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

Chapter 8: Finishing Well (1772)

165

Sixth of Ninth Month and first of the week.—I was this day at Counterside, a large meeting house, and very full. Through the opening* of pure love, it was a strengthening time to me, and I believe to many more. Thirteenth of Ninth Month.—This day I was at Leyburn, a small meeting; but, the townspeople coming in, the house was crowded. It was a time of heavy labor, and I believe was a profitable meeting. At this place I heard that my kinsman, William Hunt, from North Carolina, who was on a religious visit to Friends in England, departed this life on the ninth of this month, of the smallpox, at Newcastle. He appeared in the ministry when a youth, and his labors were of good savor. He traveled much in that work in America. I once heard him say in public testimony that his concern* in that visit was to be devoted to the service of Christ so fully that he might not spend one minute in pleasing himself—words which, joined with his example, were a means of stirring up the pure mind in me. Having of late often traveled in wet weather through narrow streets in towns and villages, where dirtiness under foot and the scent arising from that filth which more or less infects the air of all thickly-settled towns were disagreeable; and, being but weak, I have felt distress both in body and mind with that which is impure. In these journeys I have been where much cloth has been dyed, and have, at sundry times, walked over ground where much of their dye-stuffs has drained away. This has produced a longing in my mind that people might come into cleanness of spirit, cleanness of person, and cleanness about their houses and garments.