in captivity and
slavery, calls for a deep inquiry and close examination how far we are
clear of withholding from them what under such an exercise may open to
view as their just right; and therefore we earnestly and affectionately
entreat our brethren in religious profession to bring this matter home,
and that all who have let the oppressed go free may attend to the further
openings of duty.

"A tender Christian sympathy appears to be awakened in the minds of many
who are not in religious profession with us, who have seriously
considered the oppressions and disadvantages under which those people
have long labored; and whether a pious care extended to their offspring
is not justly due from us to them is a consideration worthy our serious
and deep attention."

Committees to aid and advise the colored people were accordingly
appointed in the various Monthly Meetings. Many former owners of slaves
faithfully paid the latter for their services, submitting to the award
and judgment of arbitrators as to what justice required at their hands.
So deeply had the sense of the wrong of slavery sunk into the hearts of
Friends!

John Woolman, in his Journal for 1769, states, that having some years
before, as one of the executors of a will, disposed of the services of a
negro boy belonging to the estate until he should reach the age of thirty
years, he became uneasy in respect to the transaction, and, although he
had himself derived no pecuniary benefit from it, and had simply acted as
the agent of the heirs of the estate to which the boy belonged, he
executed a bond, binding himself to pay the master of the young man for
four years and a half of his unexpired term of service.

The appalling magnitude of the evil against which he felt himself
especially called to contend was painfully manifest to John Woolman. At
the outset, all about him, in every department of life and human
activity, in the state and the church, he saw evidences of its strength,
and of the depth and extent to which its roots had wound their way among
the foundations of society. Yet he seems never to have doubted for a
moment the power of simple truth to eradicate it, nor to have hesitated
as to his own duty in regard to it. There was no groping like Samson in
the gloom; no feeling in blind wrath and impatience for the pillars of
the temple of Dagon. "The candle of the Lord shone about him," and his
path lay clear and unmistakable before him. He believed in