y informal methods. In the later years of the
nineteenth century it was accomplished by special funds to which
everybody gave. Thus simply was poverty forestalled. The family assisted
soon came to self-support again. No debt was incurred, and no obligation
remained to be discharged; but every member of the Meeting and of the
community felt obliged to give and was glad to give to this anti-poverty
fund. The basis of it seems to have been respect for human embodiments
of the Divine Spirit.

This ideal of personality, divinely indwelt, created a sense of personal
duty, even in opposition to all men. In the years of anti-slavery
agitation David Irish and his sister "made their protest against slavery
by abstaining as far as possible from slave-made products; and together
they made maple, to take the place of cane sugar, and used nothing but
linen and woolen clothing (largely homespun)."[15] This later Quaker,
possessed of the spirit of the community of his fathers, shows his inner
conflict with the ideals of a competitive age in the expression "so far
as possible." It was not as practicable in 1855 to "abstain from
slave-made products," as it would have been in the year 1755.

The hospitality of the neighborhood expressed this simple code. It was
the custom to entertain the traveler in any house to which he might
come. It would have been wrong to exclude him; he was welcomed with a
dignified and formal respect by these old Friends, because entertainment
of guests in those days was a vital reality, as well as a religious
practice. These settlers in the wild forests believed that in every
wayfarer was a divine voice, a possible message from heaven. They also
treated every traveler as a possible object of their "preachments," and
spared not to "testify" to him of their peculiar beliefs and "leadings."
It was the Friends' method of propagating their gospel to send men and
women on journeys, without pay, to distant states and provinces. This
religious touring was not peculiar to them, but it was made by them an
official agency of great power in evangelizing the Colonies.

As an itinerant Friend, Woolman, the anti-slavery apostle, came to the
Hill in 176-. So Paul Osborn joined himself to a party of Friends
"travelling on truth's account," and with them visited the Carolinas, in
the years before the Revolution. The same pioneer left in his will
directions for the entertainment of such travellers upon his estate
forever.[16]