_John Woolman._--It is no slight distinction attaching to American literature for the period of the Revolution, that in a time so often characterised as barren of important literary achievement, were produced two of the most perfect examples of autobiography to be met with in any literature. One of these, of course, is Franklin’s _Autobiography_, the first, the largest, and the best part of which was written in 1771,--a work that has long since taken its place among the most celebrated and most widely read of modern books. Almost at the very time at which that fascinating story was begun, the other great example of autobiography in our Revolutionary literature was finished--_The Journal of John Woolman_, a book which William Ellery Channing long afterward described as “beyond comparison the sweetest and purest autobiography in the language.” It is a notable fact, however, that while these two masterpieces in the same form of literature are products of the same period, they are, in respect of personal quality, very nearly antipodal to each other; for, as Franklin’s account of himself delineates a career of shrewd and somewhat selfish geniality, of unperturbed carnal content, of kindly systematic and most successful worldliness, so the autobiography of Woolman sets forth a career which turns out to be one of utter unworldliness, of entire self-effacement, all in obedience to an Unseen Leadership, and in meek and most tender devotion to the happiness of others--especially slaves, poor toiling white people, and speechless creatures unable to defend themselves against the inhumanity of man. John Woolman, who was of a spirit so unpresuming that he would have wondered and have been troubled to be told that any writing of his was ever to be dealt with as literature, was born in 1720 in Northampton, New Jersey, his father being a farmer, and of the Society of Friends. Until his twenty-first year, he lived at home with his parents, and, as he expressed it, “wrought on the plantation.” Having reached his majority, he took employment in the neighbouring village of Mount Holly, in a shop for general merchandise. In this occupation he passed several years; after which he began to give himself almost wholly to the true work of his life--that of an apostle, with a need to go from land to land in fulfilment of his apostleship, and able, like one of the greatest of all apostles, to minister to his own necessities by the labours of a lowly trade. For, long before he set out upon these travels, even from his early childhood, he had entered, as he thought, into the possession of certain treasures of the spirit which he could not hoard up for himself alone,--which, if he could but share them with others, would make others rich and happy beyond desire or even imagination.