... In the uneasiness of body which I have many times felt by too much labor, not as a forced but a voluntary oppression, I have often been excited to think on the original cause of that oppression which is imposed on many in the world. The latter part of the time wherein I labored on our plantation, my heart, through the fresh visitations of heavenly love, being often tender, and my leisure time being frequently spent in reading the life and doctrines of our blessed Redeemer, the account of the sufferings of martyrs, and the history of the first rise of our Society, a belief was gradually settled in my mind, that if such as had great estates, generally lived in that humility and plainness which belong to a Christian life, and laid much easier rents and interests on their lands and moneys, and thus led the way to a right use of things, so great a number of people might be employed in things useful, that labor both for men and other creatures would need to be no more than an agreeable employ, and divers branches of business, which serve chiefly to please the natural inclinations of our minds, and which at present seem necessary to circulate that wealth which some gather, might, in this way of pure wisdom, be discontinued. [Footnote 5: A Quaker preacher, a native of New Jersey, whose Travels and Autobiography have been much admired abroad, notably by Charles Lamb.] * * * * * =_John M. Mason,[6] 1770-1829._= From the Address in behalf of the Bible Society. =_18._= GRANDEUR OF THE ENTERPRISE. If there be a single measure which can overrule objection, subdue opposition, and command exertion, this is the measure. That all our voices, all our affections, all our hands, should be joined in the grand design of promoting "peace on earth and good will toward man"--that they should resist the advance of misery--should carry the light of instruction into the dominions of ignorance, and the balm of joy to the soul of anguish; and all this by diffusing the oracles of God--addresses to the understanding an argument which cannot be encountered; and to the heart an appeal which its holiest emotions rise up to second....