The subject of this biography was among those who believed that the Society of Friends had a message to the world along the line of its internal testimony against slavery, and he did not hesitate to deliver the message, though it disturbed the superficial ease in Zion. Still he had no definite plan apart from the appeal to conscience for settling the problem. It must be remembered, however, that Elias Hicks passed away before the real abolition movement, as represented by Garrison and Phillips and their compeers, had begun its vigorous agitation, or organized its widely applied propaganda. What the attitude of Elias would have been toward Friends becoming members of the abolition societies, which after his death played such an important part, and touching which many Friends were either in doubt or in opposition we cannot even surmise. Benjamin Lundy[51] commenced his literary warfare against slavery, with the ponderously named "Genius of Universal Emancipation," in 1821. Elias Hicks was one of Lundy's most concerned and faithful patrons, in some of his undertakings,[52] as appears in his personal correspondence. [51] Benjamin Lundy was born of Quaker parents, First month 4, 1789, in Sussex County, New Jersey. He learned the trade of harness maker and saddler, and went to Ohio, where he became very much interested in the slavery question. In 1816 he issued an "Address" touching the evils of slavery. Of this Address, Horace Greeley says, it contained the germ of the whole anti-slavery movement. In First month, 1821, he issued the first number of _The Genius of Universal Emancipation_. Lundy was interested in various schemes for colonization, and assisted many emancipated negroes to go to Hayti, and contemplated the establishment of a colony of colored people in Mexico. He died at Lowell, Illinois, Eighth month 22, 1839, and was buried in the Friends' burying ground at Clear Creek. [52] Please inform Benjamin Lundy that I have procured fifty-two subscribers, or subscribers for fifty-two books, entitled, "Letters," etc.--Extract from letter to his son-in-law, Valentine Hicks, dated Jericho, Eleventh month 6, 1827. The state of New York provided for the gradual emancipation of its slaves in 1799, so that Elias Hicks had to go away from home after that period to get into real slave territory. As has been seen he began bearing his testimony in meetings for worship against the institution in Maryland, where slave holding was the law of the land until the end. There are statements more or less legendary to the effect that Elias was the owner of one slave, but of that there is no authentic evidence, while the probabilities are all against it. If he ever held a slave or slaves, he undoubtedly manumitted them. An act of such importance would hardly have escaped record in the Journal, and no reference to it exists.