This text is part of:
[274]
Such men were well satisfied to have the testimonies of their spiritual forefathers against slavery read over among themselves, at stated seasons; but they felt little sympathy with those of their cotemporaries, who considered it a duty to remonstrate publicly and freely with all who were connected with the iniquitous system.
A strong and earnest preacher, by the name of Elias Hicks, made himself more offensive than others in this respect.
He appears to have been a very just and conscientious man, with great reverence for God, and exceedingly little for human authority.
Everywhere, in public and in private, he lifted up his voice against the sin of slavery.
He would eat no sugar that was made by slaves, and wear no garment which he supposed to have been produced by unpaid labor.
In a remarkable manner, he showed this ‘ruling passion strong in death.’
A few hours before he departed from this world, his friends, seeing him shiver, placed a comfortable over him. He felt of it with his feeble hands, and made a strong effort to push it away.
When they again drew it up over his shoulders, he manifested the same symptoms of abhorrence.
One of them, who began to conjecture the cause, inquired, ‘Dost thou dislike it because it is made of cotton?’
He was too far gone to speak, but he moved his head in token of assent.
When they removed the article of slave produce,
Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.