had wound their way among
the foundations of society. Yet he seems never to have doubted for a
moment the power of simple truth to eradicate it, nor to have hesitated
as to his own duty in regard to it. There was no groping like Samson in
the gloom; no feeling in blind wrath and impatience for the pillars of
the temple of Dagon. "The candle of the Lord shone about him," and his
path lay clear and unmistakable before him. He believed in the goodness
of God that leadeth to repentance; and that love could reach the witness
for itself in the hearts of all men, through all entanglements of custom
and every barrier of pride and selfishness. No one could have a more
humble estimate of himself; but as he went forth on his errand of mercy
he felt the Infinite Power behind him, and the consciousness that he had
known a preparation from that Power "to stand as a trumpet through which
the Lord speaks." The event justified his confidence; wherever he went
hard hearts were softened, avarice and love of power and pride of opinion
gave way before his testimony of love.

The New England Yearly Meeting then, as now, was held in Newport, on
Rhode Island. In the year 1760 John Woolman, in the course of a
religious visit to New England, attended that meeting. He saw the
horrible traffic in human beings,--the slave-ships lying at the wharves
of the town, the sellers and buyers of men and women and children
thronging the market-place. The same abhorrent scenes which a few years
after stirred the spirit of the excellent Hopkins to denounce the slave-
trade and slavery as hateful in the sight of God to his congregation at
Newport were enacted in the full view and hearing of the annual
convocation of Friends, many of whom were themselves partakers in the
shame and wickedness. "Understanding," he says, "that a large number of
slaves had been imported from Africa into the town, and were then on sale
by a member of our Society, my appetite failed; I grew outwardly weak,
and had a feeling of the condition of Habakkuk: 'When I heard, my belly
trembled, my lips quivered; I trembled in myself, that I might rest in
the day of trouble.' I had many cogitations, and was sorely distressed."
He prepared a memorial to the Legislature, then in session, for the
signatures of Friends, urging that body to take measures to put an end to
the importation of slaves. His labors in the Yearly Meeting appear to
have been owned and blessed by the Divine Head o