Here are some of my gleanings:

Woolman was a puritan, and sometimes comes off as a crank. Writing about a magic show that was advertised, he treats entertainment with the same contempt and Christian scorn as slavery and cheating Indians. On St. Patrick’s Day, my wife told me St. Woolman’s Day would be a lot less fun!

On the other hand, Woolman constantly and devoutly struggles to be faithful to his own leadings. Thomas Kelley’s characterization of Woolman is piously misleading: Woolman did not discover or follow his concerns for simplicity, slavery, the poor, and moral purity without great inner turmoil. The record of his prayer life shows significant volatility, struggle, and humanness. Contrary to what you wrote above about the transatlantic voyage, the Woolman of the journal seems to constantly beg God for a sense of “resignation.” The voice is almost like Jesus’s anguish in Gethsemane, with a bitter awareness that the servant isn’t above his master.

That said, I’m not sure what weight I should give Woolman’s self-portrait. Many early Friends’ journals are unreliable. As Chuck Fager says: “They may have been ‘Friends of Truth,’ but they didn’t let that get in the way of making the stories and the facts fit their preconceptions and prejudices.”

I’d be interested in what counterpoint the Slaughter book offers.

The journal isn’t capable of addressing your unanswered questions from the book, which interest me as well. The golden age of Quaker abolitionism is such an intoxicating myth to FGC Quakers today that it’s origin among divergent Friends like Woolman seems to receive little attention.