the same inducement to be industrious. Again, when
another slaveholder gave the wretchedness of Negroes, occasioned by
intestine wars, as a justification of slave-traffic, Woolman answered
that, if compassion for the Africans, on account of their domestic
troubles, was the real motive of buying them, the spirit of tenderness
should incite the Friends to use the Negroes kindly, as strangers
brought out of affliction. Many other arguments were urged in defence
of slavery, among which number was the oft-repeated notion that the
Africans' color subjects them to, or qualifies them for, slavery,
inasmuch as they are descendants of Cain who was marked with this
color, because he slew his brother Abel.[181] In short, a large portion
of Woolman's time during this second journey was given over to
answering such arguments. He travelled in the two months, during which
he was out, about eleven hundred and fifty miles. His efforts were not
without fruit, for he made a profound impression on many of the
honest-hearted.

All this time Woolman fought single-handed against overwhelming odds,
but he was destined soon to have help from two of the most remarkable
and antithetical personages connected with this early movement against
slavery; namely, Benjamin Lay and Anthony Benezet.[182] Lay
represented the revolutionary type of reformer. Whittier describes his
personal appearance as "a figure only four and a half feet high,
hunchbacked, with projecting chest, legs small and uneven, arms longer
than his legs; a huge head, showing only beneath his enormous white
hat large, solemn eyes and a prominent nose; the rest of his face
covered with a snowy semicircle of beard falling low on his breast--a
figure to recall the old legends of troll, brownie, and kobold."[183]
By birth he was a Friend, but the Society in England disowned him on
account of his revolutionary propensities. He took up residence in the
West Indies, but was compelled to leave on account of his violent
denunciation of slavery. He went to Philadelphia, but finding slavery
there, retired to a cave, where he lived a most eccentric life,
refusing to eat food or wear clothes which had been secured at the
expense of animal life, or produced by slave labor. He made frequent
excursions, however, from his cave to denounce slavery, his favorite
subject being "Deliverance to the Captive." He usually succeeded in
being heard, though he was detested by the slaveholders. On one
occasion, wh