unlike that which comes so beautifully to light in the Journal of John
Woolman.

This is plainly not the psychological moment to study the highly complex
and delicate problem of conscience. The strain and tension of world
issues disturb our judgment. We cannot if we would turn away from the
events and movements that affect the destiny of nations to dwell calmly
and securely upon our own inner, private actions. It is never easy, even
when the world is most normal and peaceful, to mark off with sharp lines
the area of individual freedom. No person ever lives unto himself or is
sufficient to himself. He is inextricably woven into the tissue of the
social group. His privileges, his responsibilities, his obligations are
forever over-individual and come from beyond his narrow isolated life.
If he is to be a rational being at all he must _relate_ his life to
others and share in some measure their triumphs and their tragedies.

But at the same time the most precious thing in the universe is that
mysterious thing we call individual liberty and which even God himself
guards and respects. Up to some point, difficult certainly to delimit, a
man must be captain of his soul. He cannot be a _person_ if he does not
have a sphere of power over his own act. To treat him as a puppet of
external forces, or a mere cog in a vast social mechanism, is to wipe
out the unique distinction between person and thing. Somewhere the free
spirit must take its stand and claim its God-given distinction. If life
is to be at all worth while there must be some boundary within which the
soul holds its own august and ultimate tribunal. That Sanctuary domain
within the soul the Quakers, ever since their origin in the period of
the English Commonwealth, have always guarded as the most sacred
possession a man can have.