An eminent preacher of the Society of Friends, born in Northampton, Burlington Co., West Jersey, in 1720, after some experience in Mount Holly as a storekeeper, became a tailor, travelled on religious visits in several parts of America, not neglecting the Indians; died at York, England (where he was in attendance on the Quarterly Meeting), of the small-pox, Oct. 5, 1772. He partook of the excellent spirit which distinguished Thomas Chalkley, Stephen Grellet, William Allen, and Daniel Wheeler. 1. “Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes,” 1754, “Part Second, Considerations,” &c., 1762. 2. “Considerations on Pure Wisdom and Human Policy, on Labour, on Schools, and on the Right Use of the Lord’s Outward Gifts,” 1768. 3. “Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind, and how it is to be Maintained,” 1770. 4. “Epistle to the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings of Friends,” 1772. 5. “Remarks on Sundry Subjects,” 1773. 6. “A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich,” 1793. 7. “Serious Considerations; with some of his Dying Expressions,” 1773. “The Works of John Woolman, in two parts,” 1774, 1775; “Journal, and The Works of John Woolman, Part the Second, Containing his Last Epistle and his other Writings,” 1775.
Journal
A perfect gem! His is a schöne Seele, (beautiful soul). An illiterate tailor, he writes in a style of the most exquisite purity and grace. His moral qualities are transferred to his writings. Had he not been so very humble, he would have written a still better book; for, fearing to indulge in vanity, he conceals the events in which he was a great actor. His religion is love. His whole existence and all his passions were love! If one could venture to impute to his creed, and not to his personal character, the delightful frame of mind which he exhibited, one could not hesitate to be a convert. His Christianity is most inviting,—it is fascinating.
Its author was a tailor, living in a small village of New Jersey; and of tailoring he rejected all the more lucrative branches. He chiefly occupied himself with the smallest class of business by which, even in those economical days, a support could be won. Living before the commencement of any distinctively American literature, he expressed his thoughts in the English of the common schools. And yet these thoughts have won the attention and admiration of scholars and literary men, for they show, in humblest language, the desire of a conscience to be at peace with its Maker even in the smallest details of daily life. No mirror ever reflected more faithfully the lineaments of him who looked upon it, than does this “Journal” give back the moral likeness of its author.
It is certain, therefore, that, considering the transformations among the Quakers themselves, the New Jersey preacher would be sadly out of place if he stepped down from his niche in their pantheon into their meeting-houses and homes at the present day. St. Simeon Stylites at the Fifth Avenue Hotel would hardly appear more anachronistic. Doubtless, the suggested contrasts between our age and his, joined to Woolman’s childlike simplicity and naïveté, his often inconsequential discourse, and his half-pitiful, half-amusing bodily afflictions, were what made his Journal favorite reading with Charles Lamb. And if we do not misjudge, they strike a responsive chord in Mr. Whittier’s humor (a greater possession than the world gives him credit for); and he takes up the book, not always that he may deepen his moral sense and renew his standard of duty—what every one may do who reads his “Journal” devoutly—but as one, not a Quaker, would open “Don Quixote” or “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”
If we open the record at random we see a good man, living for God in the world, and ranging in his tender sympathies from little things to great.
His journal is remarkable for its simple and lucid style, as well as for its humanity.
The purity of the gentle Quaker’s soul has, as Whittier, his loving editor, says, entered into his language. The words are a transparent medium of spirit. Style and man are equally unconscious of themselves. Without art Woolman has attained, in his best passages, that beauty of simplicity, that absolute candor which is the goal of most studious art. As lucid as Franklin’s “Autobiography,” the “Journal” shines with a pearly lustre all its own.
As we study John Woolman along the pages upon which he has made record of his inmost nature, we shall be inclined to infer that the traits which made him the man he was, were these: first, a singularly vivid perception of the reality and worth of things spiritual; secondly, such a passion of desire for all that is like God, that whatsoever he met with in himself or in others which was otherwise, grieved him with an ineffable sorrow; thirdly, love, taking every form of adoration for the Highest Love, and of sympathy and effort on behalf of all God’s creatures, great and small; next, humility; next, directness, simplicity, sincerity; next, refinement.
General
Get the writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers.
Him, though we once possessed his works, it cannot be truly affirmed that we ever read. Try to read John we often did; but read John we did not. This, however, you say, might be our fault, and not John’s. Very likely; and we have a notion that now, with our wiser thoughts, we should read John if he were here on this table. It is certain that he was a good man, and one of the earliest in America, if not in Christendom, who lifted up his hand to protest against the slave trade; but still we suspect that, had John been all that Coleridge represented, he would not have repelled us from reading his travels in the fearful way that he did. But again we beg pardon, and entreat the earth of Virginia to lie light upon the remains of John Woolman; for he was an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile.
The larger portions of Woolman’s writings are devoted to the subjects of slavery, uncompensated labor, and the excessive toil and suffering of the many to support the luxury of the few. The argument running through them is searching, and in its conclusions uncompromising, but a tender love for the wrong-doer as well as the sufferer underlies all. They aim to convince the judgment and reach the heart without awakening prejudice and passion. To the slaveholders of his time they must have seemed like the voice of conscience speaking to them in the cool of the day. One feels, in reading them, the tenderness and humility of a nature redeemed from all pride of opinion and self-righteousness, sinking itself out of sight, and intent only upon rendering smaller the sum of human sorrow and sin by drawing men nearer to God and to each other. The style is that of a man unlettered, but with natural refinement and delicate sense of fitness, the purity of whose heart enters into his language. There is no attempt at fine writing, not a word or phrase for effect; it is the simple unadorned diction of one to whom the temptations of the pen seems to have been wholly unknown.
The gentle-hearted Quaker, like Izaak Walton, a tailor, and like him, also, a lover of man, animal, and plant. Although he was an irrepressible reformer, his writings have none of the pride of opinion and self-righteousness which are the besetting sins of reformers. Catholic, humble, receptive, his words are a benediction. Such Charles Lamb, the purest and manliest of modern English writers, found them, and as such he praised them.
