Unity in the Spirit

A classic and dramatic illustration [of spirit-given unity] occurred in 1758. John Woolman and others had pricked the conscience of the Society of Friends over their involvement int eh demonic institution of slavery. As Philadelphia Yearly Meeting gathered for its business meetins that year, the slavery issue was a mojor agenda item. A great deal with at stake and the issue was hotly debated. John Woolman, with head bowed and tears in his eyes, sat through the various sessions in complete silence. Finally, after hours of agonizing prayer he rose and spoek. “my mind is led to consider the purity of the divin Being and the justice of His judgment, and herein my sould is covered with arfulness…Many slaves on this continent are oppressed and their cries have entered into the ears of the Most High…It is not a time for delay.” Firmly and tenderly Woolman dealt with the problems of the “private interests of some person” and the “friendships which do not stand upon ummutable foundation.” With prophetic boldness he warned the Yearly Meeting that if it failed to do its “duty in firmness and constancy” then “God may by terrible things in righteousness answer us in the matter.”


The entire Yearly Meeitng melted into a spirit of unity as a result of the compassionate witness. They responded as one voice to remove slavery from their midst. John Greenleaf Whittier states that those sessions “must ever be regarded as one of the most important religious convocations int eh history of the Christian Church.”

That untied decision is particularly impressive when we realize that the Society of Friends was the only body that asked slaveholding members to reimburse their slaves for their time in bondage. It is also striking to realize that under the prompting of the Spirit, Quakers had voluntarily done something that not only of the antislavery revolutionary leaders—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry—was willing to do. So influential was the united decision of 1758 that by the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence Quakers had completely freed themselves from the institution o slavery.

Richard Foster, A Celebration of Discipline, HarperCollins, 1998 p183-184