John Woolman
1720-1772 18th century
A conscience that moves one step at a time, without seeing the road, and the silence in which strength is renewed.
Who was John Woolman?
A Quaker tailor and shopkeeper in New Jersey, he kept a journal all his life recording what his conscience asked of him. Little by little he stopped drawing up bills of sale for slaves, travelled on foot rather than profit from overdriven horses, and refused cloth dyed by captive hands. He died of smallpox at York, in England, where he had come to speak to English Friends.
In their own words
Love was the first motion, and thence a concern arose to spend some time with the Indians, that I might feel and understand their life, and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of Truth amongst them.
I have gone forward, not as one travelling in a road cast up and well prepared, but as a man walking through a miry place, in which are stones here and there, safe to step on, but so situated, that, one step being taken, time is necessary to see where to step next.
The necessity of an inward stillness hath under these exercises appeared clear to my mind; in true silence strength is renewed, the mind herein is weaned from all things, but as they may be enjoyed in the divine will.