t will accompany
their proceedings. As He who first founded the earth was then the true
proprietor of it, so He still remains, and though He hath given it to the
children of men, so that multitudes of people have had their sustenance
from it while they continued here, yet He bath never alienated it, but
His right is as good as at first; nor can any apply the increase of their
possessions contrary to universal love, nor dispose of lands in a way
which they know tends to exalt some by oppressing others, without being
justly chargeable with usurpation."

It will not lessen the value of the foregoing extracts in the minds of
the true-disciples of our Divine Lord, that they are manifestly not
written to subserve the interests of a narrow sectarianism. They might
have been penned by Fenelon in his time, or Robertson in ours, dealing as
they do with Christian practice,--the life of Christ manifesting itself
in purity and goodness,--rather than with the dogmas of theology. The
underlying thought of all is simple obedience to the Divine word in the
soul. "Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father in heaven."
In the preface to an English edition, published some years ago, it is
intimated that objections had been raised to the Journal on the ground
that it had so little to say of doctrines and so much of duties. One may
easily understand that this objection might have been forcibly felt by
the slave-holding religious professors of Woolman's day, and that it may
still be entertained by a class of persons who, like the Cabalists,
attach a certain mystical significance to words, names, and titles, and
who in consequence question the piety which hesitates to flatter the
Divine ear by "vain repetitions" and formal enumeration of sacred
attributes, dignities, and offices. Every instinct of his tenderly
sensitive nature shrank from the wordy irreverence of noisy profession.
His very silence is significant: the husks 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 qu