JOHN WOOLMAN’S RELIGION
Strikingly different in almost every respect are the life and aims of John Woolman. “There was a care on my mind,” he writes, “so to pass my time that nothing might hinder me from the most steady attention to the voice of the true Shepherd.”〖H. C., i, 180.〗 This is the guiding principle of a life so inconspicuous in its outward circumstances and immediate rewards that we cannot possibly apply to it that somewhat worldly and dubious word “career,” yet so steadily and unconsciously holy as to deserve our most affectionate regard.
Even as a young man Woolman began to be troubled by his own sins and by the dissolute life of many around him. Sometimes he felt moved to speak to others of their manner of life; oftener he concerned himself only with his own shortcomings and found that although “nature was feeble,” yet “every trial was a fresh incitement to give himself up wholly to the service of God.”〖H. C., i, 176.〗 From the humility of Woolman’s utterances one can hardly doubt that his own sins were less grave than he felt them to be, or that his warnings to others had no touch of the pharisaical about them, but came from a heart that unaffectedly desired the good of all men.