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ful nurse, nor did she long survive him. Was it a sadly tender Puritan idyl that led her, in her father's words, "to be helpful to him in his weak and low state"? If so the idyl included the idea of selfsacrifice and loving service toward a man of God; for the young people were alike in their sincere devotion to duty. On her death-bed the young girl said, her father tells us, that she had "not seen one minute for several years, wherein she desired to live one minute longer, for the sake of any other good in life, but doing good, living to God, and doing what might be for his glory." Brainerd was like-minded; Edwards says, in his Account of the Life of the Reverend Mr. David Brainerd : "Among very many other extraordinary expressions, which he then [on his death-bed] utter'd, were such as these: 'My Heaven is to please God, and glorify him, and to give all to him, and to be wholly devoted to his Glory; that is the Heaven I long for; that is my Religion, and that is my Happiness; and always was ever since I suppose I had any true Religion ; and all those that are of that Religion shall meet me in Heaven. It is impossible for rational Creature to be happy without acting all for God: God himself could not make him happy any other Way. There is nothing in the World worth living for but doing Good, and finishing God's work, doing the work that Christ did." This was the spirit that led Brainerd through his little life of devotion and self-sacrifice; this finally emancipated him from wicked self-analysis in the garb of piety; and this preserved and made profitable to many an

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American reader his celebrated " Diary," often reprinted. The book has no high literary merit, but it is the record of a faithful heart, and therefore it long kept near to the heart of American humanity. There is but one Holy Catholic Church, and its true members may be Puritan or Romanist, Waldensian or Quaker.

Another Christian diarist, as devout and earnest as Brainerd, but more serene and self-poised, and the master of a purer literary style, was the Quaker, John John Woolman. It was of him that Charles Woolman, 1720-1772. Lamb said: "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart." It would not be easy, nor, of course, would it be worth while, to memorize a journal filling two hundred and thirty printed pages, Lamb-a too-enthusiastic critic of his favorite authors-was merely saying that Woolman's Journal is pure, true, and high, and therefore, in its way, beautiful. Crabb Robinson calls it "a perfect gem"; he declares its style" of the most exquisite purity and grace;" and, best of all, Woolman's 'religion was love. His whole existence and all his passions were love. If one could venture to impute to his creed, and not to his personal character, the delightful frame of mind he exhibited, one could not hesitate to be a convert." Channing, who had some personal and literary qualities like Woolman's, called the Journal beyond comparison the purest and sweetest autobiography in the language. Clearly, a Friend had won a place in American literature. The other of the two prominent American authors belonging to the Friends-John Green

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leaf Whittier says that in editing Woolman's pages (Boston edition of 1871) he was awed and solemnized by the presence of a serene and beautiful spirit.

These are strong words-too strong, I fearabout this New Jersey clerk, school-teacher, tailor, itinerant Friend, preacher, early anti-slavery advocate, all of whose writings have faded from memory save this Journal. But if we open the record at random we see a good man, living for God in the world, and ranging in his tender sympathies from little things to great. Hear him in the last year of his life, sailing to England to die:

"Second of sixth month.-Some fowls yet remained of those the passengers took for their sea-store. I believe about fourteen perished in the storms at sea by the waves breaking over the quarter-deck, and a considerable number with sickness at different times. I observed the cocks crew as we came down the Delaware, and while we were near the land, but afterwards I think I did not hear one of them crow till we came near the English coast, when they again crowed a few times. In observing their dull appearance at sea, and the pining sickness of some of them, I often remembered the Fountain of goodness, who gave being to all creatures, and whose love extends to caring for the sparrows. I believe where the love of God is verily perfected, and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness towards all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great Creator intends for them under our government.

"Fourth of sixth month.-Wet weather, high winds, and so dark that we could see but a little way. I per

ceived our seamen were apprehensive of the danger of missing the channel, which I understood was

In a while it grew lighter, and they saw the land and knew where we were. Thus the Father of Mercies was pleased to try us with the sight of dangers, and then graciously, from time to time, deliver us from them; thus sparing our lives, that in humility and reverence we might walk before him and put our trust in him. About noon a pilot came off from Dover, where my beloved friend Samuel Emlen went on shore and thence to London, about seventy-two miles by land; but I felt easy in staying in the ship.

"Seventh of sixth month and first of the week.—A clear morning, we lay at anchor for the tide, and had a parting meeting with the ship's company, in which my heart was enlarged in a fervent concern for them, that they may come to experience salvation through Christ. Had a head-wind up the Thames; lay sometimes at anchor; saw many ships passing, and some at anchor near; and I had large opportunity of feeling the spirit in which the poor bewildered sailors too generally live. That lamentable degeneracy which so much prevails in the people employed on the seas so affected my heart that I cannot easily convey the feeling I had to another.

"The present state of the seafaring life in general appears so opposite to that of a pious education, so full of corruption and extreme alienation from God, so full of the most dangerous examples to young people, that in looking towards a young generation I feel a care for them, that they may have an education different from the present one of lads at sea, and that all of us who are acquainted with the pure gospel spirit may lay this case to heart, may remember the lamentable corruptions which attend the conveyance of merchandise across the seas, and so abide in the love of Christ that, being delivered from the entangling expenses of a curious, delicate, and luxurious life, we may learn contentment with a little, and pro

mote the seafaring life no further than that spirit which leads into all truth attends us in our proceedings.' "'*

In the very year of Woolman's death was born he who sang, as it were in unconscious commemoration of this good Friend:

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*Woolman's "Journal," Whittier's edition, Boston, 1871; pp. 254-256

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