The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 7.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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‘ [353] any apply the increase of their possessions contrary to universal love, nor dispose of lands in a way which they know tends to exalt some by oppressing others, without being justly chargeable with usurpation.’

It will not lessen the value of the foregoing extracts in the minds of the true disciples of our Divine Lord, that they are manifestly not written to subserve the interests of a narrow sectarianism. They might have been penned by Fenelon in his time, or Robertson in ours, dealing as they do with Christian practice,—the life of Christ manifesting itself in purity and goodness,—rather than with the dogmas of theology. The underlying thought of all is simple obedience to the Divine word in the soul. ‘Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father in heaven.’ In the preface to an English edition, published some years ago, it is intimated that objections had been raised to the Journal on the ground that it had so little to say of doctrines and so much of duties. One may easily understand that this objection might have been forcibly felt by the slave-holding religious professors of Woolman's day, and that it may still be entertained by a class of persons who, like the Cabalists, attach a certain mystical significance to words, names, and titles, and who in consequence question the piety which hesitates to flatter the Divine ear by ‘vain repetitions’ and formal enumeration of sacred attributes, dignities, and offices. Every instinct of his tenderly sensitive nature shrank from the