in hopes that they might outlaw the slave trade. We hear of an elderly minister who openly grieved the decline of Quaker devotion, a decline associated with increasing wealth. Woolman recounts a chain of vices that lead to

1 Seven Years’ War –The global war (1756–1763) of which the French and Indian War (1754–1763) was the North America theater.

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