thicker and darker, till error
gets established by general opinion; but whoever attends to perfect
goodness, and remains under the melting influence of it, finds a path
unknown to many, and sees the necessity to lean upon the arm of divine
strength, and dwell alone, or with a few in the right, committing their
cause to him who is a refuge to his people. Negroes are our fellow
creatures, and their present condition among us requires our serious
consideration. We know not the time, when those scales, in which
mountains are weighed, may turn. The parent of mankind is gracious, his
care is over his smallest creatures, and a multitude of men escape not
his notice; and though many of them are trodden down and despised, yet
he remembers them. He seeth their affliction, and looketh upon the
spreading increasing exaltation of the oppressor. He turns the channel
of power, humbles the most haughty people, and gives deliverance to the
oppressed, at such periods as are consistent with his infinite justice
and goodness. And wherever gain is preferred to equity, and wrong things
publickly encouraged, to that degree that wickedness takes root and
spreads wide amongst the inhabitants of a country, there is a real cause
for sorrow, to all such whose love to mankind stands on a true
principle, and wisely consider the end and event of things."
Consideration on keeping Negroes, by John Woolman, part 2. p. 50.]

He complains, "That they were suffered to live with their women in no
better way than direct fornication; no care being taken to oblige them
to continue together when married; but that they were suffered at their
will to leave their wives, and take to other women." I shall conclude
this sympathizing clergyman's observations, with an instance he gives,
to shew, "that not only discouragements and scoffs at that time
prevailed in Barbadoes, to establish an opinion that the Negroes were
not capable of religious impressions, but that even violence and great
abuses were used to prevent any thing of the kind taking place. It was
in the case of a poor Negro, who having, at his own request, prevailed
on a clergyman to administer baptism to him, on his return home the
brutish overseer took him to task, giving him to understand, that that
was no sunday's work for those of his complexion; that he had other
business for him, the neglect whereof would cost him an afternoon's
baptism in blood, as he in the morning had received a baptism with
water