Friend Anthony Benezet

“Anthony Benezet was a gentle schoolmaster, whose tenderness embraced the sable child in the soft caress of affection ; he was a philanthropist, who for forty years gave generously, without public proclamation, daily bread to hungry people, and at the end of a life of self-denial dedicated his small fortune to the instruction of [African Americans] and Indians; he was an author, who garnered the thoughts of the ages on subjects of vital importance, and crystallized them for the edification of his own day; he was a lover of human freedom, who, whenever he saw in justice and oppression, shuddered as an aeolian string quivers in the tempest; he was a Quaker, who did more than any other man of his day by pen and personal appeal to quicken the conscience of his own Society of Friends in the matter of slavery.” -from the first chapter of the book.
Courtesy University of Pennsylvania Press.

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