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

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Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman

by taxes laid on the inhabitants, my mind was often affected with the thoughts of paying such taxes; and I believe it right for me to preserve a memorandum concerning it. I was told that Friends in England frequently paid taxes, when the money was applied to such purposes. I had conversation with several noted Friends on the subject, who all favored the payment of such taxes; some of them I preferred before myself, and this made me easier for a time; yet there was in the depth of my mind a scruple* which I never could get over; and at certain times I was greatly distressed on that account. I believed that there were some upright-hearted men who paid such taxes, yet could not see that their example was a sufficient reason for me to do so, while I believe that the Spirit of truth* required of me, as an individual, to suffer patiently the distress of goods, rather than pay actively. To refuse the active payment of a tax which our Society* generally paid was exceedingly disagreeable; but to do a thing contrary to my conscience appeared yet more dreadful. When this exercise* came upon me, I knew of none under the like difficulty; and in my distress I sought the Lord to enable me to give up all, that so I might follow Him wheresoever He was pleased to lead me. Under this exercise* I went to our Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia in the year 1755; at which a committee was appointed of some from each Quarterly Meeting, to correspond with the meeting for sufferers in London; and another to visit our Monthly and Quarterly Meetings. After their appointment, before the last adjournment of the meeting, it was agreed that these two committees should meet together in Friends’ schoolhouse in the city, to consider some things in which the cause of truth was concerned. They accordingly had a weighty conference in