John Woolman, Journal, in the series, Harvard Classics.
John Woolman was a Friends lay preacher who lived from 1720 to 1772 in what was the then the Province of New Jersey. He kept a small farm with his wife and children and, for a while, worked in the mercantile business and prepared wills. It’s not clear how he supported himself and his family after his ministry of itineration on behalf of Christ and enslaved people began, early in his marriage.
Woolman became deeply disturbed about the slave trade and made it his calling to dissuade Friends and others from participating in any way. In private conversations, a variety of group contexts, and by publishing brief papers, he was one of the first voices on American soil to speak up for the rights of enslaved people and to encourage the end of the slave trade and slavery. His work antedated that of Wilberforce by half a century. Unlike Wilberforce, Woolman was not an organizer. His entire ministry consisted of preaching, teaching, some writing, and seeking to persuade individuals of the evil of slavery and the slave trade.
The bulk of the Journal is taken up with Woolman’s accounts of his many travels in pursuit of his calling. He always went with the consent (certification) of his local Friends’ groups, and he preached and taught only in Friends meetings of various sorts. His manner was Scriptural, reasoning, friendly, persuasive, and non-indicting. He also visited the weak and ill, cared for the poor, and met with young people. For many years he left his home and family to carry his message throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, New England, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. He was generally well-received, and, over time, he persuaded many Friends to reconsider their participation in the diabolical institution. Woolman wrote, “I believe where the love of God is verily perfected, and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness towards all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great Creator intends for them under our government.”
He only journaled about his travels and the meetings where he spoke or met with men who were involved in the slave trade. I can’t help but wonder about his family and how they managed with him being gone so often. He journal seems to have been purposely composed as a legacy against slavery, and this perhaps explains why this subject features so large in all his entries.
Woolman faced opposition, ill health, and episodes of doubt about the value of his ministry. But he always lived by what he wrote early on in his ministry: “We may see ourselves crippled and halting, and from a strong bias to things pleasant and easy find an impossibility to advance forward; but things impossible with men are possible with God; and our wills being made subject to his, all temptations are surmountable.”
Woolman died from smallpox on a mission to England.
Eliot, Charles W.; Redhouse; Franklin, Benjamin; Woolman, John; Penn, William, The Complete Harvard Classics 2021 Edition – ALL 71 Volumes: The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction (Function). Kindle Edition.