UC-NRLF . 
 
 SB Ebb 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 BY 
 
 DORA GREENWELL. 
 
 F. B. KITTO, 
 
 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT, LONDON, E.G. 
 1871. 
 

 
 F. B. Kitto, Printer, 5, Bishopsgate Street Without, E.G. 
 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 
 
 THE DEFENDER OF AN OPPRESSED RACE, 
 THE ADVOCATE OF MAN'S SPIRITUAL FREEDOM, 
 
 THESE RECORDS OF A LIFE CONSECRATED TO THE 
 PRINCIPLES BY WHICH HIS OWN HAS BEEN GUIDED. 
 
 DURHAM, 
 
 May i8///, 1871. 
 
 984031 
 
" There is a SPIRIT, which I feel, that delights to do no 
 evil, nor to revenge any wrong ; but delights to endure all 
 things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to 
 outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exalta- 
 tion and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. 
 It sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in 
 itself, so it conceives none in thoughts to any other. If it be 
 betrayed it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies 
 and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness ; its life 
 is everlasting love unfeigned, it takes its kingdom with 
 entreaty and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness 
 of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard 
 it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and 
 brought forth without any to pity it ; nor doth it murmur at 
 grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through suffer- 
 ings for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it 
 alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them 
 who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth ; who 
 through death obtained this resurrection, and eternal holy 
 life." JAMES NAYLOR, when near the dose of his life. 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 " To smell this flower come nearer j ,F,ftc-h v caa gyow * r 
 
 In that sole garden where Christ's brow dropped blood v " , 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BRowfhjs T G: 
 
 name," says the Bride in Canticles, " is as 
 ointment poured forth," and like ointment poured 
 forth are the names and records of many of the 
 Bridegroom's closest followers, who, standing near 
 to Him, and rejoicing greatly because of His voice, 
 have not been careful to concentrate their strength 
 or sweetness. Their "record" was with the Lord, 
 their work inseparably blent with His ; their lives 
 were "poured forth" in humble, unmarked tasks, 
 in offices of love, that once filled some chamber 
 of the Master's goodly house " with the odour of 
 the ointment;" and the influence of such spirits, 
 whether in life, or in the hallowed words through 
 which being dead they yet speak to us, is like 
 that of fragrance, something not to be defined or 
 analysed, but subtle, communicative, stealing in- 
 sensibly within our souls, and bearing them away 
 "to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of 
 frankincense.'* 
 
 There is a quietness about such lives ; a silence 
 like that of the strong mountains, or of the calm, 
 B 
 
2 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 illimitable heavens, where there is neither speech 
 nor language, and yet a voice is heard among them. 
 And while we commune with that voice we forget 
 to ask whether it comes to us from the north or 
 from the south, from the east or the west of our 
 Lord's wide dominions ; the language is that of 
 cne .who hath been brought up in king's houses ; 
 refuied,r ^ftfl ; idiomatic, it bears upon it no 
 'no sectarian trace, and of those who have 
 to 'it we ean <5nly say, "These men are 
 Galileans, and their speech agreeth thereto." 
 
 " There is a principle which is pure, placed in the 
 human mind, which in different places and ages hath 
 had different names ; it is, however, pure, and pro- 
 ceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to 
 no forms of religion nor excluded from any, when the 
 heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this 
 takes root and grows they become brethren" 
 
 John Woolman, the writer of these words, was 
 born in Northampton, Burlington County, West 
 Jersey, U.S., in the year 1720. He was one of the 
 people called Quakers, one of those " Friends " who 
 have so often and so perseveringly " shown them- 
 selves friendly " to suffering, oppressed Humanity. 
 He opens his journal of his life and ministry very 
 simply. 
 
 " Before I was seven years old," he says, " I 
 began to be acquainted with the working of Divine 
 love. Through the care of my parents I was 
 taught to read nearly as soon as I was capable of 
 it, and as I went from school one day, I remember 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 3 
 
 that while my companions were playing by the way, 
 I went forward out of sight, and sitting down, I 
 read the 22d chapter of the Revelation: ' He 
 showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as 
 crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and 
 of the Lamb.' In reading it my mind was drawn 
 to seek after that pure habitation which I then 
 believed God had prepared for His servants. The 
 place where I sat, and the sweetness that attended 
 my mind, remain fresh in my memory. This, and 
 the like gracious visitations, had such an effect on 
 me that when boys used ill-language it troubled 
 me, and through the continued mercies of God I 
 was preserved from that evil. 
 
 " About the twelfth year of my age, my father 
 being abroad, my mother reproved me for some 
 misconduct to which I made an undutiful reply. 
 The next First-day, as I was returning with my 
 father from meeting, he told me that he understood 
 I had behaved amiss to my mother, and advised 
 me to be more careful in future. I knew myself 
 blameable, and in shame and confusion remained 
 silent. Being thus awakened to a sense of my 
 wickedness, I felt remorse in my mind, and on 
 getting home I retired and prayed to the Lord to 
 forgive me, and I do not remember that I ever 
 afterwards spoke unhandsomely to either of my 
 parents, however foolish in some other things." 
 
 " Sweet is the holiness of youth." Yet one other 
 anecdote of his childhood, interesting as showing 
 the native tenderness of the heart in which in 
 B 2 
 
4 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 after days compassion was to spring up as a well 
 whose waters fail not. 
 
 " On going to a neighbour's house, I saw, on the 
 way, a robin sitting on her nest, and as I came 
 near she went off, but, having young ones, she flew 
 about, and with many cries expressed her concern 
 for them. I stood and threw stones at her, and 
 one striking her she fell down dead. At first I 
 was pleased with the exploit, but after a few 
 minutes was seized with horror at having, in a 
 sportive way, killed an innocent creature while 
 she was careful for her young. I beheld her lying 
 dead, and thought those young ones, for whom she 
 was so careful, must now perish for want of their 
 dam to nourish them. After some painful con- 
 siderations, I climbed up the tree, took all the 
 young birds and killed them, supposing that better 
 than to leave them to pine away and die miserably. 
 I then went on my errand, and for some hours 
 could think of little else but the cruelties I had 
 committed." 
 
 " Heaven lies about us in our infancy," but the 
 passing out of childhood into youth is a transition 
 ever full of danger. John Woolman speaks of this 
 time as of a season in which, " while he was pre- 
 served from profane language or scandalous con- 
 duct, he yet perceived within himself a plant that 
 produced many wild grapes." He speaks of youth- 
 ful vanities and diversions making serious reflec- 
 tions uneasy to him ; of the Word of God, which 
 is as a fire and a hammer, melting and breaking in 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 5 
 
 pieces a rebellious heart ; of deep contrition, of 
 renewed engagements with heaven, yet of re- 
 peated declension, " vanity being added to vanity, 
 and repentance to repentance," so that he tells us, 
 writing in his thirty-sixth year, " While I meditate 
 on the gulf towards which I then travelled, and 
 reflect on my youthful disobedience, for these things 
 I weep, mine eye runneth down with water." 
 
 Yet the conflict, if a keen one, was soon over. 
 " About the age of eighteen years," he says, " I 
 felt the judgments of God in my soul like a con- 
 suming fire. I was often sad, and longed to be 
 delivered from these vanities. I resolved totally 
 to leave off some of them, but for the more refined 
 part of them there was a secret reserve in my 
 heart; my will was unsubjected, which rendered 
 my labours fruitless, and for many months I had 
 great troubles. At length, through the merciful 
 continuance of Heavenly visitations, I was made to 
 bow down in spirit before the Lord. One evening 
 I had spent some time in reading a pious author 
 and walking out alone ; I humbly prayed to the 
 Lord for His help, that I might be delivered from 
 the vanities which so ensnared me. Thus being 
 brought low He helped me, and as I learned to 
 bear the cross I felt refreshment to come from His 
 presence. Yet though I had been thus strength- 
 ened, I still found myself in great danger, having 
 many weaknesses attending me, and strong tempta- 
 tions to wrestle with, the sense of which greatly 
 affecting me, I sought deserts and lonely places, 
 
6 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 and there with tears did confess my sins to God, 
 and humbly craved His help. And I may say 
 with reverence, He was near me in my troubles, 
 and in those times of humiliation opened my ear 
 to discipline. 
 
 " I was now led to look seriously at the way 
 by which I was drawn from the pure truth, and 
 learned that if I would live such a life as the 
 faithful servants of God lived, I must not go into 
 company as heretofore in my own will, but all the 
 cravings of sense must be governed by a divine 
 principle. In times of sorrow and abasement these 
 instructions were sealed upon me, and I felt the 
 power of Christ prevail over selfish desires, so 
 that I was now preserved in a good degree of 
 steadiness." 
 
 And never, surely, was that great transfer of 
 allegiance "the exchange of the will of man for a 
 better one," the passing out of self into Christ, the 
 setting of the feet in a large room more fitly, more 
 sweetly described than in the following words : 
 "I was early convinced in my mind that true 
 religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the 
 heart doth love and reverence God the Creator, 
 and learn to exercise true justice and goodness, 
 not only toward all men, but also toward the 
 brute creatures ; that as the mind is moved by an 
 inward principle to love God as an invisible, in- 
 comprehensible being, so by the same principle it 
 was moved to love Him in all His manifestations 
 in the visible world; that as by His breath the 
 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 7 
 
 flame of life was kindled in all animal sensible 
 creatures, to say we love God as unseen, and 
 at the same time exercise cruelty toward the 
 least creature moving by life derived from Him, 
 was a contradiction in itself. I found no nar- 
 rowness respecting sects and opinions, but be- 
 lieved that sincere, upright-hearted people in 
 every society, who truly love God, were accepted 
 of Him. 
 
 "As I lived under the Cross, and simply fol- 
 lowed the openings of truth, my mind from day to 
 day was more enlightened ; former acquaintances 
 were left to judge of me as they would, for I found 
 it safest for me to live in private, and to keep these 
 things sealed up in my own breast. While I 
 silently ponder on the change wrought in me, I find 
 no language equal to convey to another a clear idea of 
 it : I looked upon the works of God in this visible 
 creation, and an awfulness covered me. My heart 
 was tender, and often contrite, and universal love to 
 my fellow-creatures increased in me. This will be 
 understood by such as have trodden the same path. 
 Some glances of real beauty may be seen in their 
 faces who dwell in true meekness. There is a har- 
 mony in the sound of that voice to which divine 
 love gives utterance, and some appearance of right 
 order in their temper and conduct whose passions 
 are regulated; yet these do not fully show forth 
 that inward life to those who have not felt it ; this 
 white stone and new name is only known rightly 
 by such as receive it." 
 
8 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 A Latin proverb tells us that it is easier to paint 
 a rose than to convey the sense of its odour; and it 
 would be hard to .give any idea of what this good 
 man was, how calm, how strong, how child-like, 
 were it not for the fragrance which still lingers 
 among these records. 
 
 " As lives the flower's quick spirit in the cell 
 It floods with sweetness, sweetness never knowing 
 Loss for the bounty of its overflowing." 
 
 Here, as a flower pressed within the leaves of a 
 book will leave there the clear outline of its form, 
 with some faint tinge of its pervading colour, we 
 find upon every page the impress of a soul listen- 
 ing, waiting waiting to be directed, waiting even 
 to be conducted ; desiring to be guided by the eye, 
 the hand, the voice of the Beloved ; asking to be 
 led from among the crowd, so that His voice may 
 be heard more plainly, may be followed more im- 
 plicitly; jealous of outward clamours that may 
 drown it, of inward whispers that may stifle it; 
 covetous of silence, of simplicity, fearing nothing 
 so much as any strength or wisdom which comes 
 not directly from above. 
 
 "I endeavoured," he says, "to be inwardly ac- 
 quainted with the language of the true Shepherd. 
 One day, being under a strong exercise of spirit, I 
 stood up and said some words in a meeting, but 
 not keeping close to the divine opening, I said 
 more than was required of me. Being soon sensible 
 of my error, I was afflicted in mind some weeks. 
 I remembered God and was troubled, and in the 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 9 
 
 depth of my distress He had pity upon me, and 
 sent the Comforter ; rny mind became calm and 
 quiet. About six weeks after this, feeling the 
 spring of divine love opened and a concern to 
 speak, I said a few words in a meeting in which I 
 found peace. Being thus humbled and disciplined 
 under the Cross, my understanding became more 
 strengthened to distinguish the pure spirit which 
 inwardly moves upon the heart, and which taught 
 me to wait in silence sometimes many weeks toge- 
 ther, until I felt that rise which prepares the creature 
 to stand like a trumpet through which the Lord speaks 
 to His flock: 1 
 
 In these last words, and in many which follow 
 them, we find as it were the key to much which 
 has set a characteristic stamp upon the annals of 
 the religious community to which John Woolman 
 belonged. Here we see the axe laid to the root of 
 the human will ; its 'movements, even when most 
 visibly tending towards good, are suspected, checked, 
 brought under captivity. To follow natural im- 
 pulse is but to walk by the light of the sparks 
 which self has kindled; and strange fire, ^even 
 though it be the flame of zeal and eloquence, at 
 which many may be warmed and enlightened, must 
 not be laid upon the altar of the Lord. He desires 
 a pure offering ; obedience is better than sacrifice, 
 and to hearken to Him, to wait for the leading of 
 the still small voice is better than whole burnt- 
 offerings and oblations. " I kept silence," says 
 the Psalmist, " even from good words." " I be- 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 came dumb," says the Prophet, " and opened not 
 my mouth, because it was thy doing." These 
 journals speak to us continually of "instructions 
 sealed upon the heart ;" of deep inward exercises 
 experienced for others ; " concerns," prompting to 
 perilous undertakings, to labours " in that which is 
 mortifying to the creaturely will;*' of bowings of 
 the spirit before the Lord ; of compelled silences, 
 of the springs of the ministry kept low. And 
 again, from time to time, of fresh visitations, of a 
 heart enlarged, a mouth opened even "like the 
 raising of the gate in a water-course when a weight 
 of water lay upon it." 
 
 " Christ puts forth His ministers, and goeth before 
 them, and oh ! how great is the danger of depart- 
 ing from the pure feeling of that which leadeth 
 safely. That which is of God gathers to God. The 
 necessity of an inward stillness hath, under deep 
 exercises, appeared clear to my mind. In true 
 silence strength is renewed, and the mind being 
 weaned from all things, except as they may be en- 
 joyed in the Divine will, the pure light shines 
 within the soul. And as my mind hath been thus 
 exercised, I have seen that to be active and busy 
 in the Church without the leading of the Holy 
 Spirit is not only unprofitable, but tends to increase 
 dimness. I have frequently found a necessity 
 to stand up, when the spring of the ministry was 
 low, and to speak from necessity, in that which sub- 
 jecteth the will of the creature ; and herein I was 
 united with the suffering seed, and found inward 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. II 
 
 sweetness in these mortifying labours, and under 
 these dispensations enlargement hath followed, and 
 the power of truth risen higher than I ever knew 
 it before through me. While aught remains in us 
 contrary to a perfect resignation of our wills, it is 
 like a seal to a book wherein is written 'that good, 
 and acceptable, and perfect will of God,' concern- 
 ing us. (Rom. xii. 2.) But when our minds entirely 
 yield to Christ, that silence is known which followed 
 the opening of the last of the seals. (Rev. viii. i.) In 
 this silence we learn to abide in the Divine will, 
 and to feel that we have no cause to promote except 
 that alone in which the light of God directs us." 
 
 There is something sublime in the passivity of 
 the early Quakers; unresisting and yet persisting, 
 they are at the same time " reeds shaken by the 
 wind,"* "and prophets, yea, and more than pro- 
 phets," not only testifying, but witnessing to great 
 evangelic truths, which had not in their day found 
 acceptance in the general Church. 
 
 Guizot speaks of the mild obstinacy of the 
 Quaker ; and in reading their history we cannot 
 but admire the constancy which made them, both 
 
 * Ah, Lord, since in Thy hands the most feeble things 
 gain power and strength, and a reed placed within them 
 becomes a sceptre, take Thou my heart ; it is but a reed, 
 flexible and versatile, turning with every wind ; a hollow 
 reed, empty of charity, of devotion, empty of all good. But 
 from the moment it is placed in Thy hands it will be filled 
 with the grace and strength of thy Divine Spirit, and will 
 become a generous heart, a firm heart, an ardent and fervent 
 heart, ready to surmount all difficulties, and to make all 
 obstacles give way before its indefatigable perseverance. ST. 
 BERNARD. 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 in England and America, the living epistles of re- 
 ligious toleration to an age which was slow to receive 
 that righteous message, known though it be now, 
 and commended of all men. Few things since 
 the days of primitive Christianity are more lovely, 
 more affecting, than many of the scenes their 
 annals disclose. We see the kings of the earth 
 standing up, and its rulers taking counsel together 
 against a people whose strength is literally " to sit 
 still ; " a people whose only weapons are silence, 
 endurance, and reliance on an unseen Guide, and 
 yet who, in the might of these, confront and finally 
 confound the strong things of the world drawn up 
 in order against them. A feeble people, but as it 
 has been truly said, one whose dwelling-place is in 
 the Rock, one whose strength has, like that of 
 Samson, its own secret. When the heart has 
 ceased to confer with flesh and blood, to consult 
 its own desires and impulses ; when it has ceased 
 from its own works as God did from His, its Sab- 
 bath is nigh at hand, that Sabbath of united activity 
 and rest after which every Christian soul yearns. 
 Yet before this Sabbath can be entered upon, 
 there is a death either sudden or gradual to be 
 endured, there is a binding, a spoiling of the strong 
 man, a taking from him of his armour wherein he 
 trusteth, before the stronger than he can enter and 
 possess himself of these goods in peace. Oh ! how 
 fair, how fruitful, is the life of simplicity, the life in 
 which it is God's will, howsoever revealed to us, 
 which is alone desired, alone rejoiced in ; a life 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 13 
 
 whose principle is not constraint, but liberty the 
 freedom of a spirit that loves the rule under which 
 it lives. 
 
 " Happy that happy chain ; its links are heavenly, 
 There is no blessedness but in such bondage, 
 Sure it is sweeter far than liberty." 
 
 I will run, saith the Psalmist, in the way of Thy 
 testimonies, when thou hast set my heart at liberty. 
 My soul will move swiftly, move surely, when 
 Thou dost no longer govern it after the law of a 
 carnal commandment, but live in it after the power 
 of an endless life! Yet must this freedom be 
 obtained with a great sum. 
 
 The writings now before us testify to keen sepa- 
 rations, deep and afflictive baptisms. There is 
 something peculiarly touching in the simplicity 
 with which John Woolman relates his calling to 
 the ministry, and the " weighty exercise " to which 
 that office introduced him. Naturally, it is evident 
 he is of the number of those in whose mouth are 
 no reproofs who would gladly be both deaf and 
 blind, as the Lord's servant is sometimes called 
 upon to become. Yet he finds himself set for a 
 watchman, an admonisher, one who like Ezekiel 
 is constrained to deliver in that which is bitter and 
 distasteful to nature, the very message which when 
 he himself received it from God was " within his 
 mouth as honey for sweetness." 
 
 " And now," he says, " as I had experienced the 
 love of God through Jesus Christ, to redeem me 
 from many pollutions, and to be a succour to me 
 
14 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 through a sea of conflicts with which no person 
 was fully acquainted, and as my heart was often 
 enlarged in this heavenly principle, I felt a tender 
 compassion for the youth who remained entangled 
 in snares like those which had entangled me. This 
 love and tenderness increased, and my mind was 
 strongly engaged for the good of my fellow- 
 creatures. 
 
 "All the faithful are not called to the public 
 ministry; but those who are, are called to minister 
 of that which they have tasted and handled spirit- 
 ually. The outward modes of worship are various, 
 but wherever any are true ministers of Jesus 
 Christ, it is from the operation of His Spirit upon 
 their hearts, first purifying them, and thus giving 
 them a just sense of the conditions of others." . 
 He goes on to tell us of how, " about the time 
 called Christmas," he observed many people spend- 
 ing their time in drinking and vain sports, tending 
 to corrupt one another ; of one house in particular, 
 in which there is much disorder. He thinks it his 
 duty to speak to the master of it, but considers 
 that he is young, and that several elderly friends in 
 town have opportunity to see these things. Still he 
 cannot feel his mind clear. " With prayers and 
 tears I besought the Lord for His assistance, and 
 He, in loving-kindness, gave me a resigned heart. 
 At a suitable opportunity I went to the public- 
 house, and, seeing the man amongst much com- 
 pany, I called him aside, and in the fear and dread 
 of the Almighty, expressed to him what rested on 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 15 
 
 my mind. He took it kindly, and afterwards 
 showed more regard to me than before. In a few 
 years he died in middle life ; and I often thought, 
 that had I neglected my duty in that case, it would 
 have given me great trouble." 
 
 He next relates how he was desired by his em- 
 ployer to write out a bill of sale for a negro woman, 
 the man being waiting who bought her. "The 
 thing was sudden, and though I felt uneasy at the 
 thoughts of writing out an instrument of slavery 
 for one of my fellow-creatures, yet I remembered 
 that I was hired by the year, that it was my master 
 who directed me to do it, and it was an elderly 
 man, a member of our Society, who bought her. 
 So through weakness I gave way and wrote it, yet 
 in the executing of it I was afflicted in my mind, 
 and as often as I reflected seriously upon the 
 matter, I thought I should have been clearer, if I 
 had desired to be excused from it as a thing against 
 my conscience ; for such it was. Some time after 
 this, a young man of our Society asked me to 
 write a conveyance of a slave to him, he having 
 lately taken a negro into his house. I told him, in 
 good will, that I was not easy to write it, believing 
 the keeping of slaves, although practised by many 
 in our meeting, and in other places, to be a prac- 
 tice inconsistent with the Christian religion ; there- 
 fore I desired to be excused from the transaction." 
 
 Writing some time afterwards, he says, "I saw 
 at this time, that if I was honest in declaring that 
 which truth opened to me, I could not please all 
 
1 6 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 men, and I laboured to be content in the way of 
 my duty, however disagreeable to my own inclina- 
 tion. Through the humbling dispensations of 
 Divine providence, men are sometimes fitted for 
 God's service. The messages of the Prophet 
 Jeremiah were so disagreeable to the people, and 
 so adverse to the spirit they lived in, that he 
 became the object of their reproach ; and in the 
 weakness of nature, he thought of desisting from 
 his prophetic office. ' But,' saith he, 'his word 
 was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my 
 bones ; and I was weary with forbearing, and could 
 not stay.' 
 
 " Thou who sometimes travellest in the work of 
 the ministry, and art made very welcome by thy 
 friends, seest many tokens of their satisfaction in 
 having thee for their guest. It is good for thee to 
 dwell deep, that thou mayest feel and understand 
 the spirits of people, and take heed that their 
 kindness, their freedom, and their affability, do 
 not hinder us from the Lord's work. I have ex- 
 perienced that in the midst of kindness and smooth 
 conduct, to speak close and home to those who 
 entertain us, is hard labour. Sometimes when I 
 have felt truth lead towards it, I have found myself 
 disqualified by a superficial friendship ; and as the 
 sense thereof hath abased me, and my cries have 
 been to the Lord, so have I been humbled and 
 made content to appear weak, or as a fool for His 
 sake, and thus a door hath been opened to enter 
 upon it To attempt to do the Lord's work in our 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 1 7 
 
 own way, and to speak of that which is the 
 burden of the word in a way easy to the natural 
 part of us, doth not reach to the bottom of the 
 disorder. The office of a minister of Christ is 
 weighty ; and they who now go forth as watch- 
 men, have need to be steadily on their guard 
 against the snares of prosperity and an outside 
 friendship." 
 
 II. 
 
 Arnold distinguishes between the grace of faith, 
 that by which the soul lives unto God, and with- 
 out which it cannot live at all, from the gift of 
 faith, the faith able to remove mountains ; the 
 energy, heaven-impelled and heaven-compelling, 
 through which men, even as princes, have had 
 power with God, and have prevailed. The one, in 
 a greater or less degree, is the attribute of every 
 believer the other is, in its very nature, extraor- 
 dinary, singular, a gift communicated and communi- 
 cative imparted to especial individuals for especial 
 ends. John Woolman's gift was love a charity the 
 extent of which it does not enter into the natural 
 heart of man to conceive, and of which the more 
 ordinary experiences, even of renewed nature, give 
 but a faint shadow. Every now and then, in this 
 world's history, we meet with men, the kings 
 and priests of Humanity, on whose heads this pre- 
 cious ointment has been so poured forth, that it 
 has run down to the skirts of their clothing, and 
 c 
 
1 8 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 extended over the whole of the visible creation ; * 
 men who have entered, like Francis of Assissi, into 
 the secret of that deep amity with God and with 
 His creatures, which makes man to be in league 
 with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the 
 field to be at peace with him. In this pure, uni- 
 versal charity, there is nothing fitful or intermittent, 
 nothing that comes and goes in showers and gleams 
 and sunbursts. Its springs are deep and constant, 
 its rising is like that of a mighty river, its very 
 overflow calm and steady, leaving life and fertility 
 behind it. This love, like Him who was on earth 
 its great Exemplar, is no respecter of persons. 
 God hath showed it that it must call no man 
 common or unclean ; it knows no distinction of 
 great or little duties, of honourable or humiliating 
 tasks ; it is among us as one who serves. 
 
 A Christian's glory, like his warfare, is within. 
 The records of this good man's life are very 
 uniform, with few incidents, except such as are 
 
 * Now it happened on a time that there came to Guthlac, 
 a venerable brother, whose name was Wilfrith, who had of 
 old been united to him in spiritual fellowship. Whilst they 
 discoursed of their spiritual life, there came suddenly two 
 swallows flying in, and behold they raised up their song 
 rejoicing, and after that they sat fearlessly on Guthlacs 
 shoulders, and then lifted up their song ; and afterwards they 
 sat on his bosom, and on his arms and his knees. When 
 Wilfrith had long wondering beheld the birds, he asked him 
 wherefore the wild birds of the waste sat so submissively 
 upon him ? But Guthlac answered him and said, * ' Hast 
 thou never learnt, brother Wilfrid, in holy writ, that he who 
 hath led his life after God's will, the wild beasts and the wild 
 birds have become intimate with him ? " GOODWIN'S Life oj 
 St. Guthlac. 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 19 
 
 connected with his repeated ministerial journey- 
 ings. There is a characteristic simplicity in the 
 way in which he tells us how he changed his first 
 occupation, that of assistant to a shopkeeper for 
 the calling of a tailor, " thinking that I might by 
 this business, and a little retailing of goods, get a 
 living in a plain way, without the load of great 
 business. I was taught to be content with this way 
 of life, though I felt at times a disposition that 
 would have sought for something greater ; but 
 through the revelation of Jesus Christ, I had seen the 
 happiness of humility, and there was an earnest 
 desire in me to enter deeply into it At times this 
 desire arose to a degree of fervent supplication, 
 wherein my soul was so environed with heavenly 
 light and consolation, that things were made easy 
 to me which might have been otherwise." 
 
 Ten years later, though in the meantime he has 
 married and has now children, he tells us how the 
 increase of business " became his burden." 
 
 " I had begun with selling trimmings for gar- 
 ments, and thence proceeded to cloths and linens, 
 and at length having got a considerable shop of 
 goods, the way to a large business appeared open ; 
 but I felt a stop in my mind. 
 
 " I had learned to be content with a plain way 
 of living. I had but a small family, and, on serious 
 consideration, believed truth did not require me to 
 engage much in cumbersome affairs. It had been 
 my general practice to buy and sell things really 
 useful. Things that chiefly pleased the vain mind 
 c 2 
 
20 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 in people, I was not easy to trade in. I seldom 
 did it, and whenever I did I found it weaken me 
 as a Christian. 
 
 "Yet my natural inclination being towards mer- 
 chandise, there was now a strife in my mind ; and 
 in this exercise my prayers were put up to the 
 Lord, who graciously heard me, and gave me a 
 heart resigned to His holy will. Then I lessened 
 my outward business, and as I had opportunity, 
 told my customers of my intentions, that they 
 might consider what shop to turn to ; and in a 
 while I wholly laid down merchandise, and followed 
 my trade of tailor by myself, having no apprentice. 
 I had also a nursery of apple-trees, in which I 
 employed some of my time in hoeing, grafting, and 
 trimming. It being the custom to sell chiefly on 
 credit, poor people often get in debt, and not 
 having wherewith to pay when payment is ex- 
 pected, they are often sued for it at law. Having 
 frequently observed this, I found it good for me to 
 advise poor people to take such goods as were most 
 useful and not costly" 
 
 " If thine eye be single,'' saith our Divine 
 Teacher, thy whole body shall be full of light." 
 This simple-hearted man seems very early to have 
 appreciated the great truth to which his whole way 
 of life, together with his spoken and written dis- 
 courses, bore one unceasing, consistent testimony, 
 that " every degree of luxury has some connection 
 with evil ; " and few, even among Christian thinkers, 
 seem to have seen, in so strong and clear a light as 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 21 
 
 he did, its vital and sure connection not only with 
 inward poverty and spiritual decay, but with in- 
 justice, with oppression, with the laying-on of 
 unequal burdens, with all those things which make 
 the poor of the land to sigh. It has been truly 
 said, that one-half of the world does not know (nor 
 care, it might be added) how the other half lives ; 
 but is not this ignorance, with the cruel indifference 
 it is founded upon, itself a grievous fault, and one 
 for which the professing members of Christ's Church 
 will have to answer grievously ? Lazarus is at the 
 gate, naked, hungry, and full of sores. Dives does 
 not know that he is there, and why ? Because he 
 is himself clothed in purple and fine linen, and fares 
 sumptuously every day. 
 
 "When," says John Woolman, "I have beheld 
 plenty in some houses to a degree of luxury, the 
 condition of poor children who are brought up 
 without learning, and the weakly and aged who 
 strive to live by their labour, have often revived 
 in my mind ; and of this, some who live in fulness 
 require to be put in remembrance. Weakly per- 
 sons in the field and in the shops, and women who 
 spin and knit in the manufactories, in performing 
 what is esteemed a day's labour by the strong and 
 healthy, often experience much weariness ; and 
 many sighs, I believe, are uttered in secret, unheard 
 by some who might ease their burdens. The 
 hardships of the poor are sometimes increased 
 through want of more agreeable nourishment, more 
 plentiful fuel, and warmer clothing in the winter 
 
22 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 than their wages will procure. People may have 
 no intention to oppress, yet by entering on ex- 
 pensive ways of life, their minds may be so entangled 
 and so engaged to support vain, expensive customs, 
 as to be estranged from the pure, sympathising spirit." 
 
 " One person," he says, speaking of the almost 
 universal conformity to certain customs, " con- 
 tinuing to live contrary to true wisdom, commonly 
 draws others into connection with him, and when 
 these embrace the way the first hath chosen, their 
 proceedings are like a wild vine, which, springing 
 from a single seed and growing strong, its branches 
 extend, and their little tendrils twist round all 
 herbs and boughs of trees within their reach, and 
 are so braced and locked in, that without much 
 labour and great strength they are not disen- 
 tangled." "Yet, as I have," he adds, " through 
 Divine goodness found that there is a more quiet, 
 calm, and happy way intended for us to walk in, I am 
 engaged to express what I feel in my heart con- 
 cerning it." 
 
 And there are some persons surely in our present 
 day, given up though it be to " comfort " (a word 
 which, truly interpreted, means only luxury made 
 easy and made habitual), who will be ready to join 
 him in this testimony ; a few among us, at least, 
 who have found in " plain living and high think- 
 ing " a more excellent way than that which is 
 choked up and over-run with trifling yet heart- 
 consuming cares about things which, as a great 
 writer of our age says, " never yet made, nor had it 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 23 
 
 in their power to make, any one human being 
 happier, wiser, healthier, or even better-looking ! " 
 Excessive decoration in dress and furniture, un- 
 necessary servants, costly equipages, expensive 
 entertainments, these are surely of the things 
 which perish in the using, and which even in the 
 using impart but little real pleasure, vanity in life, 
 as in Scripture, being inseparably linked with vexa- 
 tion of spirit, yet these are the things which eat 
 the heart out of true hospitality, which so crowd 
 the life with elaborate littlenesses, as to leave small 
 margin, either in time or money, for charity, or for 
 those refined generosities which the liberal soul 
 delights to devise and execute. How much is 
 there in the aspect of the times we live in to make 
 us in love with the " pleasures which go into small 
 room," the simple, kindly, rational pleasures, 
 which cheer and refresh the heart, and leave it 
 freer and abler for life's duties, those great realities 
 too often sacrificed for its " appearances," and that 
 body and soul- wearying effort " to keep up a posi- 
 tion," to which we owe so many blighted families, 
 desolated homes, and dishonoured graves. " He 
 who maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent/' 
 We have still evil deities among us, demanding 
 costly and incessant sacrifices, and first among 
 these is Luxury, hard under its apparent softness, 
 and cruel in its very smiling. The first Babel was 
 a place of oppression, its founder a mighty hunter 
 before the Lord, a tyrant whose game was men. 
 The last Babylon is a place of merchandise, a 
 
24 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 mighty city full of all manner of precious vessels, of 
 odours, of purple, of silk and scarlet, of horses and 
 chariots, and slaves and souls of men> and these two 
 cities are one, and their name is alike " confusion." 
 The sin of the first was self-exaltation against God 
 " Let us build a tower that shall reach unto 
 heaven ; " the sin of the second is self-isolation, 
 a withdrawing of the heart from sympathy with 
 man " She hath glorified herself, she hath lived 
 deliciously ; she sayeth in her heart, I sit a queen, 
 and shall see no sorrow. " 
 
 Yet Babylon the Great, even as Babel of old, is 
 fallen, is fallen ; her doom is already pronounced, 
 the decree gone forth against pride and selfishness 
 and oppression : " Come out of her, my people, be 
 not partakers of her sins, that ye receive not of her 
 plagues." 
 
 This subject is one to which the journals recur 
 again and again. " Universal love," he says, "re- 
 conciles the mind to a life so plain, that a little doth 
 suffice to support it, a life of simplicity and suffi- 
 ciency when the real comforts of life are not lessened'" 
 While "costly and cumbersome" ways of living, 
 involving unnecessary labour, and entailing ex- 
 penses that lead to cove tousn ess and oppression, 
 are, in John Woolman's eyes, the spots upon the 
 leopard's skin ; their beauty rather indicating than 
 disguising the strength of cruelty they cover. 
 
 "About this time," he says, being in 1757 on a 
 ministerial journey through the southern provinces, 
 "a deep and painful exercise came upon me. As 
 
JOHN. WOOLMAN. 25 
 
 the people here live much on the labour of slaves, 
 many of whom are used hardly, and it is common 
 for friends, on such visits, to have entertainment 
 free of cost, a difficulty arose in my mind with 
 respect to saving my money by kindness received 
 from what appeared to me to be the gain of 
 oppression." He meets this difficulty in his usual 
 singleness and simplicity. "When I expected 
 soon to leave a friend's house where I had enter- 
 tainment, if I believed that I should not keep clear 
 from the gain of oppression without leaving money, 
 I spoke to one of the heads of the family privately, 
 and desired them to accept of these pieces of 
 silver, and give them to such of their negroes as 
 they believed would make the best use of them ; at 
 other times I gave them to the negroes myself, as 
 the way looked clearest to me. Before I came out 
 on my journey I had provided myself for this pur- 
 pose with a large number of small pieces ; and thus 
 offering them to some who appeared wealthy 
 people, was a trial both to me and to them." 
 
 As he proceeds upon his journey he says, " The 
 sense I had of the state of the Churches, brought 
 a weight of distress upon me. The gold appeared 
 to me to be dim, and the fine gold changed. It 
 seemed to me, that through the prevailing of the 
 spirit of this world, the minds of many were 
 brought to an inward desolation. . . . 
 
 " Our conduct in some parts of this newly-set- 
 tled land of America towards the negroes, hath 
 deeply bowed my spirit, and though briefly to 
 
26 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 relate how these people are treated is no agreeable 
 work, yet after often reading over the notes I 
 made as I travelled, I find >my mind engaged to 
 preserve them. Many of the white people in these 
 provinces take little or no care of negro marriages, 
 and when negroes marry after their own way, 
 some make so little account of those marriages, 
 that from views of interest, they often part men 
 from their wives by selling them far asunder, 
 which is common when estates are sold by execu- 
 tors at vendue. Many whose labour is heavy, 
 being followed at their business in the field by a 
 man with a whip, hired for that purpose, have in 
 common little else allowed but one peck of Indian 
 corn and some salt, for one week, with a few 
 potatoes ; the potatoes they commonly raise by 
 their labour on the first day of the week. The 
 correction ensuing on their slothfulness or dis- 
 obedience to overseers is often very severe, and 
 sometimes desperate. 
 
 " Men and women have many times scarcely 
 clothes sufficient to hide their nakedness, and boys 
 and girls, ten or twelve years old, are often quite 
 naked amongst their master's children. Some of 
 our Society use some endeavours to instruct their 
 slaves in reading ; but in common this is not only 
 neglected but disapproved. Yet these are the people 
 by whose labour the other inhabitants are in a 
 great measure supported, and many of them in the 
 luxuries of life. These are the people who have 
 made no agreement to serve us, and who have, in 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 27 
 
 no way that we know of, justly forfeited their 
 liberty. These are the souls for whom Christ died, 
 and for our conduct towards whom we must answer 
 before Him who is no respecter of persons. 
 
 " There is a natural love j and when a parent 
 beholds his child in misery, he hath a feeling of 
 his affliction, but in Divine love the heart is enlarged 
 toward mankind universally, and prepared to sym- 
 pathise with strangers. Of this the Prophet seems 
 to have had a feeling when he said, ' Have we not 
 all one Father? Hath not one God created us? 
 Why do we deal treacherously, every man against 
 his brother, by profaning the covenant of our 
 fathers?' (Mai. ii. 10.) The blacks seem far from 
 being our kinsfolk ; they have neither honours, 
 riches, nor power ; their dress is coarse and often 
 ragged; they have little or nothing at command, 
 but must wait and work for others to obtain the 
 necessaries of life, so that in their present situation 
 there is not much to engage the friendship or move 
 the affection of selfish men. Yet the Lord, in the 
 riches of His goodness, is leading some into the 
 feeling of the condition of this people, who cannot 
 rest without labouring as their advocates ; of which 
 I in some measure have had experience, for in the 
 movings of His love in my heart, these poor suf- 
 ferers have been brought near to me. 
 
 " Many lives have been shortened through ex- 
 treme oppression, in labouring to support luxury 
 and worldly greatness. I have often myself been 
 a witness to the sufferings of the aged and infirm, 
 
28 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 made to labour too hard, and kept on a diet less 
 comfortable than their state requires, and under 
 the heart-melting influence of Divine love, their 
 misery hath felt to me like the misery of my parents. 
 Innocent youths are taken by violence from their 
 friends and native land, and put on board ships 
 with hearts laden with sorrow; exposed to great 
 hardships at sea, and placed under people where 
 their lives are attended with great provocations to 
 anger and revenge; with the condition of these youths 
 my mind hath often been affected, as with the afflictions 
 of my children. 
 
 " Again, there are weaknesses sometimes attend- 
 ing us which make little or no alteration in our 
 countenances, nor much lessen our appetite for 
 food, and yet so affect us as to make labour very 
 uneasy; in such cases, masters intent on putting 
 forward business, and jealous of the sincerity of 
 their slaves, may disbelieve what they say, and 
 grievously afflict them. These things being closely 
 considered as happening to a near friend, will appear 
 to be hard and painful. 
 
 "Our children breaking a bone, getting so 
 bruised that a leg or an arm must be taken off; 
 lost for a few hours, so that we despair of their 
 being found again ; a friend hurt so that he dieth 
 in a day or two, these things move us with grief. 
 It hath been computed that near one hundred 
 thousand negroes have of late years been annually 
 taken from the African coast by ships employed in 
 the English trade. In procuring these slaves many 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 29 
 
 children are stolen privately; wars are also en- 
 couraged among the negroes j but all is at a great 
 distance. Many groans arise from dying men which 
 we hear not. Many cries are uttered by widows 
 and fatherless children which reach not our ears. 
 Many cheeks are wet with tears, and faces sad 
 with unutterable grief, which we see not. Cruel 
 tyranny is encouraged ! The hands of robbers are 
 strengthened, and thousands reduced to abject 
 misery who never injured us. In a feeling of the 
 misery of these people, and of that great offence 
 which is ministered to them, my tears have often 
 been poured out before the Load. And often 
 under the sense of a deep revolt, and an overflowing 
 stream of unrighteousness, my life has been a life 
 of mourning, and tender desires are raised in me, 
 that the nature of these practices may be laid to 
 heart." 
 
 There is surely a deep pathos in these words, 
 " These things being closely considered as happening to 
 a near friend, will appear to be hard and painful" 
 Sympathy knits up the ancient bond of humanity, 
 and draws all that belong to it into a nearness with 
 each other. And while selfishness, even of that 
 kind which commonly passes for affection, contracts 
 feeling, concentrating it upon a few objects, and 
 those of a personal kind, upon which it closes with 
 a spring like that of the sensitive plant, charity 
 takes of those very interests, " the things of a 
 man," the strength and tenacity of individual affec- 
 tion, and through these instructs the heart in the 
 
30 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 things of God, that pure universal love which can 
 stretch forth its arms towards the whole human 
 family, and say, " Behold my mother and my 
 brethren !" 
 
 John Woolman's spirit seems to have been 
 deeply initiated in that great mystery, the unity of 
 our race in Adam as well as in Christ, and in the 
 consequent impossibility of any one branch of it 
 rightly flourishing through injustice exercised upon 
 another. If one member suffer, the rest must 
 suffer with it, though the blight be not at once 
 apparent. The life of the social body is an organic 
 life, and the canker will gradually work through 
 the whole of what, for good or evil, is one. " The 
 state of mankind was harmonious in the beginning, 
 and though sin hath introduced discord, yet, through 
 the wonderful love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, 
 the way is open for our redemption, and means are 
 appointed to restore us to primitive harmony : so 
 that if any one suffer by the unfaithfulness of another, 
 the mind, the most noble part of him that occasions 
 the discord, is thereby alienated from its true and 
 real happiness" 
 
 " Whoever rightly advocates the cause of some, 
 thereby promotes the good of all/' Such are the 
 words of this poor wise man, one of those whose 
 wisdom, speaking in quietness, in example, and in 
 prayer, has so often saved our earthly city in its 
 extremity. Even then, writing in 1757, more than 
 a hundred years ago, he saw plainly that the slaves 
 " look like a burdensome stone to such as burden 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 31 
 
 themselves with them," and foresaw " that if the 
 white people retain a resolution to prefer these out- 
 ward prospects of gain to all other considerations, 
 and do not act conscientiously toward them as 
 fellow-creatures, that that burden would grow 
 heavier and heavier, until times change in a way 
 disagreeable to us. 
 
 " God will with terrible things answer us in 
 righteousness in this matter. I feel in that which 
 is immutable, that the seeds of great calamity and 
 desolation are sown and growing fast in this great 
 continent. Nor have I words sufficient to set forth 
 the longing I feel, that we (His own people) who 
 are placed along the coast, and have tasted the love 
 and goodness of God, might arise in the strength 
 thereof, and, like faithful messengers, labour to 
 check the growth of these seeds, that they may not 
 ripen to the ruin of our posterity." 
 
 Yet his spirit was too large and tolerant not to 
 be open to the real difficulties which then, as now, 
 beset the removal of an evil so built up within the 
 social fabric of a great country, that it may be 
 literally t said concerning it, " that the stone cries 
 out of the wall, and the timber of the beam 
 witnesses against it." He advises such as would 
 clear themselves of this inheritance of guilt and 
 woe, "not to wait for some extraordinary means 
 to bring about their deliverance; if such set aside 
 self-interest when truth requires the contrary, I 
 believe a way will so open that they will know how 
 to steer through all difficulties." 
 
32 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 To one who, in support of the slave-trade, argues 
 that the blacks are the offspring of Cain, and their 
 blackness the mark which God set upon him, he 
 replies with quiet good sense, that Noah and his 
 family were all who according to Scripture survived 
 the flood, and that as Noah was of Seth's race the 
 family of Cain was wholly destroyed. But when 
 the argument is continued, to the effect that after 
 the flood Ham went to the land of Nod, and took 
 a wife, that Nod was a land far distant, inhabited 
 by Cain's race, and that the flood did not reach 
 it, and Ham being sentenced to be a servant 
 of servants to his brethren, these two families 
 being thus joined, were undoubtedly fit only for 
 slaves, " I was troubled," he says, " to perceive 
 the darkness of their imaginations, and in some 
 pressure of spirit said, ' the love of ease and gain 
 are the motives in general of keeping slaves, and 
 men are wont to take hold of weak arguments to 
 support a cause which is unreasonable.' " 
 
 Touching on the faults commonly imputed to 
 slaves, their childishness, ignorance, and want of 
 truth, he exclaims, after dwelling at some length on 
 their depressed, down-trodden condition, and on 
 the unlikelihood of improvement taking place in 
 the absence of every stimulating motive, every 
 elevating hope, "If oppression be so hard to bear 
 that a wise man is made mad by it (Eccles. vii. 7), 
 we may reasonably expect that a series of it would 
 alter the behaviour and manners of a people." 
 
 The cause of this people was now his own ; again 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 33 
 
 and again, as opportunity serves, we find him press- 
 ing it home to the minds of such "serious and 
 thoughtful people" as have already experienced 
 secret misgivings on the subject j admonishing 
 those who are still careless, and indefatigably keep- 
 ing it before the general Society of Friends in 
 weighty and searching conferences and inquiries, 
 from which, and from his written addresses, " plain 
 and loving considerations on the keeping of 
 negroes," sent forth from time to time, great prac- 
 tical good appears to have arisen. He speaks of 
 private visits to friends of note who kept slaves, of 
 " shynesses " arising in consequence of the admoni- 
 tions he was constrained to utter, of heavy exer- 
 cises, mortifying labours, and meetings in which he 
 was almost alone under this great burden; but 
 afterwards he has more cheering things to tell. A 
 " concern " with regard to slavery is awakened, the 
 subject becomes generally and closely entered upon 
 recommendations are inserted in the yearly letters 
 " that Friends should labour against the buying and 
 keeping of slaves," desire manifests itself that the 
 Society, as such, should put away the accursed 
 thing from among its dwellings, and John Wool- 
 man's spirit for all these things is " humbly bowed 
 in thankfulness." 
 
 The springs of all this outward activity, mean- 
 while, lay far below the surface. His own spirit 
 dwelt deep. Even amid the comforts of his family 
 and his home, his heart is often as that " of a 
 sojourner," and during long and toilsome and 
 
 D 
 
34 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 perilous journeys, undertaken on foot, under great 
 bodily weakness and severe inward discouragement, 
 he enters into " a lively feeling of the state of the 
 oppressed." "In awful retiredness" he tells us, "my 
 mind was gathered inward to the Lord, humbly de- 
 siring that in true resignation I might receive instruc- 
 tion from Him respecting my duty among this people. 
 This was a journey of much inward wailing, and as 
 my eye was toward the Lord, a way was several 
 times opened to my humbling admiration when 
 things appeared very difficult. On my return I felt 
 a very comfortable relief of mind, having through 
 Divine help laboured in much plainness, both with 
 friends selected, and in the more public meetings. 
 At one of these I had to express, with much plain- 
 ness, my feelings respecting Friends living in fulness 
 on the labours of the poor oppressed negroes. At 
 this time the sufferings of Christ, and His tasting 
 death for every man, the travels, sufferings, and 
 martyrdoms of the apostles and primitive Chris- 
 tians, in labouring for the conversion of the Gentiles, 
 were livingly revived in me ; the difference between 
 the treatment which these Gentiles, the negroes, 
 receive at our hands, and the labours of the 
 primitive Christians for the conversion of the 
 heathen world, was pressed home, and the power 
 of truth came over us ; and of this visit I may say 
 with thankfulness that it appeared like a tendering 
 visitation in most places." 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 35 
 
 III. 
 
 " In a time of sickness with the pleurisy, a little 
 more than two years and a half ago," writes John 
 Woolman, being now in England, not long before 
 his death, " I was brought so near the gates of 
 death that I forgot my name. Being then desirous 
 to know who I was, I saw a mass of a dull gloomy 
 colour, between the south and the east, and was 
 informed that this mass was human beings in as 
 great misery as they could be and live, and that I 
 was mixed with them, and that henceforth I might 
 not consider myself as a distinct or separate being. 
 In this state I remained several hours, I then heard 
 a soft, melodious voice, more pure and harmonious 
 than any I had ever heard with my ears before ; I 
 believed it was the voice of an angel who spake to 
 the other angels; the words were 'John Wool- 
 man is dead.' I soon remembered that I was 
 once John Woolman, and being assured that I was 
 alive in the body, I greatly wondered what that 
 heavenly voice could mean. 
 
 " I was then carried in spirit to the mines, where 
 poor oppressed people were digging rich treasures 
 for those called Christians, and I heard them blas- 
 pheme the name of Christ, at which I was grieved, 
 for His name to me was precious. I was then in- 
 formed that these heathen were told, that those 
 who oppressed them were the followers of Christ ; 
 and they said among themselves, 4 If Christ directed 
 them to use us in this sort, then Christ is a cruel 
 tyrant.' 
 
 D 2 
 
36 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 " All this time the song of the angel remained a 
 mystery, and in the morning, my dear wife and 
 some others coming to my bedside, I asked them 
 if they knew who I was ; and they, telling me I 
 was John Woolman, thought I was light-headed j 
 for I told them not what the angel said, nor was I 
 disposed to talk much to any one, but was very 
 desirous to get so deep that I might understand 
 this mystery. 
 
 " My tongue was often so dry that I could not 
 speak till I had moved it about and gathered some 
 moisture ; and as I lay still for a time, I at length 
 felt divine power prepare my mouth that I could 
 speak, and I then said, ' I am crucified with Christ, 
 nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
 me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I 
 live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me 
 and gave himself for me. 7 Then the mystery was 
 opened, and I perceived there was joy in heaven 
 over a sinner who had repented, and that the lan- 
 guage, ' John Woolman is dead,' meant no more 
 than the death of my own will. 
 
 " My natural understanding returned as before, 
 and I saw that people setting off their tables with 
 silver vessels at entertainments was often stained 
 with worldly glory, and that in the present state 
 of things, I should take heed how I fed myself out 
 of such vessels. Going to our monthly meeting 
 soon after my recovery, I dined at a friend's house 
 where drink was brought in silver vessels, and not 
 in any other. Wanting something to drink, I told 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 37 
 
 him my case with weeping, and he ordered some 
 drink for me in another vessel. 
 
 " After this sickness, I spake not in public meet- 
 ings for worship for nearly one year ; but my mind 
 was often in company with the oppressed slaves as 
 I sat in meetings ; and though under this dispensa- 
 tion I was shut up from speaking, yet the spring 
 of the gospel ministry was many times livingly 
 opened in me, and the divine gift operated by 
 abundance of weeping, in feeling the oppression of 
 this people." 
 
 " Mysteries are revealed to the meek." This 
 singular and affecting dream connects itself with 
 a truth which lies near the heart of all deep Chris- 
 tian experience, that fellowship with the Father 
 and with the Son, which draws the soul into a 
 steadfast union with Humanity, even in withdraw- 
 ing it from the hollow and apparent amity which 
 goes so far to make up the friendship of this world. 
 Jesus, the friend of sinners, is emphatically spoken 
 of by His apostle as being " separate from sinners 
 and undefiled." And it is this very separation, the 
 dignity and purity of Christ, that which, surround- 
 ing Him like an atmosphere, impalpable yet im- 
 penetrable,* " parts Him from us in the very act of 
 embrace," which so irresistibly attracts the soul to 
 Him. 
 
 John Woolman was one who had entered into the 
 spirit of his Master's words, " Except a corn of 
 
 * See on this great subject the chapter in Bushnell's New 
 Life, headed, "Christ as separate from the world." 
 
38 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 wheat die, it abideth alone." His gentle spirit had 
 drunk deep into the severity as well as into the 
 goodness of his beloved Lord, and had learned 
 what is that " necessary death " of the human will 
 unto which those who would rise with Christ in 
 newness of life must become obedient, "even the 
 death of the cross" Under its broad shadow, this 
 meek, self-denying servant of his crucified Master, 
 sat down with great delight, and found its fruit the 
 fruit of patience, of sacrifice, of subjection " plea- 
 sant to his taste." Into this joy, the peculiar 
 chosen joy of his Lord, his spirit entered and 
 abode. " Knowing well that it belongs to Love of 
 ancient right to suffer, and that none but a sufferer 
 can woo her well, he entered into the school of 
 afflictions ; " * for " Christ," he says, " endured 
 afflictions in a body prepared by the Father, hit 
 the afflictions of His mystical body are not yet finished ; 
 for they who are baptised unto Christ are baptised 
 unto His death. And as, abiding humbly under 
 His sanctifying power, we are brought forth in 
 newness of life, we feel Christ to live in us, who 
 being the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and 
 always at unity with Himself, His spirit in the 
 hearts of His people leads to an inward exercise 
 for the salvation of mankind ; and under a sense 
 of evil things, there is a travail of spirit, a sorrow 
 and heaviness often experienced, which fills up in 
 some measure that which remains of the afflictions 
 of Christ." 
 
 * Henry Luso, thirteenth century. 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 39 
 
 These pages show him to us as a weeping pro- 
 phet, as one of those men upon whose foreheads, 
 because they sigh and cry "for the abominations that 
 be done upon the earth, God's mark of acceptance 
 is set ; * they show him, too, as one whose heart 
 has been so baptised into the sense of all condi- 
 tions, f " that every man's pain did pierce his heart, 
 and every man's grief was grievous to him." His 
 heart is continually enlarging its borders : it yearns 
 not only over " the tents of Cushan in affliction," 
 but takes within it the first dwellers in the land, 
 
 * * The stoics of the wild, the men without a tear ; " 
 
 "they," he says, "who now dwell far back in the 
 wilderness, but whose ancestors were formerly the 
 owners of the land where we dwell, and who for a 
 small consideration, assigned their inheritance to 
 us. I was led to meditate upon their difficulties, 
 and a near sympathy with them was raised in me ; 
 and my heart being enlarged in the love of Christ, 
 I thought that the affectionate care of a good man 
 for his only brother in affliction, does not exceed 
 what I then felt for that people. From this a con- 
 cern arose to spend some time with the Indians, 
 that I might feel and understand their life, and the 
 spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some 
 instruction from them, or they might in any degree 
 
 * Ezekiel ix. 4. 
 
 f "I prayed to God," writes George Fox, "that He would 
 baptise my spirit into a sense of all conditions among men, 
 so that I might not be a stranger unto the needs and sorrows 
 of any." 
 
40 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 be helped forward by my following the leadings of 
 truth among them." 
 
 With this view, in company with a friend, whose 
 spirit is also "fastened" to the undertaking, he sets 
 forth on a religious mission to the Indians on the 
 banks of the Susquehannah, 200 miles from Phila- 
 delphia. It is a journey full of danger, as well as 
 hardship, as England and France are at this time 
 at war, and many of the Indian tribes, under 
 French influence, are actively engaged in harassing 
 the English frontier. However, the Son of Peace 
 is with His servant ; he goes and returns in safety. 
 The record he has left us of this journey reminds 
 us in many places of the narratives of the apostolic 
 Eliot and his Moravian successors, men who, in the 
 simple strength of love, feared not to enter into 
 valleys of death and torture, dark places of the 
 earth, full of the habitations of cruelty. 
 
 Travelling at one time upon a path, u heretofore 
 used by warriors," he observes, " on the sides of 
 large trees, peeled for that purpose, representations 
 of men going to and returning from the wars, and 
 of some being killed in battle ; and as I walked 
 about viewing these Indian histories, which were 
 painted mostly in red or black, and thinking on 
 the innumerable afflictions which the proud, fierce 
 spirit produceth in the world ; also on the toils and 
 fatigues of warriors in travelling over mountains 
 and deserts, on their miseries when far from home, 
 and wounded by their enemies ; of their bruises 
 and great weariness in chasing one another over the 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 4 1 
 
 rocks and mountains; of the restless, unquiet mind 
 of those who live in this spirit, and of the hatred 
 which mutually grows up in the minds of their 
 children, the desire to cherish the spirit of love and 
 peace among this people arose very fresh in me." 
 
 And he is exercised not in behalf of this 
 people only ; his desire, he tells us, continually 
 grows "to embrace every opportunity of becoming 
 inwardly acquainted with the hardships and diffi- 
 culties of my fellow-creatures, and to labour in 
 the love of God for the spreading of pure 
 righteousness on the earth." During his voyage 
 to England he writes : " My lodging in the steerage 
 hath afforded me sundry opportunities of seeing, 
 hearing, and feeling, with respect to the life and 
 spirit of many poor sailors." He enters into a 
 sense of their hardships " in having to rise at night 
 to watch four hours on deck, coming down into the 
 steerage soaking wet, where they are so closely 
 stowed that proper change of garments is not easily 
 come at, and where for want of proper room their 
 wet garments are thrown in heaps, and so trodden 
 under foot in going to their lodgings and getting 
 out of them, that it is difficult for each to find his 
 own." He feelingly regrets that they should so often 
 in the wet and cold "be led to apply to strong 
 drink to supply the want of other convenience." 
 Great, too, is the sympathising tenderness he feels 
 towards the "poor lads, who are put to the em- 
 ployment of sailors, lest they should be corrupted 
 by the profane examples around them." "At times," 
 
42 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 he says, " I look at them as though they were my 
 children according to the flesh, and I have had 
 sometimes (on this subject) weighty conversations 
 with the sailors in the steerage, who were mostly 
 respectful to me, and became more so the longer I 
 was with them. They mostly appeared to take 
 kindly what was said to them ; but their minds 
 were so deeply impressed with the almost univer- 
 sal depravity among sailors, that the poor creatures, 
 in their answers to me, have revived in my remem- 
 brance that of the degenerate Jews a little before 
 the captivity, as repeated by Jeremiah the prophet, 
 6 There is no hope.'" 
 
 But while love so often draws the feet of this 
 pilgrim among thejihorns of human suffering and 
 degradation, the perfume of the rose is never far 
 distant, the rose that blossoms among thorns and 
 briers, and will at last lift up its fair head above 
 them all. This lover of the Cross is also an ardent 
 lover of that kingdom whose establishment, whose 
 rewards, Christ Himself connects so plainly with 
 the personal participation in His own labours and 
 sufferings. 
 
 "Ye are they which have continued with me in my 
 temptations ; 
 
 ' ' And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath 
 appointed unto me." 
 
 The foundations of this kingdom which is first 
 pure, then peaceable, were deep-sunken in John 
 Woolman's soul ; and his conceptions of its ex- 
 cellence are " exceeding broad," such as belongs 
 to the charity which enlightens as well as warms. 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 43 
 
 " All true Christians are of the same spirit, but 
 their gifts are diverse. I have been informed that 
 Thomas a Kempis lived and died in the profession 
 of the Roman Catholic religion ; and in reading 
 his writings, I have believed him to be a man of a 
 true Christian spirit, as fully so as many who died 
 martyrs, because they could not join with some 
 superstitions in that Church. John Huss chose to 
 suffer death by fire, rather than act contrary to that 
 which he believed the Lord required of him. 
 Thomas a Kempis, without disputing against the 
 articles then generally agreed to, appears to have 
 laboured by a pious example as well as by preach- 
 ing and writing, to promote virtue and the inward 
 spiritual religion ; and I believe they were both 
 sincere -hearted followers of Christ. True charity 
 is an excellent virtue, and to labour sincerely for 
 their good whose belief in all points doth not agree 
 with ours, is a happy state" 
 
 Once after having been drawn for many days 
 into a deep inward stillness, in which his heart, 
 covered with the spirit of supplication, was secretly 
 poured out before the Lord, near the conclusion of 
 a meeting, " way opened, in the pure Sowings of 
 divine love, for me to express what lay upon me, 
 and to show how deep answers unto deep in the 
 hearts of the sincere and upright, though in their 
 different growths they may not have attained to 
 the same clearness. In this exercise I was drawn 
 into a sympathising tenderness with the sheep ot 
 Christ, however distinguished from one another in 
 
44 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 this world ; and I was then led to mention the 
 integrity and constancy of many martyrs who gave 
 their lives for the testimony of Jesus, and yet in 
 some points they held doctrines distinguishable 
 from those which we hold, and to observe that in 
 all ages, where people were faithful to the light 
 and understanding which the Most High afforded 
 them, they found acceptance with Him. Among 
 ourselves also there may be different ways of think- 
 ing in some particulars, but if we mutually keep to 
 that spirit and power which crucifies the world, 
 true unity may be still preserved ; and if those who 
 are suffering on account of scruples of conscience 
 keep low and humble, and manifest true charity in 
 their lives, it will be more likely to reach the 
 witness in others, and be of more service to the 
 Church, than if their sufferings were attended with 
 a contrary spirit and conduct." 
 
 When we compare these words with many which 
 have in various ages of the Church fallen from the 
 lips and pens of men who, in its different com- 
 munions, have been esteemed gifted, and wise, and 
 faithful, we may surely say 
 
 " That strain I heard was of a higher mood." 
 
 The spirit of this plain, unlettered man, was 
 enamoured of the fair ideal which Christianity pre- 
 sents as being the restoration of order and of 
 unity, "the harmony in which mankind and the 
 universe were at first created." He would fain see 
 mercy built up for ever, and righteousness estab- 
 lished on earth as it is in the very heavens. 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 45 
 
 " In holy writ, the Divine Being saith of Him- 
 self, ' I am the Lord which exercise loving-kind- 
 ness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth ; 
 for in these things I delight, said the Lord.' (Jer. 
 ix. 24.) And if we consider the life of our blessed 
 Saviour when on earth, as it is recorded by His 
 followers, we shall find that one uniform desire 
 for the eternal and temporal good of mankind dis- 
 covered itself in all His actions. . . . The state in 
 which every motion of a selfish spirit yieldeth to 
 pure love and ardent engagements to promote the 
 happiness of mankind universally, I may with 
 gratitude to the Father of mercies acknowledge is 
 often opened before me as a pearl to dig after. 
 And in meditating on the works of the contrary 
 spirit, and on the desolation it makes among the 
 professors of Christianity, I have often felt a long- 
 ing in my heart for the exaltation of the peaceable 
 kingdom of Christ, and an engagement to labour 
 according to the gift bestowed on me, for the 
 promoting a humble, plain, temperate way of living; 
 a way in which no unnecessary cares or expenses 
 may encumber our minds or lessen our ability to 
 do good ; in which no desires after riches or great- 
 ness may lead into hard dealings; no connection 
 with worldly-minded men may abate our love to 
 God, or weaken a true zeal for righteousness. A 
 life wherein we may diligently labour for resigned- 
 ness to do and to suffer whatever our heavenly 
 Father may allot for us, in reconciling the world to 
 Himself." . . . "And if," he exclaims in a deep 
 
46 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 insight into the inherent contradiction between the 
 Spirit of Christ and that which "yet worketh," 
 " our Redeemer, for the farther promoting of His 
 most gracious purpose in the earth, should give us 
 to taste of that bitter cup of which His faithful 
 ones have often partaken, oh, that we may be 
 rightly prepared to receive it." 
 
 Even while he most ardently desires that the 
 power and excellence of Christ's kingdom may be 
 so known among men that all may see the Re- 
 deemer's glory, as he himself beholds it in the 
 sanctuary of his resigned and reconciled spirit, he 
 is too well aware of the yet abiding alienation be- 
 tween man and God, the " enmity" not as yet 
 fully taken away, not to have it often in remem- 
 brance, "that people in all ages, deeply baptised 
 into the nature of that work for which Christ suf- 
 fered, have joyfully offered up their liberty and 
 lives for the promoting of it in the earth." And 
 when he meditates on this Divine work "as a 
 work of ages, a work which the prophets felt long 
 before Christ appeared visibly on earth ; " and re- 
 members " the bitter agonies He endured when 
 He poured forth His soul unto death, that the 
 heathen nations, as well as others, might come to 
 the knowledge of the truth and be saved," he finds 
 nothing so grievous as the indifference and worldli- 
 ness which minister cause for the continuation of 
 the sufferings of Christ, by hindering the work of 
 righteousness. He died to establish. So that his 
 spirit is continually though secretly detaching itself 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 47 
 
 from all such customs as tend, whether directly or 
 indirectly, to impede " that perfect redemption 
 from the spirit of selfishness and oppression, to 
 labour for which is the great business of the whole 
 family of Jesus Christ in this world." The picture 
 of his mind would be incomplete without at least 
 the indication of what these pages constantly bring 
 before us continually recurring scruples and anxie- 
 ties, which sometimes seem to weigh even the dust 
 of the earth in a balance, and which we feel must 
 at times have made life a severe thing to the good 
 man whose spirit was exercised by them, some- 
 times very sorely. Some of these scruples, such 
 as his objections to paying the war and militia 
 taxes ; connect themselves with such as are peculiar 
 to the religious community he belonged to, and 
 others are but the workings of a conscientiousness 
 more than ordinarily refined. To this we may 
 attribute the exercise which was long weighty 
 with him, that he should visit some parts of the 
 West Indies on a religious mission, because, as he 
 tells us, " some years ago I retailed rum, molasses, 
 and sugar, the fruits of the labour of slaves, my 
 concern in this matter being at that time less 
 attended to than I now believe it ought to have 
 been ; being then less informed respecting the 
 oppressions too generally exercised in these islands, 
 it now seems right that my small gain from this 
 branch of trade should be applied in promoting 
 righteousness in the earth." 
 . Once, too, he tells us, having been joined with 
 
48 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 a friend in executing the will of a deceased friend, 
 he became a party to selling a negro youth until 
 he attained the age of thirty (a practice then usual 
 among such persons as scrupled to keep slaves for 
 term of life), and applied the money to the use of 
 the estate ; this transaction long afterwards weighs 
 heavily upon him, and his mind for a time is 
 covered with darkness and sorrow. He sees the 
 unrighteousness of having joined to bind "this 
 lad for nine years longer than is common for our 
 own children to serve," and only finds relief in 
 appropriating part of his substance to redeem the 
 last half of the nine years ; " and as the time 
 was not yet come, I executed a bond, binding 
 myself or my executors to pay to the man to 
 whom he was sold what to candid men might 
 appear equitable for the last four-and-a-half years 
 of his time." 
 
 But other among his scruples, and some of those 
 which wear most the appearance of singularity, are 
 to be traced to that deepened spirituality, which, 
 like an extended natural science, is so continually 
 widening the field of remote, unsuspected affinities, 
 that at last few things stand before it alone or un- 
 allied ; the grandeur of the whole connects them all, 
 and the sense of great or little almost disappears. 
 The things which bear upon man's spiritual and im- 
 mortal destinies are not to be appreciated by num- 
 ber or weight or measure ; and human life, when 
 viewed under its moral significance, assumes the 
 aspect of one of those grand prophetic visions, 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 49 
 
 where "the meanest things of every day," the 
 caldron and the hooks, the measuring-rod and the 
 plumb-line, stand in the closest relation to the 
 opened heaven and the glory of the terrible crystal 
 the throne, and Him that is seated upon it. 
 
 "Thinking often," he says, "of customs which 
 have not their foundation in pure wisdom, the use 
 of hats and garments dyed with a dye hurtful to 
 them, grew uneasy to me. Dyes being invented 
 partly to please the eye, and partly to conceal 
 dirt, I have felt their use to be contrary to the 
 sweetness of sincerity, and to that real cleanliness 
 which becometh a holy people.* Through some 
 sorts of dyes, cloth is rendered less useful; and 
 were the damage and expense of dyeing added 
 together, and the cost applied to keeping all sweet 
 and clean, how much more would real cleanliness 
 prevail ! " 
 
 He tells us how, under the apprehension of being 
 thought singular by beloved friends, he continued in 
 the use of some things contrary to his judgment, 
 and how, after he had provided himself with a hat of 
 
 * Journeying in England, he tells us, that travelling in 
 wet \veather through narrow streets in towns and villages, 
 where dirtiness under foot and the scent arising from that 
 filth, which more or less infests the air of all thickly settled 
 towns, were disagreeable, and being but weakly, I have felt 
 distress both in body and mind with that which is impure. 
 In these journeys I have been where much cloth hath been 
 dyed, and at sundry times walked over ground where much of 
 their dye-stuff has drained away. 77iis hath produced a 
 longing in my mind that people might come into cleanness of 
 spirit, cleanness of person, and cleanness about their houses and 
 garments. 
 
50 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 the natural colour of the fur, "in attending meet- 
 ings its singularity was a trial to me, as at this time 
 white hats were used by some who were fond of 
 following the changeable modes of dress ; and some 
 friends, who knew not from what motives I wore 
 it, grew shy of me, while others thought it savoured 
 of an affected singularity, so that I felt my way 
 for a time shut up in the exercise of the ministry. " 
 
 We see that " concerns " like this, out of all 
 apparent proportion with the subject they refer to, 
 and the rigidly scrupulous temper they grew out 
 of, must at times have seriously impeded his free- 
 dom of action. Once when under a strong religious 
 desire to visit the island of Barbadoes, he cannot 
 feel " clear to take a passage in a vessel employed 
 in the West India trade," connected with slave- 
 grown produce, and finding all vessels thus em- 
 ployed, after a season of deep and protracted 
 perplexity he resigns the project altogether. 
 
 So, in coming over to England, he takes his pas- 
 sage in the steerage, and some friends remonstra- 
 ting with him on the great inconveniences this will 
 expose him to during the voyage, he tells them, 
 "that on the outside of that part of the ship whereon 
 the cabin is, he had observed carved work and ima- 
 gery, and also, within the cabin, superfluities of work- 
 manship of several sorts, and having in the course 
 of many travels seen the sufferings and oppressions 
 that arise from the vain expense to which confor- 
 mity with worldly customs leads, he is not clear to 
 apply any extra money to the cost of keeping up 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 51 
 
 such superfluities." So, too, during his travels in 
 England he abstains from travelling by the stage 
 coaches, because he has heard that the horses are 
 sometimes killed with hard driving, and that post- 
 boys, riding long stages on winter nights, have been 
 frozen to death. Nor would he send letters by the 
 post, because " in the present way of riding, the 
 stages are so fixed, and one boy dependent on 
 another as to time, and going at great speed, that in 
 long, cold, winter nights, the poor boys suffer much." 
 
 These are trials which, think of them each of 
 us as he will, it does not seem desirable to omit, 
 because while they help us to understand John 
 Woolman better, they do not surely make us love 
 or respect him less. 
 
 Having been long under a religious concern to 
 visit friends in the northern parts of England, and 
 more particularly in Yorkshire, he crosses the seas 
 in 1772, and after a voyage of about a month he 
 lands at Dover, and proceeds to London, where he 
 attends the yearly meeting of ministers and elders, 
 and travelling northwards, assisting at meetings on 
 his way, at Northampton, Birmingham, Notting- 
 ham, and many other places of less note, he arrives 
 at Sheffield, and after spending about three months 
 in religious visitations, chiefly, so far as we are guided 
 by his journals, in the counties of Westmoreland and 
 Yorkshire, he arrives at the city of York, to attend 
 the sittings of the quarterly meeting there. But 
 the journeyings, the toils, the anxieties, of this 
 devoted minister of Christ are now nearly over, 
 
52 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 his soul's warfare is accomplished, its long travail 
 satisfied. He is soon to depart hence, and to be 
 with One who forgives much in His servants, but 
 forgets nothing, "of their work of faith, their 
 patience of hope, and their labour which pro- 
 ceedeth of love." Before the meeting was over, he 
 was taken ill of small-pox, which proved fatal, and 
 all that was mortal of John Woolman lies in the 
 Friend's burial-ground at York, "waiting for the 
 coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." It was thought 
 by the friends who attended his death-bed, that it 
 would be well to record some of the many lively 
 and comfortable expressions used then by this 
 humble, meek, charitable, and Christ-like man, and 
 the friend at whose house he died, Thomas Priest- 
 man, has preserved the following minutes of his 
 sickness and his decease : 
 
 " First-day, the i ^th of the Ninth Month, 1772 . 
 His disorder appeared to be the small-pox. Being 
 asked to have a doctor's advice, he signified he had 
 not freedom or liberty in his mind so to do, stand- 
 ing wholly resigned to His will, who gave him life, 
 and whose power he had witnessed to raise and 
 heal him in sickness before, when he seemed nigh 
 unto death ; and if he was to wind up now, he was 
 perfectly resigned, having no will either to live or 
 die, and did not chose any should be sent for to him ; 
 but a young man, an apothecary, coming of his own 
 accord the next day, and desiring to do something 
 for him, he said he found a freedom to confer with 
 him and the other friends about him, and if any- 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 53 
 
 thing should be proposed as to medicine, that did 
 not come through defiled channels or oppressive 
 hands, he should be willing to consider and take it, 
 so far as he found freedom. 
 
 " Second-day. He said he felt the disorder to 
 affect his head, so that he could think little, and 
 but as a child ; and desired, if his understanding 
 should be more affected, to have nothing given him 
 that those about him knew he had a testimony 
 against. 
 
 " Third-day. He uttered the following prayer : 
 * O Lord, my God ! the amazing horrors of dark- 
 ness were gathered around me, and covered me all 
 over, and I saw no way to go forth ; I felt the depth 
 and extent of the misery of my fellow-creatures 
 separated from the divine harmony, and it was 
 heavier than I could bear, and I was crushed down 
 under it ; I lifted up my hand, I stretched out my 
 arm, but there was none to help me ; I looked 
 round about, and was amazed. In the depths of 
 misery, O Lord ! I remembered that TJwu art omni- 
 potent; that I had called Thee Father; and I felt 
 that I loved Thee, and I was made quiet in Thy 
 will, and I waited for deliverance from Thee. 
 Thou hadst pity upon me when no man could help 
 me ; I saw that meekness under suffering was 
 showed to us in the most affecting example of Thy 
 Son, and Thou taught me to follow Him, and I said, 
 Thy will, O Father, be done ! ' 
 
 "Fourth-day, morning. Being asked how he felt 
 himself, he meekly answered, ' I don't know that 
 E 2 
 
54 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 I have slept this night ; I feel the disorder making 
 its progress, but my mind is mercifully preserved 
 in stillness and peace.' Some time after, he said 
 he was sensible that the pains of death must be 
 hard to bear, but if he escaped them now, he must 
 some time pass through them, and he did not know 
 that he could be better prepared, but had no will 
 in it. He said he had settled his outward affairs 
 to his mind, had taken leave of his wife and family 
 as never to return, leaving them to the Divine pro- 
 tection ; adding, ' Though I feel them near to me 
 at this time, yet I freely give them up, having a 
 hope that they will be provided for.' And a little 
 after said, ' This trial is made easier than I could 
 have thought, my will being wholly taken away ; 
 if I was anxious for the event it would have been 
 harder ; but I am not, and my mind enjoys a per- 
 fect calm.' 
 
 " In the night, a young woman having given him 
 something to drink, he said, ' My child, thou 
 seemest very kind to me, a poor creature ; the 
 Lord will reward thee for it.' Awhile after, he 
 cried out, with great earnestness of spirit, ' Oh, my 
 Father ! my Father ! ' and soon after he said, 
 < Oh, my Father ! my Father ! how comfortable art 
 Thou to my soul in this trying season!' Being 
 asked if he could take a little nourishment, after 
 some pause, he replied, < My child, I cannot tell 
 what to say to it; I seem nearly arrived where my 
 soul shall have rest from all its troubles.' After 
 giving in something to be inserted in his journal, 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 55 
 
 he said, ' I believe the Lord will now excuse me 
 from exercises of this kind ; and I see no work but 
 one, which is to be the last wrought by me in this 
 world ; the messenger will come that will release 
 me from all these troubles, but it must be in the 
 Lord's time, which I am waiting for.' He said he 
 had laboured to do whatever was required, accord- 
 ing to the ability received; in the remembrance 
 of which he had peace : and though the disorder 
 was strong at times, and would like a whirlwind 
 come over his mind, yet it had hitherto been kept 
 steady, and centred in everlasting love ; adding, 
 /' And if that be mercifully continued, I ask and 
 desire no more.' Another time, he said he had 
 long had a view of visiting this nation, and some- 
 time before he came, had a dream, in which he 
 saw himself in the northern parts of it, and that 
 the spring of the gospel was opened in him much 
 as it was in the beginning of the work among 
 Friends, as in the times of George Fox and 
 William Dewsbury, and he saw the different states 
 of the people, as clear as he had ever seen 
 flowers in a garden ; but in his going along he was 
 suddenly stopped, though he could not see for 
 what end ; but looking towards home, fell into a 
 flood of tears, which waked him. 
 
 " At another time, he said, ' My draught seemed 
 strongest towards the north, and I mentioned in 
 my own monthly meeting, that attending the 
 quarterly meeting at York, and being there, looked 
 like home to me.' 
 
56 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 " Fifth-day, night. Having repeatedly consented 
 to take medicine with a view to settle his stomach, 
 but without effect ; the friend then waiting on 
 him said through distress, * What shall I do now ? ' 
 He answered, with great composure, ' Rejoice 
 evermore, and in everything give thanks;' but 
 added a little after, 'This is sometimes hard to 
 come at.' 
 
 " On Sixth-day morning, he broke forth early in 
 supplication on this wise : * O Lord, it was Thy 
 power that enabled me to forsake sin in my youth, 
 and I have felt Thy bruises for disobedience ; but as 
 I bowed under them Thou healedst me, continuing 
 a Father and a Friend ; I feel Thy power now, and 
 I beg that in the approaching trying moment, Thou 
 wilt keep my heart steadfast unto Thee.' On his 
 giving directions to a friend concerning some little 
 things, she said, ' I will take care, but hope thou 
 wilt live to order them thyself.' He replied, 'My 
 hope is in Christ; and though I may seem a little 
 better, a change in the disorder may soon happen, 
 and my little strength be dissolved, and if it so 
 happen, I shall be gathered to my everlasting rest.' 
 On her saying she did not doubt that, but could 
 not help mourning to see so many faithful servants 
 removed at so low a time, he said, 'All good 
 cometh from the Lord, whose power is the same, 
 and He can work as He sees best.' The same day 
 he had given directions about wrapping his corpse ; 
 perceiving a friend to weep, he said, ' I would 
 rather thou wouldest guard against weeping for me, 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 57 
 
 my sister; I sorrow not, though I have had some 
 painful conflicts, but now they seem over, and 
 matters well settled, and I look at the face of my 
 dear Redeemer, for sweet is His voice, and His 
 countenance is comely.' 
 
 "First-day, tfh of Tenth Month. Being very 
 weak, and in- general difficult to be understood, he 
 uttered a few words in commemoration of the 
 Lord's goodness ; and added, ' How tenderly have 
 I been waited on in this time of affliction, in which 
 I may say, in Job's words, " Tedious days and 
 wearisome nights are appointed to me;" and how 
 many are spending their time and money in vanity 
 and superfluities, while thousands and tens of 
 thousands want the necessaries of life, who might 
 be relieved by them, and their distresses, at such 
 a time as this, in some degree softened by the 
 administering of suitable things/ 
 
 " Second-day , morning. The apothecary, who 
 appeared very anxious to assist him, being present, 
 he questioned as to the probability of such a load 
 of matter being thrown off his weak body; and the 
 apothecary making some remarks, implying he 
 thought it might, he spoke with an audible voice 
 on this wise : 'My dependence is on the Lord Jesus, 
 who I trust will forgive my sins, which is all I hope 
 for; and, if it be His will to raise up this body 
 again, I am content ; and if to die, I am resigned ; 
 but if thou canst not be easy without trying to 
 assist nature, I submit.' After which, his throat 
 was so much affected, that it was very difficult for 
 
58 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 him to speak so as to be understood, and he 
 frequently wrote when he wanted anything. About 
 the second hour on Fourth-day morning, he asked 
 for pen and ink, and at several times, with much 
 difficulty, wrote thus : i I believe my being here is 
 in the wisdom of Christ ; I know not as to life or 
 death.' 
 
 " About a quarter before six, the same morning 
 he seemed to fall into an easy sleep, which con- 
 tinued about half-an-hour, when, seeming to awake, 
 he breathed a few times with more difficulty, and 
 expired without sigh, groan, or struggle." 
 
 " The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the 
 effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for 
 
 ever" 
 
JOHN WOOLMAN. 59 
 
 " It is not blessedness to know that thou thyself art bless'd, 
 True joy was never yet by one, nor yet by two, possess'd. 
 
 " Nor to the many is it given ', but only to the all. 
 
 The joy that leaves one heart unbkss'd woula be for mine too 
 small ; 
 
 " For when my spirit most was bless'd, to know another 
 
 griev'd 
 Would take away the joy from all that I myself received. 
 
 " Nor would I seek to blunt that pain, forgetting others' woe; 
 From knowledge, not from want of thought, true blessed- 
 ness must grow. 
 
 " For blessedness I find this earth of ours is then no place, 
 Where still the happiest man must meet his brother's griev- 
 ing face. 
 
 " And only in one thought I find a joy I never miss, 
 In faith to know all grief below will grow to final bliss. 
 
 " And he who holds this faith will strive with firm and ardent 
 
 soul, 
 To work out his own proper good in working for the Whole. 
 
 " God only sees this perfect good, the way to it is dim ; 
 God only then is truly blest, man only blest in Him." 
 
 Riickerfs Wisdom of the Brahmins. 
 
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 OVERDUE. 
 
VA 04124 
 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 981031 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY