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

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Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman

seems impracticable for them to set their slaves free without changing their own way of life. It has been my lot to be often abroad; and I have observed in some places, at Quarterly and Yearly Meetings, and at some houses where traveling Friends and their horses are often entertained,* that the yearly expense of some individuals is very considerable. And Friends in some places crowding much on persons in these circumstances for entertainment* has rested as a burden on my mind for some years past. I now express it in the fear of the Lord, greatly desiring that Friends here present may duly consider it. In the fall of this year, having hired a man to work, I perceived in conversation with him that he had been a soldier in the late war on this continent; and he informed me in the evening, in a narrative of his captivity among the Indians,* that he saw two of his fellow captives tortured to death in a very cruel manner. This relation affected me with sadness, under which I went to bed; and the next morning, soon after I awoke, a fresh and living sense of divine love overspread my mind, in which I had a renewed prospect of the nature of that wisdom from above which leads to a right use of all gifts, both spiritual and temporal, and gives content therein. Under a feeling thereof, I wrote as follows: He who gave me a being attended with many lacks unknown to brute creatures has given me a capacity superior to theirs, and shown me that a moderate application to business is suitable to my present condition. This, attended with His blessing, may supply all my outward lacks while they remain within the bounds He has fixed. Do any imaginary lacks