question, on the other hand, that his warm and enthusiastic
manners awakened the attention of many to the cause, and gave them
first impressions concerning it, which they never forgot, and which
rendered them useful to it in the subsequent part of their lives." See
Clarkson's "History of Abolition of the African Slave Trade," Vol. I,
pp. 148-150.

[25] John Woolman shared with Anthony Benezet the honor of being one
of the two foremost workers in behalf of the oppressed race. He was
born in Burlington County in New Jersey in 1720. When quite a youth he
was deeply impressed with religion and resolved to live a righteous
life. He was therefore in his twenty-second year made a minister of
the gospel among the Quakers. Just prior to his entering upon the
ministry there happened an incident which set him against slavery.
Being a poor man he was working for wages as a bookkeeper in a store.
"My employer," said he, "having a Negro woman sold her, and desired me
to write a bill of sale, the man being waiting, who bought her. The
thing was sudden, and though the thought of writing an instrument of
slavery for one of my fellow-creatures made me feel uneasy, yet I
remembered I was hired by the year, that it was my master who directed
me to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a member of our Society,
who bought her. So through weakness I gave way and wrote, but, at
executing it, I was so afflicted in my mind, that I said before my
master and the friend, that I believed slave-keeping to be a practice
inconsistent with the Christian religion. This in some degree abated
my uneasiness; yet, as often as I reflected seriously upon it, I
thought I should have been clearer, if I had desired to have been
excused from it, as a thing against my conscience; for such it was.
And some time after this, a young man of our Society spoke to me to
write a conveyance of a slave to him, he having lately taken a Negro
into his house. I told him I was not easy to write it; for though many
of our meeting, and in other places kept slaves, I still believed the
practice was not right, and desired to be excused from the writing. I
spoke to him in good will; and he told me that keeping slaves was not
altogether agreeable to his mind, but that the slave being a gift to
his wife he had accepted her." Moved thus so early in his life he
developed into an ardent friend of the Negro and ever labored
thereafter to elevate and emancipate them. See Clarkson's "Histo