1772–1773

George Walton seems to have used dreams to help make or confirm life-altering decisions. Such a practice was characteristic of Quakers in particular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Walton's own interpretation of the first dream he records placed it in the context of what his decision to become a Friend would mean for his way of life. The dream suggested to Walton that he had to give up his occupation as a merchant in order to escape the love of material things, earthly pleasures, and a worldly reputation that separated him from a godly Christian life. When Walton...

George Walton seems to have used dreams to help make or confirm life-altering decisions. Such a practice was characteristic of Quakers in particular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Walton's own interpretation of the first dream he records placed it in the context of what his decision to become a Friend would mean for his way of life. The dream suggested to Walton that he had to give up his occupation as a merchant in order to escape the love of material things, earthly pleasures, and a worldly reputation that separated him from a godly Christian life. When Walton committed himself to the ideals of the Society of Friends, he embraced antislavery as well, convinced that “the Blacks being kept in Slavery how contrary it is to truth and Holiness and the Spirit of Christ.”