Preaching 1777-1790
The year "the Friend" came out, she was rejected by her Quaker brethren. Accompanied by several siblings, she began to travel and preach to residents of Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. During the 1780's, she lived in Worcester and rode a white horse into Philadelphia, PA to preach, where she drew substantial audiences and grew her congregation of "Universal Friends". She was accused of plagiarizing Documents authored by members of the Society of Friends, and her personal Sign was borrowed & adapted from the Quakers. Several Philadelphia newspapers made especial effort to condemn, expose, and discredit her preaching. Being female in the 1700's made the friend a favorite target for libel and slander, but ironically the grandson of her brother Jeptha Wilkinson would later become the inventor of the modern press wheel.
Wilkinson preached a regimen of strict abstinence, and to be friends with everyone. She implored all to accept the Fatherhood of God. Many people came to visit her and her followers and were taken in with open arms. Many who came to visit were given all the comforts of home and were only asked to leave if they had done something against the Friends.
Read more about this topic: Jemima Wilkinson
Famous quotes containing the word preaching:
“What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man
that looks in my face?
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?
We understand men do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could
not accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not?”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)