Reflection 81

On trusting God, who turns the hearts of men…

How wonderful are the ways of God, and how are we taught to trust not in man but in Him! Though intimate with Pitt for all my life since earliest manhood, and he most warm for Abolition, and really honest; yet now my whole human dependence is placed on Fox,* to whom this life opposed, and on Grenville,** to whom always rather hostile till of late years, when I heard he was more religious. O Lord, Thou hast all hearts in Thy disposal: oh that it may be Thy will to put an end to this abhorred system.

*Charles Fox (1749-1806), longstanding Whig parliamentarian and rival of William Pitt

**William Grenville (1759-1834), parliamentarian, foreign secretary, and the prime minister who presided over the abolition of the slave trade in 1807

Date: May 25, 1806

Volume 3: Pages 261-262

Posted: 20260914