of emptiness rustle in every
wind; the full corn in the ear holds up its golden fruit noiselessly to
the Lord of the harvest. John Woolman's faith, like the Apostle's, is
manifested by his labors, standing not in words but in the demonstration
of the spirit,--a faith that works by love to the purifying of the heart.
The entire outcome of this faith was love manifested in reverent waiting
upon God, and in that untiring benevolence, that quiet but deep
enthusiasm of humanity, which made his daily service to his fellow-
creatures a hymn of praise to the common Father.

However the intellect may criticise such a life, whatever defects it may
present to the trained eyes of theological adepts, the heart has no
questions to ask, but at once owns and reveres it. Shall we regret that
he who had so entered into fellowship of suffering with the Divine One,
walking with Him under the cross, and dying daily to self, gave to the
faith and hope that were in him this testimony of a life, rather than any
form of words, however sound? A true life is at once interpreter and
proof of the gospel, and does more to establish its truth in the hearts
of men than all the "Evidences" and "Bodies of Divinity" which have
perplexed the world with more doubts than they solved. Shall we venture
to account it a defect in his Christian character, that, under an abiding
sense of the goodness and long-suffering of God, he wrought his work in
gentleness and compassion, with the delicate tenderness which comes of a
deep sympathy with the trials and weaknesses of our nature, never
allowing himself to indulge in heat or violence, persuading rather than
threatening? Did he overestimate that immeasurable Love, the
manifestation of which in his own heart so reached the hearts of others,
revealing everywhere unsuspected fountains of feeling and secret longings
after purity, as the rod of the diviner detects sweet, cool water-springs
under the parched surfaces of a thirsty land? And, looking at the
purity, wisdom, and sweetness of his life, who shall say that his faith
in the teaching of the Holy Spirit--the interior guide and light--was a
mistaken one? Surely it was no illusion by which his feet were so guided
that all who saw him felt that, like Enoch, he walked with God. "Without
the actual inspiration of the Spirit of Grace, the inward teacher and
soul of our souls," says Fenelon, "we could neither do, will, nor believe
good. We must silence every crea