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

Chapter 8: Finishing Well (1772)

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Visits and Reflections in England (June–July 1772) On the eighth of Sixth Month, 1772, we landed at London, and I went straightway to the Yearly Meeting of ministers and elders, which had been gathered, I suppose, about half an hour. In this meeting my mind was humbly contrite. In the afternoon the meeting for business was opened, which by adjournments held near a week. In these meetings I often felt a living concern* for the establishment of Friends in the pure life of truth.* My heart was enlarged in the meetings of ministers, that for business, and in several meetings for public worship, and I felt my mind united in true love to the faithful laborers now gathered at this Yearly Meeting. On the fifteenth I went to a Quarterly Meeting at Hertford. First of Seventh Month.—I have been at Quarterly Meetings at Sherrington, Northampton, Banbury, and Shipton, and have had sundry meetings between. My mind has been bowed under a sense of divine goodness manifested among us; my heart has been often enlarged in true love, both among ministers and elders and in public meetings, and through the Lord’s goodness I believe it has been a fresh visitation* to many, in particular to the youth. Stagecoaches frequently go upward of one hundred miles in twenty-four hours; and I have heard Friends say in several places that it is common for horses to be killed with hard* driving, and that many others are driven till they grow blind. Postboys pursue their business, each one to his stage, all night through the winter. Some boys who ride long stages suffer greatly in winter nights, and at several places I have heard of their being frozen to death. So great is the hurry in the spirit of this world, that in aiming to do business