Samantha’s Reviews > Reminiscences of Levi Coffin: the reputed president of the Underground railroad; being a brief history of the labors of a lifetime in behalf of the ... their freedom through his instrumentality > Status Update

Although their destitution was extreme, I heard no murmurs or complaints. Their hearts seemed full of praise to God for their deliverance from slavery; they regarded it as an answer to the prayers they had sent up so often in their days of cruel bondage.

I am opposed to the whole system of slavery, in all its heinous forms, and conscientiously believe it to be a sin against God and a crime against man to chatelize a human being, and reduce God's image to the level of a brute, to be bought and sold in the market as cattle or swine.

Already the wielder of irresponsible power - the awful power over a human soul - has warned the heart-broken husband that he is to be sold; the last drop of his blood may be scourged out on far Southern plantations, till his soul is freed by the Great Emancipator and goes to its God.

There was never a reunion of the family on earth, but let us hope there will be a reunion in heaven, without the loss of one. There all their wrongs with be righted, and their benighted souls will expand in the light and freedom of eternity.

This chapter about how much effort Coffin put into obtaining goods that were produced without slave labor is convicting & makes me want to be more careful about what countries I support with my purchases.

Some seemed really glad to see the work go on, if somebody else would do it.

Slavery and Quakerism could not prosper together, and many of the Friends from New Garden and other settlements moved to the West.