Introductory Note导言

John woolman was born at Northampton, N. J., in 1720, and died at York, England, in 1772. He was the child of Quaker parents, and from his youth was a zealous member of the Society of Friends. His “Journal,” published posthumously in 1774, sufficiently describes his way of life and the spirit in which he did his work; but his extreme humility prevents him from making clear the importance of the part he played in the movement against slaveholding among the Quakers.约翰·伍尔曼一七二〇年生于新泽西州北安普顿，一七七二年卒于英国约克。他的父母是贵格会信徒，他从青年时代起便是教友会的热诚成员。他的《日记》在他去世后一七七四年出版，已经充分说明了他的生活方式以及他工作的精神；但他极度谦逊，使他没有清楚说明自己在贵格会反对蓄奴运动中所起作用的重要性。

During the earlier years of their settlement in America, the Friends took part in the traffic in slaves with apparently as little hesitation as their fellow colonists; but in 1671 George Fox, visiting the Barbados, was struck by the inconsistency of slave-holding with the religious principles of his Society. His protests, along with those of others, led to the growth of an agitation which spread from section to section. In 1742, Woolman, then a young clerk in the employment of a storekeeper in New Jersey, was asked to make out a bill of sale for a negro woman; and the scruples which then occurred to him were the beginning of a life-long activity against the traffic. Shortly afterward he began his laborious foot-journeys, pleading everywhere with his co-religionists, and inspiring others to take up the crusade. The result of the agitation was that the various Yearly Meetings one by one decided that emancipation was a religious duty; and within twenty years after Woolman’s death the practise of slavery had ceased in the Society of Friends. But his influence did not stop there, for no small part of the enthusiasm of the general emancipation movement is traceable to his labors.教友会早年在美洲定居时，显然也像其他殖民者一样，几乎毫不迟疑地参与奴隶贸易；但一六七一年，乔治·福克斯访问巴巴多斯时，注意到蓄奴同教友会的宗教原则并不一致。他和其他人的抗议，促成了一场逐地扩展的运动。 一七四二年，伍尔曼当时还是新泽西一位店主雇用的年轻店员，有人请他为一名黑人妇女写卖契；那时在他心中产生的疑虑，成为他终身反对奴隶贸易活动的开端。不久以后，他开始艰辛的徒步旅程，到处劝说同信仰者，并激励其他人加入这场运动。 这场运动的结果是，各地年会相继认定解放奴隶是一项宗教义务；伍尔曼去世后二十年内，教友会中蓄奴的做法已经停止。但他的影响并未止于此，因为一般解放运动中相当一部分热忱，都可以追溯到他的努力。

His own words in this “Journal,” of an extraordinary simplicity and charm, are the best expression of a personality which in its ardor, purity of motive, breadth of sympathy, and clear spiritual insight, gives Woolman a place among the uncanonized saints of America.在这部《日记》中，他自己的文字具有非凡的朴素和魅力，最能表现他的个性：热忱、动机纯洁、同情广阔、灵性洞察清明。这些品质使伍尔曼在美国未被正式封圣的圣徒之列中占有一席之地。