I told him I was not easy to write it;
for though many of our meeting, and in other places, kept slaves, I still
believed the practice was not right, and desired to be excused from the
writing. I spoke to him in good-will; and he told me that keeping slaves
was not altogether agreeable to his mind, but that the slave being a gift
to his wife he had accepted of her."
We may easily conceive that a person so scrupulous and tender on this
subject (as indeed John Woolman was on all others) was in the way of
becoming in time more eminently serviceable to his oppressed
fellow-creatures. We have seen already the good seed sown in his heart, and
it seems to have wanted only providential seasons and occurrences to be
brought into productive fruit. Accordingly we find that a journey, which he
took as a minister of the gospel in 1746, through the provinces of
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, which were then more noted than
others for the number of slaves in them, contributed to prepare him as an
instrument for the advancement of this great cause.
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