JOHN WOOLMAN was born at Northampton, N. J., in 1720, and died at York,England, in 1772. He Was the child of Quaker parents, and from his youth was azealous member of the Society of Friends. His "Journal," published posthumouslyin 1774, sufficiently describes his way of life and the spirit in which he didhis work; but his extreme humility prevents him from making clear theimportance of the part he played in the movement against slaveholding among theQuakers.
During the earlier years of their settlement in America, the Friends tookpart in the traffic in slaves with apparently as little hesitation as their fellow colonists; but in 1671 George Fox, visiting the Barbados, was struck bythe inconsistency of slave-holding with the religious principles of hisSociety. His protests, along with those of others, led to the growth of anagitation which spread from section to section. In 1742, Woolman, then a youngclerk in the employment of a storekeeper in New Jersey, was asked to make out abill of sale for a negro woman; and the scruples which then occurred to himwere the beginning of a life-long activity against the traffic. Shortlyafterward he began his laborious foot-journeys, pleading everywhere with hisco-religionists, and inspiring others to take up the crusade. The result of theagitation was that the various Yearly Meetings one by one decided thatemancipation was a religious duty; and within twenty years after Woolman'sdeath the practise of slavery had ceased in the Society of Friends. But hisinfluence did not stop there, for no small part of the enthusiasm of thegeneral emancipation movement is traceable to his labors.
His own words in this "Journal" of an extraordinary simplicity and charm,are the best expression of a personality which in its ardor, purity of motive,breadth of sympathy, and clear spiritual insight, gives Woolman a place amongthe uncanonized saints of America.
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