He considered these as belonging to their
families, and that religious instruction was due to these, as the
branches of them, for whom one day or other they would be required to
give a solemn account. Happy had it been, if these christian
exhortations had been attended to, or if those families only, whom he
thus seriously addressed, had continued to be true Quakers; for they
would have set an example, which would have proved to the rest of the
islanders, and the world at large, that the impolicy is not less than
the wickedness of oppression. Thus was George Fox probably the first
person, who publicly declared against this species of slavery. Nothing
in short, that could be deplored by humanity, seems to have escaped his
eye; and his benevolence, when excited, appears to have suffered no
interruption in its progress by the obstacles, which bigotry would have
thrown in the way of many, on account of the difference of a persons
country, or of his colour, or of his sect.
He was patient under his own sufferings. To those, who smote his right
cheek, he offered his left; and, in the true spirit of christianity, he
indulged no rancour against the worst of his oppressors. He made use
occasionally of a rough expression towards them; but he would never have
hurt any of them, if he had had them in his power.
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