These spiritual journals give the reader access to the heart and mind of one of Britain's leading abolitionists, in material he never published.

William Wilberforce was a Member of Parliament from the age of twenty-one until ill health forced his retirement at sixty-six, and he is remembered above all for the campaign to abolish the slave trade throughout the British Empire. His conversion in 1785 changed his manner of life and the use he made of the rest of it, and the journals show the private self-examination behind the public work.