it will be acceptable to friends, and may be of general fervice: and, as many weighty arguments and pertinent advices, relative to flavery and the oppreffion of the Negroes in the Plantations, are contained in the Journal, it was therefore apprehended that two fmall Tracts, on that fubject, might be omitted in his Abridgement.

THE

TESTIMONY

O F

FRIENDS IN YORKSHIRE,

At their Quarterly-Meeting, held at YORK, the 24th and 25th. of the third month, 1773, concerning

WOOLMAN,

Of Mount- Holly, in the province of New-Jersey, in America; who departed this life, at the boufe of our friend, Thomas Prieftman, in' the fuburbs of this city, the 7th of the tenth month, 1772, and was interred, in the burying-ground of friends, the gth of the fame, aged about fifty-two years.

T

HIS our valuable friend, having been under a religious engagement, for fome time, to vifit friends in this nation, and more especially us in the northern parts, undertook the fame, in full concurrence and near fympathy with his friends and brethren at home,' as appeared by certificates from the monthly 2nd quarterly meetings to which he belonged, and from the fpring-meeting of ministers and elders, held at Philadelphia, for Pennsylvania and New-Jersey.

He arrived in the city of London the beginning of the laft yearly-meeting, and, after attending that meeting, travelled northward, vifiting the quarterly-meetings of Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordfhire, and Worcestershire, and divers particular meetings in his way.

He visited many meetings on the weft fide of this county; alfo fome in Lancashire and Weftmoreland; from whence he came to our quarterly-meeting in the laft ninth month; and, though much out of health, yet was enabled to attend all the fittings of that meeting except the laft.

His diforder, then, which proved the smallpox, increafed fpeedily upon him, and was very afflicting under which he was fupported in much meeknefs, patience, and Chriftian fortitude. To thofe, who attended him in his illness, his mind appeared to be centered in divine love; under the precious influence whereof, we believe, he finished his courfe, and entered into the manfion's of everlasting reft.

In the early part of his illness he requested a friend to write, and he broke forth thus:

O Lord, my God! the amazing horrors of darkness were gathered around me and covered me all over, and I faw no way to ge forth I felt the mifery of my fellow-creatures feparated from the divine harmony, and it was heavier than I could bear, and I was crushed down under it I lifted up my hand, and ftretched out my arm, but there was

none to help me: I looked round about, and was amazed: In the depths of mifery, O Lord! I remembered that thou art omnipotent; that I had called thee Father; and I felt that I loved thee, and I was made quiet in thy will, and I waited for deliverance from thee; thou hadst pity upon me when no man could help me: I faw that meekness under fuffering was fhewed to us in the most affect ing example of thy Son, and thou waft teaching me to follow him, and I faid, Thy will, O Father, be done."

Many more of his weighty expreffions might have been inferted here, but it was deemed unneceffary, they being already published in print.

He was a man endued with a large natural capacity; and, being obedient to the manifettations of divine grace, having in patience and humility endured many deep baptifms, he became thereby fanctified and fitted for the Lord's work, and was truly ferviceable in his church: dwelling in awful fear and watchfulness, he was careful, in his public appearances, to feel the putting forth of the divine hand, fo that the spring of the gospelminiftry often flowed through him with great fweetness and purity, as a refreshing ftream to the weary travellers toward the city of Ged: fkilful in dividing the word, he was furnished by Him, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, to com municate freely to the feveral ftates of the A 4 people

people where his lot was caft.

His conduct at other times was feafoned with the likewatchful circumfpection and attention to the guidance of divine wifdom, which rendered his whole converfation uniformly edifying.

He was fully perfuaded that, as the life of Christ comes to reign in the earth, all abufe and unneceffary oppreffion, both of the human and brute creation, will come to an end; but, under the fenfe of a deep revolt and an overflowing ftream of unrighteousness, his life has been often a life of mourning.

He was deeply concerned on account of that inhuman and iniquitous practice of making flaves of the people of Africa, or holding them in that ftate; and, on that account, we understand he hath not only written fome books, but travelled much on the continent of America, in order to make the Negro-mafters (especially thofe in profeffion with us) fenfible of the evil of fuch a practice; and though, in his journey to England, he was far removed from the outward fight of their fufferings, yet bis deep exercife of mind remained, as appears by a fort treatise he wrote in this journey, and his frequent concern to open the miferable ftate of this deeply-injured people. His teftimony, in the laft meeting he attended, was on this subject; wherein he remarked, that, as we, as a fociety, when under outward fufferings, had often found it our concern to lay them before thofe in authority, and thereby, in the Lord's time,

had