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

Chapter 7: Discerning the Way Forward (1769–1770)

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prayer that I might be preserved; and upward of a year having passed, as I one day walked in a solitary wood, my mind being covered with awfulness,* cries were raised in me to my merciful Father, that He would graciously keep me in faithfulness; and it then settled on my mind, as a duty, to open my condition to Friends at our Monthly Meeting, which I did soon after, as follows: An exercise* has attended me for some time past, and of late has been more weighty upon me, which is, that I believe it is required of me to be resigned to go on a visit to some parts of the West Indies. In the Quarterly and General Spring Meetings I found no clearness to express anything further than that I believed resignation was required of me. Having obtained certificates from all the said meetings, I felt like a sojourner at my outward habitation, and kept free from worldly encumbrances, and I was often bowed in spirit before the Lord, with inward breathings to Him that I might be rightly directed. Hearing of a vessel likely to sail from Philadelphia for Barbados, I spoke with one of the owners at Burlington, and soon after went to Philadelphia on purpose to speak to him again. He told me there was a Friend in town who was part owner of the said vessel. I felt no inclination to speak with the latter, but returned home. Awhile after I took leave of my family, and, going to Philadelphia, had some weighty conversation with the first-mentioned owner, and showed him a writing, as follows: On the twenty-fifth of Eleventh Month, 1769, as an exercise* with respect to a visit to Barbados has been