"But did we all as individuals take the spirit of truth, or light within, as our only rule and guide in all things, we should all then be willing, and thereby enabled, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Then we should hold all things in common, and call nothing our own, but consider all our blessings as only lent to us, to be used and distributed by us in such manner and way as his holy spirit, or this inward teacher, may from time to time direct. Hence we should be made all equal, accountable to none but God alone, for the right use or the abuse of his blessings. Then all mankind would be but one community, have but one head, but one father, and the saying of Jesus would be verified. We should no longer call any man master, for one only has a right to be our Master, even God, and all mankind become brethren. This is the kind of community that I have been labouring for more than forty years to introduce mankind into, that so we might all have but one head, and one instructor and he (God) come to rule whose only right it is, and which would always have been the case, had not man rebelled against his maker, and disobeyed his salutary instruction and commands." Touching the "cares and deceitfulness of riches," he had much to say. He tells us that on a certain day he attended the meeting of ministers and elders in Westbury, and sat through it "under great depression and poverty of spirit." There was evidently some confession and not a little complaining, as there is now, regarding the possession and exercise of spiritual gifts on the part of Friends. But Elias affirmed that the "cloud" over the meeting was not "in consequence of a deficiency of ministers, as it respects their ministerial gifts, nor from a want of care in elders in watching over them; but from a much more deep and melancholy cause, viz.: the love and cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches; which, springing up and gaining the ascendency in the mind, choke the good seed like the briars and thorns, and render it fruitless; and produce such great dearth and barrenness in our meetings."[68] [68] Journal of Elias Hicks, p. 233. Elias Hicks apparently believed that labor had in itself a vital spiritual quality. In fact he held that the famous injunction in Genesis "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" "was not a penalty, but it was a divine counsel--a counsel of perfect wisdom and perfect love."[69] It was his opinion that all oppression, slavery and injustice, had their origin in the disposition of men to shirk the obligation to labor, thus placing burdens on their fellows, which they should bear themselves. [69] Sermon preached at Abington, Pa., Twelfth month 15, 1826. The "Quaker," p. 155. Every exhortation touching labor he religiously followed himself. He records that at the age of sixty he labored hard in his harvest field, and remarks with evident pride and satisfaction as follows: