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