discussion was soon afterwards followed by a similar proposal to the head
meeting of the Quakers in the township of Goshen in Chester County; and
the cause of Humanity was again victorious. Finally, about the year 1753,
the same question was agitated in the annual general assembly at
Philadelphia, when it was ultimately established as one of the tenets of
the Quakers, that no person could remain a member of their community who
held a human creature in slavery. This transaction is perhaps the first
example in the history of communities, of a great public sacrifice of
individual interest, not originating from considerations of policy or the
exigences of public danger, but purely from moral and religious
principles.

The benevolent work of restoring their natural rights to the unfortunate
Negroes, did not rest even at this great pecuniary sacrifice. The Society
of Friends went farther, and established Schools for the education of
their children; and some of the first characters among themselves
volunteered to superintend the course of instruction.

In the autumn of 1738, Edmund Peckover, a celebrated Orator among the
Quakers, came to the neighbourhood of Springfield, and on the 28th of
September preached in a meeting-house erected by the father of Mrs. West
at the distance of about a mile and a half from his residence. Mrs. West
was then the mother of nine children, and far advanced in her pregnancy
with Benjamin.--Peckover possessed the most essential qualities of an
impressive speaker, and on this occasion the subject of his address was of
extraordinary interest to his auditors. He reviewed the rise and progress
of society in America, and with an enthusiastic eloquence which partook of
the sublimity and vehemence of the prophetic spirit, he predicted the
future greatness of the country. He described the condition of the
European nations, decrepid in their institutions, and corrupt in their