James M’Cune Smith, a young colored physician, I had known in England, where he studied for his profession, having been shut out of the colleges of his own country by the prejudice against his complexion.  Notwithstanding this prejudice he is now practising, I understand, with success, and has fair prospects.

I had a pleasant interview with Isaac T. Hopper, whom also I had met in 1837.  He belongs to the American Anti-Slavery Society, or “old organization,” and has been a zealous and fearless abolitionist for half a century.  He has been recently disowned by the “Hicksite Friends” for his connection with the newspaper called the “National Anti-Slavery Standard.”

Early on the morning of the 10th, we left for Burlington by railroad, where we were most kindly received by our venerable friends Stephen Grellett and his wife.  On the following day, we took tea with John Cox, residing about three miles from Burlington, at a place called Oxmead, where formerly that eminent minister of the Society of Friends, George Dillwin, resided.  J.C. is now in his eighty-seventh year, enjoying a green and cheerful old age, and feeling all the interest of his youth in the anti-slavery cause.  It was cheering and animating to witness the serene spirit of this venerable man, and deeply were we interested in the reminiscences of his youth.  He well remembered John Woolman, whose former residence, Mount Holly, is within a few miles of Oxmead, and of whom he related various particulars characteristic of the simplicity, humanity, and great circumspection of his life and conversation.  When John Woolman first brought the subject of slavery before the yearly meeting of the Society of Friends at Philadelphia, at a time when its members were deeply implicated both in slave-holding and in slave-dealing, he stood almost alone in his anti-slavery testimony, which he expressed in few and appropriate words.  Some severe remarks were made by others in reply, on this and on successive similar occasions, when he introduced the subject, but such treatment provoked no rejoinder from John Woolman, who would quietly resume his seat and weep in silent submission.

He was not deterred by this discouraging reception from again and again bringing the subject before the next Yearly Meeting, and finally his unwearied efforts, always prosecuted in the “meekness of wisdom,” resulted in the Society of Friends entirely wiping away the reproach of this abomination.

The great qualification of John Woolman for pleading the cause of the oppressed was the same which has been ascribed with equal truth and beauty to his contemporary and co-worker, Anthony Benezet:  “a peculiar capacity for being profoundly sensible of their wrongs.”  The biographer of the latter has described another occurrence in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting at a subsequent stage of this momentous controversy, which may prove an interesting counterpart to the foregoing relation.