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Updated: May 14, 2025
In that simple and beautiful record of a holy life, the Journal of John Woolman, there is a passage of which I have been more than once reminded in my intercourse with my fellow-beings: "Some glances of real beauty may be seen in their faces who dwell in true meekness. There is a harmony in the sound of that voice to which divine love gives utterance."
Given impetus by the diffusion of these ideas, the revolutionary movement became productive of the spirit of universal benevolence. Hearing the contention for natural and inalienable rights, Nathaniel Appleton and John Woolman, were emboldened to carry these theories to their logical conclusion.
But the seed Woolman sowed fell on good ground; slavery came into disfavor among the Quakers, and when sentiment against it began to grow they lent strength to the leadership of the public conscience. The revolt of the colonists from British rule was not inspired originally by abstract enthusiasm for the rights of man.
In two Parts, Part I: A Journal of the Life, Gospel-Labors, and Christian Experiences of that faithful Minister of Christ, John Woolman, late of Mount Holly in the Province of New Jersey. Same, Part Second. Containing his last Epistle and other Writings. Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes. Recommended to the Professors of Christianity of every Denomination.
He was born before, and he lived after, John Woolman; of course he was contemporary with him. I place him after John Woolman, because he was not so much known as a labourer, till two or three years after the other had begin to move in the same cause. Anthony Benezet was born at St. Quintin, in Picardy, of a respectable family, in the year 1713.
But while the young poet longed to go to urge upon his Quaker brethren of that city "to make their solemn testimony against slavery visible over the whole land to urge them, by the holy memories of Woolman and Benezet and Tyson to come up as of old to the standard of Divine Truth, though even the fires of another persecution should blaze around them," he feared that he would not be able to do so.
On "2d mo. 18, 1688," the Germantown Friends presented the first petition against slavery recorded in American history. By 1750 professional anti-slavery agitators like John Woolman and Benezet were at work in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and many wealthy Quakers had set free their slaves. The wedge which was eventually to divide the North from the South was already driven in 1750.
One of the earliest of the class known as modern abolitionists was Benjamin Lundy, a pupil in the school of Woolman, through whom William Lloyd Garrison became interested in the great work to which his life has been so faithfully and nobly devoted.
Don't you know what the Ordinance of '87 says? 'No involuntary servitude in said territory. I agree with John Woolman, that niggers are our feller-creatures." Turning abruptly, the tall man moved with long, slow strides in the direction of the white house with green shutters, talking continually, more to himself than to the perplexed negro who followed at his heels.
He was one of the first to witness against the evils of slavery, on which he wrote a tract, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes . His Journal "reveals his life and character with rare fidelity" and, though little known compared with some similar works, gained the admiration of, among other writers, Charles Lamb, who says, "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart."
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