John Hunt Journal, 1820-1821

              self the greatest deceiver and greatest thief and greatest enemy. This morning, 14th of the Seventh Month, 1820, something opened on my mind respecting selfishness or a selfish spirit. See Mark 8th chapter 34 verse: And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me: and glorious the fruits thereof." See Isaiah 28 and 15: and under falsehood have we hid ourselves, and direful the effects. 2 of Timothy, 3 and 2: Men shall be lovers of their own selves, and woeful the effects. A certain writer, I think Fletcher, on self knowledge says: Of all imposters, self-deception is the greatest. See John Woolman's Caution to the Rich, page 43: holding treasure in the self-pleasing spirit is a strong plant, the fruit whereof ripens fast. A day of outward distress is coming, and divine love calls to prepare against it. Again, see J. Woolman, page 37, to the rich: when our eyes are so single as to discern the selfish spirit clearly, we behold it the greatest of all tyrants. So he considers and concludes that all the persecutions and dreadful oppression of the African race and all the destructive desolating wars as the effects and fruits of a selfish spirit, far surpassing all the power of the greatest tyrants.

Thomas Chalkley, I think, calls it cursed self. And as Alice Hays Benjamin Lay says, a selfish spirit is Satan's spirit. Thomas A Kempis says: know that thy own self, thy own will, hath done thee more hurt than any thing in the world, or to that effect. Anthony Benezet remarks in Carver's Travels many thousands of miles amongst the Indians, says there is no greater or more severe reflection or stigma or reproach amongst the Indians than to say of anyone, "he loves himself." No doubt they did see what the fruits and effects of that selfish spirit would be if suffered to grow amongst them and how contrary it was to that open, free universal spirit that breathes peace on Earth and good will to men, that is willing to live and let live and to do as they would be done by and that loves his neighbor as himself. Self is called a monster, far exceeding the greatest tyrant, although there have been tyrants that have persecuted many thousands of the righteous to death. Olery and Charron says persecution on the score of conscience has thinned the world of fifty million of human beings. See again John Woolman's Caution to the Rich, page 37: now if we single out Domitian, Nero or any other of the persecuting emperors, the man -- though terrible in his time -- will appear as a tyrant of small consequence compared with this selfish spirit. For though his bounds were large, yet a great part of the world was out of his reach. And though he grievously afflicted the bodies of these innocent people, yet the minds of many were divinely supported in their greatest agonies and, being faithful unto death, were delivered from his tyranny. His reign, though cruel for a time, was soon over, and he, considered in his greatest pomp, appears to have been a slave to selfish spirit. Thus tyranny, as applied to a man, riseth up and soon has an end.