1783.  Dec. 18.  I spent two hours with that great man, Dr. Johnson, who is sinking into the grave by a gentle decay.

1784.  June 28 (Epworth).  To-day I entered on my 82nd year, and found myself just as strong to labour, and as fit for any exercise of body and mind, as I was 40 years ago.  I am as strong at 81 as I was at 21; but abundantly more healthy, being a stranger to the headache, toothache, and other bodily disorders which attended me in my youth.

1785.  Jan. 25.  I spent two or three hours in the House of Lords.  I had frequently heard that this was the most venerable assembly in England.  But how I was disappointed!  What is a lord, but a sinner, born to die!

1786.  Jan. 24.  I was desired to go and hear the King deliver his speech in the House of Lords.  But how agreeably I was surprised.  He pronounced every word with exact propriety.  I doubt whether there be any other King in Europe, that is so just and natural a speaker.

His 86th Christmas

1789.  Dec 25.  Being Christmas Day, we began the service in the new chapel at four in the morning, as usual, where I preached again in the evening after having officiated in West Street at the common hour.  Sunday, 27, I preached in St. Luke’s, our parish church, to a very numerous congregation.  So are the tables turned that I have now more invitations to preach in churches than I can accept.

* * * * *

JOHN WOOLMAN

Journal

John Woolman, American Quaker evangelist, author of this autobiography, was born in West Jersey in 1720 and followed the trade of a tailor.  But all his interests lay in the practice of piety, and in the uncompromising application of religious Principles to the problems of social life.  He advocated incessantly two principal reforms—­that members of the Society of Friends should separate utterly from the possession of slaves, and that they should return to their primitive simplicity and moderation in the use of worldly things.  Like many economists before and after him, he saw in luxury, extravagance and ostentation, the true cause of all poverty and oppression; and a tract of his entitled “A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich,” first published in 1793, was republished a hundred years later by the Fabian Society.  His most important treatise, published in 1754, entitled “Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes,” was one of the earliest indications of the growing Abolitionist feeling in New England.  His voyage across the Atlantic in May and Tune, 1772, to visit the English Quakers, was followed by his death from small-pox, in the city of York, on October 7 in the same year.  The “Journal,” which is marked by great simplicity and sincerity, was published shortly afterwards and has been issued in many subsequent editions.

I.—­The Curse of Slavery