FRIENDS OF FREEDOM. 
 
 "It is said that the evil spirytes that ben in the regyon, doubte moche when they 
 here the Bells rongen : and this is the cause why the Bells ben rongen, whan grete 
 tempeste and outrages of wether happen, to the end that the fiends and wycked spirytes 
 should be abashed and flee. The Golden Legend, by Wynkyn de Words. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY FAIR. 
 MDCCCXLVI.
 
 Boston : Andrews, Prentiss & Studley, 
 No. 11 Devonshire Street.
 
 A I i-t, * 
 
 A Fragment, .... 
 Onward ! Right Onward ! 
 The True Reformer, . . ' '.' 
 
 GEORGE THOMPSON. 
 WILLIAM HOWITT. 
 WILLIAM P. ATKINSON. 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 1-2 
 1!) 
 
 A Parable, . 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 at 
 
 The Poet of Miletus, . 
 
 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 gj 
 
 - Fugitive Slaves in Northern Ohio, 
 
 J. R. CIDDIXGS. 
 
 77 
 
 Our Country, .... 
 
 ....> . ANONYMOUS. 
 
 :',7 
 
 Thought, . 
 
 . SUSAN C. CABOT.. 
 
 40 
 
 Interference, .... 
 
 . A CLERGYMAN. 
 
 47 
 
 AH are Needed, . . . JA 
 
 NE ELIZABETH HITCHCOCK. 
 
 50 
 
 -">! 
 
 Letter, 
 
 THOMAS CLARKSOX. 
 
 SB 
 
 Song, for the Friends of Freedom, 
 
 ELIZA LEE FOLLEN. 
 
 65 
 
 A Communication, . 
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAtT. 
 
 '& 
 
 Our Duty, 
 
 BENJAMIN 3. JONES. 
 
 72 
 
 Extract from a Speech, . 
 
 SAMUEL J. MAT. 
 
 73 
 
 Sonnets, 
 
 GEORGE THOMPSON. 
 
 77 
 
 The Liberty Bell, . 
 
 S. MARGARET FULLER. 
 
 80 
 
 A Fragment, .... 
 
 JANE E. HORNBLOWER. 
 
 89 
 
 Pro-Slavery Appeal, 
 
 JAMES HAUGHTON. 
 
 :)3 
 
 Jubilee, . . . ; 
 
 ALLEN C. SPOONER. 
 
 103 
 
 Discouragements and Incentives, 
 Stanzas, . 
 
 ALLEN C. SPOONER. 
 
 :o7 
 
 117
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 A Vision of the Fathers, .... JOHN w. BROWNE. 120 
 
 A Remonstrance, ALARIC A. WATTS. 131 
 
 The Dream within a Dream, E. LEE. 134 
 
 Think of the Slave, . . . . . JOHN BOWRING. 144 
 
 Self-Denial, WILLIAM H. FDRNESS. 146 
 
 ..Fight On! WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 165 
 
 Some Passages from the Poetry of Life, . MART HOWITT. 166 
 
 'Sonnet Character, . . WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 184' 
 
 The Church WENDELL PHILLIES. 185 
 
 Lines to Trans-Atlantic Friends, , . DANIEL RICKKTSON. 192 
 
 Recollections of Anti-Slavery at the West, c. M. KIRKLAND. 195 
 
 PhffibeMallory; the Last of the Slaves, . EDMUND O.UINCY. 204 , 
 
 The Falconer, j. R, LOWELL. 241 \r 
 
 Is there any Friend ? . ADIN BALLOU. 245 
 
 The Slave-Mother, MARIA LOWELL. 250 
 
 What is Anti-Slavery Work ? . . LUCRETIA MOTT. 253' 
 
 " God and Liberty," CASSIUS M. CLAY.- 258 - 
 
 Influence de 1'emigration Europeenne, . . LINSTANT. 260 
 
 Sonnet in Memory of Elizabeth Fry, ANNE WARREN WESTON. 264 
 
 The Worst Evil of Slavery, . . . WILLIAM HOWITT: 265

 
 Jrcujnunt, 
 
 VERBATIM ET LITERATIM FROM MY JOURNAL IN UPPER 
 INDIA. 
 
 BY GEORGE THOMPSON. 
 
 AROUL, Upper India, ) 
 
 Tuesday, July 4, 1843, 5 o'clock, A. M. J 
 
 I AM now forty miles from Cawnpore, and 
 so much nearer to the imperial city of Delhi, 
 I have had my early cup of tea, and am sit- 
 ting on the outside of the bungalow, with my 
 
 book upon my knee, and my inkstand on the 
 
 1
 
 2 EXTRACT FROM JOURNAL 
 
 ground. How delightful was my journey, 
 from the time I started from Cawnpore, twelve 
 hours ago, until it grew dark. The recent rain 
 made the air truly delicious. On the outside 
 of the station I passed through a large native 
 bazaar, belonging to the two regiments of se- 
 poys now at Cawnpore. I was soon in the 
 open country. How beautiful the evening! 
 How gorgeous the sky after the rain ! 
 
 Vapors more lovely than the unclouded sky, 
 With golden pinnacles and snowy mountains, 
 And billows purpler than the ocean's, making 
 In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth ! 
 
 I have enjoyed no part of my journey more 
 than this. Thanks to the young officer at 
 Benares, who would make me accept a copy 
 of Byron's works. I have been feasting upon 
 the contents of Murray's splendid volume ever 
 since. As long as I could see, I sat up in my 
 palankeen reading the magnificent tragedy of 
 Sardanapalus, ever and anon pausing to gaze
 
 IN TIPPER INDIA. 
 
 upon the scene around me. Though accom- 
 panied by more than twenty men, noisily 
 gabbling or rudely singing in panting and 
 groaning accents to the motion of the palan- 
 keen, yet I felt myself alone. The sepoy 
 passes and makes his reverential salaam. The 
 Hindoo woman, all grace and serenity, averts 
 her face, draws her veil over her head and 
 pursues her way. We stop at the well that 
 the thirsty bearers may have water. I leave 
 my palankeen for a few moments, that I may 
 survey the scene. The shepherd boy is driv- 
 ing home his flock, lingering at intervals while 
 the sheep or the goats crop the green blades 
 that lie scattered in their path. Beneath yon 
 far-spreading trees are groups of travellers, 
 who have lighted their evening fires, and are 
 kneading cakes for supper. The horses are 
 tethered, the bullocks are unyoked, and there 
 stands the sagacious elephant, making a hearty 
 meal of jungle grass. Swarms of Pariah dogs
 
 4 EXTRACT FROM JOURNAL 
 
 are hovering round. We are again upon the 
 road. The fires we have left behind are faint- 
 ly glimmering in the distance. The solitary 
 jackal is furtively stealing across the field for 
 the adjacent jungle. Parrots in myriads are 
 winging their way to their roosting place. The 
 frogs are hoarsely croaking in every ditch. 
 The stately adjutant is standing alone in the 
 centre of the pool lately made by the rain. 
 The glorious sun is sinking fast. He is gone, 
 and the crescent moon has taken his place. 
 
 The fourth of July! My mind is carried 
 back to the scenes of 1835. How vivid they 
 are. It seems but yesterday that I stood in the 
 chapel at Providence, Rhode Island, and de- 
 livered my address against American slavery. 
 O, how I love America ! Nothing can exceed 
 my affection for that country save my deep 
 abhorrence of her slavery. Let me speak to 
 her from this lonely spot :
 
 IN UPPER INDIA. 
 
 And canst thou, America, say thou art free, 
 
 With the scourge in thy hand and the slave on his knee? 
 
 And canst thou in words of self-flattery deal, 
 
 While in flesh thou canst traffic, and plunder and steal ? 
 
 Thou art free ; yet in fetters the vilest and worst : 
 Thou art free, but still slave to thy passions accurst : 
 Thou art free to do well, but hast sold unto sin 
 That power, which used nobly, a world's praise might 
 win. 
 
 Thou art free ; but thy freedom hath steeped thee in 
 
 crime, 
 
 And given thee a stain that will linger through time ; 
 Thou hast freedom abused, thou hast bound it to guilt 
 That freedom for which thy sires' hearts' blood was spilt. 
 
 That power which thy freedom so bravely achieved, 
 Should the fetter have broken the captive relieved ; 
 But thou basely hast used it to rivet a chain 
 On the sons of the soil on the field of the slain. 
 
 What has Liberty gained, then, by what thou hast won ? 
 What gained, but disgrace, and a name she must shun ? 
 Thy freedom is selfish, and cruel, and base 
 A libel, a scorn, and a curse to thy race ! 
 1*
 
 6 EXTRACT FROM JOURNAL. 
 
 On this day thou wilt talk of the chains thou hast worn; 
 While around thee three millions in slavery mourn. 
 Thou wilt rail at the nation that held thee in thrall ; 
 Then banquet in many a slave crowded hall. 
 
 The nation whose fetters thou long since hast spurned, 
 Has to penitence, mercy, and righteousness turned ; 
 Whilst thou in thy vauntings, hast lived till this day, 
 To make men in God's image thy spoil and thy prey. 
 
 But, let not my censure descend upon those 
 Who cease not from labor who ask no repose 
 While their brethren in bondage continue to groan 
 And for liberty, silently, helplessly moan. 
 
 This day is, with them, one of fasting and prayer : 
 They are stricken with anguish, and burdened with care: 
 They pity the slave, and the man, in his pride, 
 Who of liberty boasts, with that slave by his side. 
 
 Ye martyr-like spirits ! who, firm to your vow, 
 Have not fainted through years, and are bold even now; 
 Take courage ! for soon shall the Liberty Bell, 
 Sound the advent of freedom, and slavery's knell.
 
 ONWARD ! RIGHT ONWARD ! 
 
 ! Huj!)t (Dnroarfo! 
 
 BY W I L 1 1 AM H O W I T T . 
 
 A little onward lend thy guiding hand 
 
 To these dark steps, a little further on MILTON. 
 
 ONWARD ! a little on ! 
 Oh ceaseless language of our restless lot ! 
 
 Yes ! till we hence are gone, 
 Onward we press and hope we know not what. 
 
 Onward, right onward still ! 
 For what ? To dream, to trifle, to grow 
 cold? 
 
 To lose life's first pure thrill, 
 And alienate hearts for unsufficing gold ? 
 
 To run the petty round 
 Of petty wants, of labor and of ease ? 
 
 To pant for glory's sound, 
 And scorn the crowd we perish e'en to please ?
 
 8 ONWARD ! EIGHT ONWARD ! 
 
 To be what most we shun ? 
 All that we fear to feel, or loathe to find ? 
 
 To yield up, one by one, 
 
 Life's gifts, strength, beauty, mastership of 
 mind? 
 
 Oh no ! for somewhat more ! 
 Quick Power who still criest " On, through 
 fire or flood ! " 
 
 Dwell in my spirit's core, 
 For He who sent thee glorious is and good. 
 
 Speed on ! 't is not in vain ! 
 Knowledge and boundless love are on thy wing. 
 
 Are we not taught through pain 
 That man's frail heart is still a holy thing ? 
 
 Life comes but once on earth ; 
 But once is given the battle's glorious field 
 
 Where we may prove our birth 
 Is godlike, and for God lift spear and shield.
 
 ONWARD ! EIGHT ONWARD ! 
 
 For God and brother man 
 May lift the shield and fight the holy fight 
 
 Which Christ himself began, 
 And hero-saints have waged for the right. 
 
 Here sits the slave in chains ; 
 Here cry the oppressed, and here the oppres- 
 sor stalks 
 
 Proudly abroad, and stains 
 With crime the earth where suffering virtue 
 walks. 
 
 And 'tis for this we live ! 
 To smite the oppressor with the words of 
 power : 
 
 To bid the tyrant give 
 Back to his brother heaven's allotted hour. 
 
 To raise, to unloose ; to rend 
 Sorrows and bonds from spirit and from limb ; 
 
 To call on God, and spend 
 The day he gives, for Freedom and for Him !
 
 10 ONWARD ! RIGHT ONWARD ! 
 
 And doing this we die ! 
 Done or undone, he conies who never waits : 
 
 Down drops the day, and high 
 Lift themselves up the broad, eternal gates. 
 
 And there the expectant throng 
 The great, the immortal throng of those who win 
 
 Glory from vanquished wrong, 
 Crowd to the porch, and watch our entrance in. 
 
 And eagerly they ask 
 " Where is thy trophy now thy fight is o'er ? 
 
 One trial and one task 
 How hast thou stood where thou canst stand 
 
 And there is joy, or tears 
 And a deep silence, o'er a frustrate life ; 
 
 O'er vainly-given years ; 
 A soul unhonored in the mortal strife. 
 
 Then on ! for this we live ! 
 To smite th' oppressor with the words of power :
 
 ONWARD ! EIGHT ONWARD! 11 
 
 To bid the tyrant give 
 Back to his brother heaven's allotted hour. 
 
 And thou, oh God of love ! 
 " A little onward lend thy guiding hand ! " 
 
 Oh ! stretch it from above, 
 That giant-like we for the right may stand ! 
 
 May stand, and to the death 
 Dare tyranny in million-marching hosts, 
 
 And shout with dauntless breath 
 Defiance to his curses and his boasts. 
 
 Then onward ! till the veil 
 Of the unknown eternity be rent. 
 
 There shall no promise fail ; 
 There the true soul reap measureless content. 
 
 And most of all in this 
 That it shall see how surely all things tend 
 
 To Freedom's victories 
 How men may fall, but God lives to the end. 
 
 Clapton, England.
 
 12 THE TRITE REFORMER. 
 
 Stye tote Heformo;. 
 
 BY WILLIAM P. ATKINSON. 
 
 THE true Reformer is the man upon whose 
 mind the light of great truths has fallen before 
 it has reached the mass of his fellow-men, 
 and who feels called of God to shed it abroad 
 into the darkness. Is this a presumptuous 
 definition ? The man who does not yet realize 
 the darkness, who still yields to the authority 
 of antiquated error, who is not strong enough 
 in his own convictions to stand firmly up before 
 all the power of numbers, the dignity of great 
 names, and the false brightness with which 
 society gilds her errors, who cannot meet even 
 the wise and great of his opponents, and hi all 
 modesty, but with all firmness, though he be 
 an humble man, tell them of their blindness ;
 
 THE TRUE REFORMER. 13 
 
 he who cannot do this, is not himself reform- 
 ed. For there is something enlightening, as 
 well as strengthening and ennobling in the 
 conscientious holding of unpopular truth. He 
 who from his heart believes it, that it is of 
 God, and most precious to his brethren, though 
 they will not receive it, his eyes are unsealed 
 to the reality of things ; he can no longer be 
 cheated by their surface. In the clear light 
 of high principle, all things take their real 
 shape, and appear to him in true proportions. 
 The palaces of pride dwindle to insignificance, 
 the venerable garb drops from consecrated 
 errors, authority becomes an idle word, and 
 the rulers of the world, brute force and cunning 
 intellect, take their true place, the servants of 
 moral power. 
 
 He sees through the great shows that are 
 all about him, and can understand how one 
 can chase a thousand and two put ten thousand 
 
 to flight, and seeing this, he feels the dignity, 
 2
 
 14 THE TRUE KEFORMER. 
 
 the sacredness of his position. He will be 
 slow to descend from the eminence whereon 
 Truth has placed him, but in the face of her 
 enemies he will speak her words, and then 
 with pity, but without fear, will stand then- 
 onset, knowing how feeble they are. 
 
 Shall what has been said be modified be- 
 cause the Reformer is a man, fallible and 
 erring like his opponents? No, let it stand, 
 for this does not change its truth. For he who 
 " above himself does not erect himself," who 
 through a pure life, and strenuous self-denial, 
 and earnest prayer, does not for the time 
 become infallible in his convictions, strong 
 against the assaults even of his own weak- 
 nesses, tempting him to doubt, he is not yet a 
 true Reformer. True, he is a man, weak and 
 finite ; but let him have put aside all selfish 
 ends, purified his mind from that hatred and 
 contempt of persons which even a righteous 
 indignation may produce, elevated himself to
 
 THE TRUE REFORMER. 15 
 
 the dignity of a true lover of liis brethren, 
 then in the depth of his conviction, he may 
 say that here is a spark of truth which he has 
 made his own. All other knowledge may be 
 false; this is true; and he will feel within 
 him the authority to declare it. He can hardly 
 fail to reach the truth, who seeks it so. 
 
 But yet, as he is a man, feeble and fallible, 
 and as with his best convictions there must 
 be some alloy of error, let him above all be 
 humble; no thanksgiver that he is not as 
 other men, no despiser of his brethren for their 
 littleness and sin. Yet what is this but to 
 say, let him be a Christian 
 
 "The best of men 
 
 That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer, 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; 
 The first true gentle-man that ever breathed." 
 
 True, when he stands forth the champion of 
 the oppressed, when he pours the truth into 
 unwilling ears, when he rebukes the great in
 
 16 THE TRUE REFORMER. 
 
 high places, and stands in the face of danger, 
 he is great, and he cannot but feel the dignity 
 of his mission. But, alas for him ! he too is a 
 man, and in the recesses of his heart there is 
 that may well make him say, ' not unto me ! ' 
 
 He will be humble then if he is truly strong. 
 And true humility will set him above the 
 proud, for there is a modest holding of the 
 truth which no error can withstand. Let the 
 knave, and the coward, and the weak darken 
 counsel with many words ; they cannot bear 
 one firm and simple answer. It is only the 
 weak who boast of their strength; but the 
 strength of the strong shows itself in every 
 muscle and the slightest movement. 
 
 How shall he treat his opponents? He 
 cannot dwell forever in abstractions. How 
 shall he not bear testimony against his broth- 
 er's sin ? Men can afford to hear the praises 
 of virtue and the rebuke of abstract vice, and 
 their sins shall flourish none the less. Are
 
 THE TRUE REFORMER. 17 
 
 there not churches in the land ? But let him 
 bring home the charge, say ' thou art the man,' 
 call the devil Satan, his own countrymen men- 
 stealers, their abettors false and time-servers, 
 the preacher a blind guide and alas for him, 
 be it never so true ! He has done but his 
 duty, but fanatic and pestilent fellow shall be 
 his mildest names, and persecution his reward. 
 But let him not despair. He leads the world. 
 Afar off, the tide of moral life swells up at 
 his rebuke, and sooner or later all men shall 
 follow him. 
 
 How will he look upon the future ? With- 
 out fear and with a firm trust, for he can see 
 into the truth of things, how weak, for all its 
 show, is error, how baseless, though seeming 
 never so strong, are all institutions that are not 
 founded in eternal right. Noiselessly shall 
 true religion pervade the world, finding a 
 home in more and more true hearts, daily 
 
 increasing the army of the good, wiping away 
 2*
 
 18 THE TRUE REFORMER. 
 
 the stains of evil, healing the wounds it 
 makes, till the world shall change, we know 
 not how. Her visible and startling effects are 
 the smallest part of her good work : her strong- 
 est influence is secret The evil customs of 
 society, supported by authority, dignified by 
 age, seeming so firm fixed that time cannot 
 move them, shall vanish at her touch, like a 
 baseless vision, and then shall appear the new 
 heavens and the new earth that once existed 
 only in the Reformer's dream. 
 
 West Roxbury, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 SONNET TO W. L. GARRISON. 19 
 
 TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 BY J. W. HIGGINSON. 
 
 'Tis not that deeds like thine need my poor 
 
 praise, 
 When, though commending not each word of 
 
 strife, 
 
 I yet would thank thee for thy manly life, 
 Thou rugged Luther of these latter days : 
 Oh when will men look through thine ardent 
 
 phrase 
 
 To the true depth of that devoted heart, 
 Where selfish hope or fear had never part 
 To swerve thee, with the crowd, from Truth's 
 
 plain ways ! 
 When that day comes, thy brothers, wiser 
 
 grown,
 
 20 SONNET TO W. L. GARRISON. 
 
 Shall reverence struggling man's true friend 
 
 in thee, 
 
 Thy life of stern devotion shall atone, 
 For some few words that seemed too rough 
 
 to be, 
 And they shall grave upon thy funeral stone 
 
 " THIS MAN SPOKE TRUTH AND HELPED US TO 
 GROW FREE." 
 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 A PAEABLE. 21 
 
 % parable. 
 
 BY THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 WHEN Ishmael was a young man, mother- 
 less and an outcast, with no wife, nor child nor 
 friend he rode on his only camel laden with 
 dates and corn, a few figs and ripe olives, 
 cummin and precious seeds, journeying alone 
 through the desert to the fair of Shurat. But 
 his camel died in the wilderness ; and for 
 many a day's journey did he wander on, bare- 
 foot and hungry, a ruined man, leaving his corn, 
 his seeds, and all his fortune to perish there. 
 " This place is accursed and God hath forsaken 
 me," said Ishmael ; and he called the name 
 thereof Me-au-rer ; " for it BRINGETH A CURSE," 
 said he. The sun burnt him ; his lips were 
 parched with thirst he could not speak yet
 
 22 A PARABLE. 
 
 he died not, but reached at last the hospitable 
 tent of Joktan. 
 
 Years passed on. Ishmael became a patri- 
 arch, rich, the father of many strong ones. He 
 travelled once again, in old age, with his wives 
 and his children and his children's children 
 men servants, and maidens, and a multitude of 
 camels an exceeding great company, cross- 
 ing the desert to go into the land of the Sa- 
 beans to die there. And lo, the hot wind of 
 the desert came upon them ; the water dried 
 up in their leathern bottles. They were like 
 to perish of thirst. The young men and the 
 maidens cried in their agony towards God. 
 The old men bowed themselves and were 
 silent, awaiting the stroke of the Lord. The 
 moan of the strong camels it was terrible to 
 hear, as they wandered, crying unto God for 
 lack of drink. 
 
 A day's journey of despair they travelled 
 on, and came to a green forest with date-trees
 
 A PARABLE. 23 
 
 and corn, figs and olives, green grass and a 
 running well. They sat down and were re- 
 freshed yea they drank and their hearts lived 
 once more within them. But as Ishmael, now 
 heavy with years, slept after his fatigue, at 
 noonday, behold that same angel who had 
 appeared and led Hagar to the well in the 
 desert the WELL OP GOD'S SEEING ME 
 came and stood before him in his sleep and 
 said, " Son of Abraham, rememberest thou thy 
 camel that perished?" And Ishmael awoke, 
 for he remembered it was here ! He saw that 
 out of the corn, the dates, the few figs, the ripe 
 olives, the cummin, and the precious seeds, 
 so providentially lost, this cluster of fruit 
 trees had arisen, and these fields of grass and 
 corn. He blessed God, and said, " Were it 
 not for the misfortune of my youth, I had been 
 ruined in my old age, and this great people with 
 me. "Wonderful are the ways of the Lord ! "
 
 24 A PARABLE. 
 
 And he called the name of the place Kol-Ma- 
 as-eh-El for he said it is ALL GOD'S WORK. 
 And there Ishmael rested from his labors 
 and his tomb is there unto this day. 
 
 West-Roxbury, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 THE POET OF MILETUS. 25 
 
 (&[)* $oet of Jfliktti0. 
 
 BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 IN ancient days, when in the Ionian land, 
 
 The poet of Miletus, unto whom 
 
 The Ephesians gave three thousand golden 
 
 pieces 
 
 For singing them one song, desired to add 
 Four chords unto the seven-chorded lyre, 
 That he might give a more complete expression 
 To all the feelings struggling at his heart, 
 He was forbidden by the popular vote. 
 This happened some three centuries before 
 
 Christ ! 
 
 Here, too, the popular voice forbids the poet 
 To add a single chord unto his lyre, 
 Although he takes no gold from the Ephesians,
 
 26 THE POET OF MILETUS. 
 
 And would but give an utterance move com- 
 plete 
 
 To all the voices of humanity, 
 Even the swart Ethiop's inarticulate woe. 
 And this is eighteen centuries after Christ ! 
 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 FUGITIVE SLAVES. 27 
 
 Qicwts in 3for%rn (Dljto. 
 
 BY J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 IT was on a pleasant evening in the month 
 of May, A. D. 1840, just as the sun had sunk 
 from view, when the laborers were returning 
 from their fields, that a husband, wife, and two 
 children on foot, with wearied steps were seen 
 entering the village of - in northern Ohio. 
 The oldest child was a lad of some fourteen, 
 the other a daughter apparently two years his 
 junior. Each carried a small bundle of what 
 appeared to be clothing. From their dusky 
 complexions, their anxious countenances, and 
 their tattered dresses it was apparent that they 
 were fleeing from the land of bondage. 
 
 The people of the village were noted for 
 their sympathy for the down-trodden slave. It
 
 28 FUGITIVE SLAVES 
 
 was known for hundreds of miles as an asylum 
 for the panting fugitive. The friends of 
 humanity would direct his course to this, as a 
 place of safety from the rapacious slave-holder, 
 and the despicable slave-catcher. These facts 
 were also known to the owners of slaves in 
 Virginia and Kentucky. When they once 
 learned that their locomotive property had 
 directed its course to this village, they usually 
 gave up the pursuit altogether, or came hither 
 for it without further inquiry, hoping that by 
 some means they might succeed in arresting 
 their victims even in this citadel of liberty. 
 So on the present occasion, the owner of the 
 family to which I have introduced the reader, 
 having found that the objects of his pursuit had 
 bent their course directly for the village in 
 question, made no further stop for inquiry, but 
 with his two assistants drove with all possible 
 speed to the very place where the fugitive 
 family had believed themselves safe from his
 
 IN NORTHERN OHIO. 29 
 
 fangs. In the mean time, the father, mother, 
 and their little ones, on their first arrival were 
 welcomed to the house of a well-known friend 
 of humanity, and, after being duly refreshed, 
 were conducted in the darkness of the evening 
 to a neighboring house to lodge. This was 
 done to prevent all trace of their whereabouts. 
 But it so happened that even here, there were 
 those whose tender sympathies are all in favor 
 of the slaveholder, and are ready at all times 
 to advocate the right of the oppressor to his 
 property, in the bodies of their fellow-men. 
 One of these had watched the movements of 
 the friends of humanity, and when the slave- 
 holder and his assistants arrived, at one or two 
 o'clock the next morning, they found him in the 
 road, ready, for a small compensation, to con- 
 duct them to the building in which the fugitive 
 family were sleeping. Throwing him two or 
 three dollars, without alighting, they desired 
 him to point out the dwelling where the slaves
 
 30 FUGITIVE SLAVES 
 
 might be found. Gathering up the price of 
 his perfidy, without any farther remark he 
 passed on before them, and stopping, silently 
 pointed them to the door, and then, as if con- 
 scious of his guilt, disappeared and hid himself 
 from view in his own bed-room. One of the 
 slave-hunters remained with their horses, as if 
 conscious that their property was not safe in a 
 land where a man could be hired to betray his 
 fellow-man ; while the other two, with pistols 
 and bowie-knives in hand, entered the dwell- 
 ing and demanded their slaves. Thus sud- 
 denly aroused from their slumbers, the inmates 
 were dismayed at the loud threats with which 
 they were saluted. They regarded escape as 
 impossible, and suffered themselves to be 
 seized and bound, and in less time than I have 
 occupied in relating these facts, they were on 
 their way toward a land of bondage. I will 
 leave my readers to imagine the horror of these 
 parents as they were thus compelled to turn
 
 IN NORTHERN OHIO. 31 
 
 their footsteps towards the scene of their 
 former degradation, and, in contemplation, to 
 behold themselves and children sold to the far 
 South, destined to drag out a miserable exist- 
 ence upon the cotton or sugar plantations of 
 Mississippi or Louisiana. 
 
 But the news of their escape spread rapidly 
 through the village. There were, at the time 
 of which we speak, several families of colored 
 people residing there. Some of these had 
 worn the galling chains of slavery, and all had 
 witnessed its horrors. Some fifteen or twenty 
 colored men and boys suddenly collected 
 together, and some of them, in the excitement 
 of the moment, armed themselves with guns, 
 pistols and other weapons. A proposition to 
 pursue the menstealers was made ; and, as if 
 actuated by one common impulse, all immedi- 
 ately started at full speed after their captured 
 brethren.
 
 32 FUGITIVE SLAVES 
 
 The slave -catchers, with their captives, had 
 not proceeded more than three or four miles 
 before they were overtaken by the colored 
 people ; and from the excitement apparent 
 among them, and from their menacing tones, 
 judged it prudent to seek safety in the first 
 house which they could reach. Here they 
 entered with their captives, and barring the 
 door, threatened death to the first colored man 
 who should enter. The house was immedi- 
 ately surrounded, guards were posted, and a 
 regular siege commenced. The night wore 
 away, and when the morning dawned, it 
 showed to the besieged a large increase in the 
 number of their enemies, but it exhibited to 
 them no prospect of escape. No white man 
 appeared to lend them succor : and the exas- 
 peration of the blacks appeared to increase with 
 their numbers, and with the prospect of releas- 
 ing their brethren from the grasp of their per- 
 secutors. Time continued to roll on, and the
 
 IN NORTHERN OHIO. 33 
 
 sun had nearly attained its meridian, when a 
 man of small stature, bright hazle eye, of sober 
 countenance and sedate manners rode up, and 
 engaged in conversation with the colored 
 people outside of the building. Soon after he 
 applied at the door for entrance, and was gladly 
 admitted. 
 
 When he had introduced himself to the 
 slaveholders, he assured them of their perfect 
 safety while he was with them ; told them that 
 he would protect them if they would accom- 
 pany him to the seat of justice for the county, 
 where they might have a legal trial of their 
 right to hold the fugitives, with the benefit of 
 counsel. The offer was gladly accepted and 
 they were soon under way for the place pro- 
 posed. When they arrived at the seat of 
 justice, they employed the only lawyer that 
 could be found to espouse the cause of oppres- 
 sion, and the parties immediately appeared 
 before a magistrate for the purpose of deter-
 
 34 FUGITIVE SLAVES 
 
 mining the claim of this Kentuckian to the 
 bodies of the father and mother and children 
 in question. Our friend, whom we introduced 
 to the reader at the besieged house, appeared 
 as counsel for the fugitives. He had long 
 been known as a zealous advocate of liberty, 
 and had often stood by those charged with the 
 offence of loving freedom better than slavery. 
 He was not unprepared on the present occa- 
 sion ; ready and able on all points touching the 
 matter in question, he soon showed his oppo- 
 nents that they had others than slaves to deal 
 with. The slaveholder found himself unable 
 to prove his claim and the captives were 
 discharged. They then partook of such re- 
 freshments as their friends provided for them, 
 and a small donation was made to pay their 
 expenses across the lake, and in less than 
 twenty-four hours they were treading the free 
 soil of Canada. 
 
 Not so with their persecutors. The friends
 
 IN NORTHERN OHIO. 35 
 
 of liberty felt the necessity of setting an exam- 
 ple that should deter other slave-hunters from 
 committing such outrages in future in that 
 quiet region. The owner and his two assist- 
 ants were charged with an assault and battery 
 committed upon the persons of the parents and 
 children of whom we have spoken. They 
 were accordingly arraigned and ordered to find 
 bail for their appearance at the next Court of 
 Common Pleas, or to be committed for the 
 want of such bail. By the aid of their lawyer 
 bail was procured and they started with heavy 
 hearts for Kentucky, to remain there some six 
 weeks and then to return and defend them- 
 selves for thus laying hands upon their fellow 
 men within the jurisdiction of Ohio laws. 
 Their vexation and mortification was un- 
 bounded. But their profane railings were of 
 little use ; their bonds were signed, and could 
 only be cancelled by their appearance in Court. 
 In due time they set out on their return to
 
 36 FUGITIVE SLAVES. 
 
 Ohio. When they reached the village of 
 
 M the owner of the slaves was taken 
 
 severely ill and died in a few days. His 
 assistants proceeded to the place at which they 
 were bound to appear, where one of them 
 was taken sick and was confined for a long 
 time. The other made his appearance in Court 
 with a most rueful countenance, and apparent 
 dejection of spirits. 
 
 These judgments of a righteous Providence 
 having fallen so heavily upon the slave-catch- 
 ers, and their intended victims being now in a 
 land of safety, the prosecuting attorney, after 
 consulting with the Court and with some of the 
 leading Philanthropists of the County, entered 
 a " nolle prosequi " upon the indictment, and 
 the two living defendants were discharged. 
 Since that time few slave-hunters have been 
 seen in " Northern Ohio." 
 
 Jefferson, Ashtabula Co., Ohio.
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 37 
 
 Cotmtrj). 
 
 MY friend, what sordid days of dross are these, 
 Of coward cringing, and of cheap content ; 
 The nation raging, like a hive of bees, 
 Its dignity in noisiest sallies spent ! 
 
 I thought to have beheld, as Judah saw 
 
 Her youngest victor shamed with glorious tears, 
 
 The David of the nations, far withdraw 
 
 His youth sublime from basest hopes and fears. 
 
 I thought to have beheld his serious eyes 
 Looking the hero of the world's spent field, 
 With Israel's holiness and the grace which lies 
 Lost in the chisel Athens used to wield. 
 
 Could the wild seed, cast by Oppression's flail 
 On sea-beat shores but germinate for this ?
 
 38 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 The men of iron in their children fail ? 
 Betrayed the world's Deliverer by a kiss ? 
 
 Speech, which outruns performance, craves 
 
 contempt ; 
 
 True Greatness points to acts in silent pride. 
 The Right, from fear of judgment is exempt, 
 Content Truth's tardy verdict to abide. 
 
 Men had a grandeur in the olden time, 
 A river freely winding at its will ; 
 And if, at times, it darkened into crime, 
 The force of nature left it grandeur still. 
 
 Now thought is cisterned in the market-place, 
 Whence petty conduits run to each man's 
 
 breast ; 
 Now one low vice infects, throughout, the 
 
 race, 
 One man's small virtue echoes through the 
 
 rest
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 39 
 
 The lofty thought, which spreads its arms to 
 
 air, 
 
 Fed by the silent dews of loneliest woods, 
 Till its vast crown hangs in the dazzling glare, 
 And o'er the landscape wide, majestic broods 
 
 Is smothered by the undergrowth around, 
 Content, as saplings, if no oak be there : 
 Stems, which might soar, now trail along the 
 
 ground ; 
 No robin sings there, gilds no sunbeam fair.
 
 BY SUSAN C. CABOT. 
 
 WHAT does Thought do for us? 
 
 This question suggests itself when we see 
 how much has been done by Thought in one 
 direction, and how little in another. When 
 we see how little advance Thought has made 
 in the moral world, compared with her pro- 
 gress in the physical and intellectual one, we 
 feel that she has been cheated of her birth- 
 right, and that something must be done to 
 arouse her to claim her title-deeds. While by 
 means of her great instrumentality, science 
 has brought the stars to our feet, and carried 
 us, as on eagles' wings, to the remote corners 
 of the earth, what has she accomplished in 
 the moral world ? What has she even begun ? 
 While the fact still remains that we are in a
 
 THOUGHT. 41 
 
 land of slavery, still, like Cain, taking our 
 brother's blood ! not from the instigation of 
 envy, because we think we have not our just 
 share of the favor of heaven, but from the 
 wish to have more than our share. Can 
 Thought have anything to do with this? No, it 
 would be denying her divinity to say it : passion 
 and selfishness may, but cool Thought never. 
 
 Why should not the moral world, like the 
 physical, also have her trophies, won from 
 the field of Thought ? While steam-ships, and 
 railroads, and balloons, are filling earth, sea 
 and sky, shall there not arise greater wonders 
 in the moral universe ? Shall not self-sacri- 
 cing devotion turn iron chains into silken cords 
 of love, prison-bars into gentle persuasion, and, 
 at one word, people God's free earth with 
 millions of free men, changing them from 
 chattels into sons of God ? 
 
 How is it that Thought is so shy as she takes 
 
 her rounds in the world within ? Why, when 
 
 4*
 
 42 THOUGHT. 
 
 she approaches the holy of holies, which is to 
 be laid open at the last day, why will she not 
 take courage and enter there and find out the 
 secrets of this hidden chamber, where is kept 
 the book of life ? 
 
 Surely the slave-holder, who makes laws 
 upon laws that he may live securely and 
 make money, has kept strict watch that the 
 most secret place in his soul shall be made 
 secure against this intruder, Thought, or he 
 never could lie down in his bed with the echo 
 still in his ears of those cries which rise up 
 from the heart of the poor being whom he has 
 robbed of his birth-right, without asking him- 
 self by what right he does this. If Thought 
 came to him here, would she not say, " How 
 dare you do this great wickedness ? How can 
 you so burthen your soul, that it cannot mount 
 above this earth wet with the blood, and 
 ringing with the sounds of the broken-hearted, 
 the helpless, and the dying ; and this all the
 
 THOUGHT. 43 
 
 work of your hands ! Upon this defiled soil 
 must your soul linger ; your soul, bom for the 
 skies, born to live forever in the fulness of an 
 eternal life ! Can you expect that a God of 
 justice can receive and own you for his child? 
 Take me into your holy of holies and let me 
 there stay till I have moved the face of the great 
 deep within you, and shown you that not this 
 earth, but the heavens above, are to be reflect- 
 ed in you ; that you are to become an angel, 
 ready for acts of mercy, and a messenger of 
 the Most High. O bar me out no longer ! you 
 have lived too long without me ; know that I 
 come from the Everlasting One, whose just 
 laws cannot be broken without a fearful look- 
 ing for of judgment. It cannot be that you 
 have intended to do this great wrong; that 
 you have meant to break the loving hearts of 
 so many of God's children; that you have 
 meant to take from the arms of the mother 
 the child that God has given her ; from the
 
 44 THOUGHT. 
 
 wife the husband, who was to work with her 
 to bring up this child to the knowledge that it 
 is an immortal being ! Why make use of me 
 only to further your earth-bound plans ? Let 
 me awaken you from this sleep before it 
 becomes the sleep of death, and rouse you to 
 the fact that the abundant crops of cotton and 
 sugar that start from the ground wet with the 
 tears and blood of your fellow-men, will not 
 serve you in that great day when alone with 
 me and your God. Now, I come to you as a 
 friend, praying you to bear with me for a 
 season, to let me tell you the whole truth ; but 
 then, on that day, I shall come before you as 
 your accuser and judge." 
 
 There have always been some pure spirits 
 to awaken Thought, and to keep her in mind 
 of her celestial birth and mission ; some wit- 
 nesses that her works are to outreach the 
 visible heavens. Let such keep the high 
 places in faith, knowing that if they are not
 
 THOUGHT. 45 
 
 discerned from beneath there are watchful 
 eyes above that ever keep guard over them. 
 Is it pride, or passion, or selfishness, or the 
 love of this world or its honors, that have 
 aroused and bound together those who have 
 taken into their souls the great thought that, 
 however usage or prejudice or the sanction of 
 the great and powerful uphold slavery, it still 
 is a crime, and must be done away, unless 
 the laws of God and his Son are false ? This 
 thought, brooded over in a small upper room 
 till it became a word to be carried into act at 
 all hazards, was the beginning of that noble 
 company, who, willing to take all abuse so 
 long as the great work of redemption is going 
 on, have brought many to think, and by this 
 have brought them nearer to the world of 
 spirits, and are themselves inspired with the 
 great hope that their labors are not in vain for 
 the redemption of our country from her deep 
 stain of slavery. Give me a great thought
 
 46 THOUGHT. 
 
 said Herder, when he was on the confines of 
 the two worlds. We are, at all times, on this 
 confine; and should always pray for some 
 great thought, to carry us into the eternity 
 of great actions. 
 
 West Roxbury, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 INTERFERENCE. 47 
 
 Interference. 
 
 ON READING A PAPER, IN DEFENCE OF SLAVERY, 
 
 A TRAVELLER fell among the thieves 
 He was crushed like Autumn leaves : 
 He was beaten like the sheaves 
 Upon the threshing-floor. 
 
 There, upon the public way, 
 In the shadowless heat of day, 
 Bleeding, stripped and bound he lay, 
 And seemed to breathe no more. 
 
 Void of hope was he, when lo ! 
 On his way to Jericho, 
 Came a priest, serene and slow, 
 His journey just begun.
 
 48 INTERFERENCE. 
 
 Many a silver bell and gem 
 Glittered on his harness hem ; 
 Behind him gleamed Jerusalem, 
 In the unclouded sun. 
 
 Broad were his phylacteries, 
 And his calm and holy eyes 
 Looked above earth's vanities, 
 And gazed upon the sky. 
 
 He the suffering one descried, 
 But, with saintly looks of pride, 
 Passed by on the other side, 
 And left him there to die. 
 
 Then approached with reverend pace, 
 One of the elected race, 
 The chosen ministers of grace, 
 Who bore the ark of God. 
 
 He a Levite and a high 
 Exemplar of humanity,
 
 INTERFERENCE. 49 
 
 Likewise passed the sufferer by, 
 Even as the dust he trod. 
 
 Then came a Samaritan, 
 A despised, rejected man. 
 Outlawed by the Jewish ban 
 As one in bonds to sin. 
 
 - 
 He beheld the poor man's need, 
 
 Bound his wounds, and with all speed 
 Set him on his own good steed, 
 And brought him to the inn. 
 
 When our Judge shall reappear 
 Thinkest thou this man will hear 
 " Wherefore didst thou interfere 
 With what concerned not thee ? " 
 
 No ! the words of Christ will run, 
 " Whatsoever thou hast done 
 To this poor and suffering one 
 
 That hast thou done to me ! " 
 5
 
 50 ALL ARE NEEDED. 
 
 ail an Jfatelr. 
 
 BY J A !S E ELIZABETH HITCHCOCK. 
 
 IN converting the imbedded marble into a 
 magnificent temple, with massive walls, beau- 
 tiful columns, and crowning capitals, the 
 services of the architect and the mason, the 
 bold and skilful hand of the sculptor, and the 
 aid of him who quarries the marble who 
 disengages each block from the mass, are all 
 necessary to its completion. It is a work of 
 labor and of time. The rude and shapeless 
 material appears unseemly, but when the 
 edifice is completed it fills the beholder with 
 delight. The sound of the heavy blows, the 
 drilling and the blasting in the quarry, the 
 harsh grating of the saw, and the ringing of 
 the chisel, may have fallen unpleasantly upon
 
 ALL ARE NEEDED. 51 
 
 the sensitive nerves of him who contemplates 
 this work of art and taste ; but were it not for 
 these, the temple never would have been 
 erected. 
 
 So in a moral enterprize, the services of 
 mauy are needed ; the bold architect to con- 
 ceive the glorious design, some to separate 
 from the mass of universal mind the individ- 
 ual fragments, others whose patient industry 
 brings each into a fitting shape, and they who 
 with skilful hand fashion the whole into a 
 form of spiritual beauty. He performs no less 
 important service in erecting the temple of 
 freedom, whose startling tones awaken the 
 guilty conscience of the oppressor, than he 
 who leads the repentant spirit onward and 
 upward, and inspires it with a love of univer- 
 sal liberty. He who arrests public attention, 
 and elicits sympathy in behalf of the oppress- 
 ed, labors as effectually for that end as he 
 who teaches the heaven-born principle of the
 
 52 ALL ARE NEEDED. 
 
 brotherhood of man. Kind and gentle lan- 
 guage, bold and forcible speech, severe and 
 terrible rebuke are all useful and necessary, 
 and he who uses the latter does as much, 
 perhaps, towards regenerating mankind, as his 
 fellow-laborer who uses mild and persuasive 
 arguments. 
 
 As in the marble there is only now and then 
 a block which is suitable for a corner-stone 
 or a pedestal, a key-stone or a capital, so in 
 society there is only now and then a spirit 
 which is susceptible of a separate and individ- 
 ual existence ; only now and then one that can 
 be fashioned into an independent body, and 
 fitted for a prominent place. But ah 1 others are 
 equally useful. In the erection of the great 
 temple of freedom, each will occupy an im- 
 portant position, and the labor of every work- 
 man will be available. 
 
 Let not him, then, who goes forward and 
 performs the perilous service of subduing the
 
 ALL ARE NEEDED. 53 
 
 flinty heart, undervalue the influence of him 
 who leads a true and beautiful life in the 
 quiet and retirement of his own home. And 
 let not him of the mild and gentle manner, 
 whose spiritual power hallows all within its 
 circle, imparting vitality and character and 
 beauty to his work, deprecate the noise and 
 the strife, the thunder-tone and the earth- 
 quake-shock in the distance. But let all 
 labor, each in his own way and in his own 
 appropriate field, and in due time that glori- 
 ous temple shall be erected, which shall give 
 shelter and protection to every suffering child 
 of humanity. 
 
 Salem, Ohio, U. S.
 
 54 
 
 BY THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 I. 
 JESUS THERE IS NO NAME SO DEAR AS THINE. 
 
 JESUS there is no name so dear as thine 
 Which Time has blazoned on his ample scroll ; 
 No wreaths nor garlands ever did entwine 
 So fair a temple of so vast a soul ; 
 There every angel set his triumph seal, 
 Wisdom combined with Strength and radiant 
 
 Grace 
 
 In a sweet copy Heaven to reveal, 
 And stamp PERFECTION on a mortal face : 
 Once oa the Earth wert thou, before men's 
 
 eyes, 
 That could not half thy beauteous brightness 
 
 see, 
 E'en as the emmet cannot read the skies,
 
 SONNETS. 55 
 
 Nor our weak orbs look through immensity ; 
 Once on the Earth wert thou a living shrine, 
 Wherein conjoining dwelt the GOOD, the 
 LOVELY, the DIVINE. 
 
 ii. 
 
 OH THOU GREAT FRIEND TO ALL THE SONS OF MEN. 
 
 OH thou great Friend to all the sons of men, 
 Who once appeared in humblest guise below, 
 Sin to rebuke and break the captive's chain, 
 To call thy brethren forth from Want and 
 
 Woe, 
 Thee would I sing. Thy Truth is still the 
 
 LIGHT 
 Which guides the nations groping on their 
 
 way, 
 
 Stumbling and falling in disastrous night, 
 Yet hoping ever for the perfect day : 
 Yes ! thou art still the LIFE ; thou art the WAY
 
 56 SONNETS. 
 
 The holiest know, Light, Life and Way of 
 
 Heaven ! 
 
 And they who dearest hope, and deepest pray, 
 Toil by the Light, Life, Way which thou 
 
 hast given. 
 
 And by thy Truth aspiring mortals trust 
 T' uplift their faint and bleeding Brothers res- 
 cued from the dust. 
 
 in. 
 
 DEAR JESCS WERE THY SPIRIT NOW ON EARTH. 
 
 DEAR Jesus were thy spirit now on Earth, 
 Where thou hast prayed and toiled a world to 
 
 win, 
 
 What vast ideas would sudden rise to birth, 
 What strong endeavors 'gainst o'errnastering 
 
 Sin! 
 
 Thy blest beatitudes again thou 'dst speak ; 
 But with deep-hearted words that scorch like 
 
 fire,
 
 SONNETS. 57 
 
 Wouldst thou rebuke the oppressors of the 
 
 weak : 
 
 Or, turning thence to Prophets that aspire, 
 How wouldst thou cheer the men who toil 
 
 to save 
 
 Their Brothers smarting 'neath a despot's rod, 
 To lift the Poor, the Fallen, and the Slave, 
 And lead them all alive to worship God ! 
 Bigots wouldst thou rebuke that idle stand, 
 But send thy Gospel-fraught Apostles con- 
 quering through the land. 
 
 West Koxbury, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 53 LETTER. FROM THOMAS CLARKSON. 
 
 lark0on. 
 
 PLAYFORD HALL, near Ipswich, Oct. 3, 1845. 
 
 DEAR MADAM : 
 
 I RECEIVED your last letter, but was so ill 
 at the time that I was unable to answer it 
 for some days; and indeed I have recovered 
 so little since that time, that I despair of 
 being much better. My constitution is now, 
 probably, as we say in England, "breaking 
 up ; " which I regret only, as it hinders me from 
 being farther useful. I could have wished, 
 perhaps, to have lived a little longer, but it 
 would have been only for the sake of seeing 
 the day when slavery should terminate. That 
 its days are numbered I have no doubt; no 
 more doubt than that I am now living; and 
 the event cannot fail of being hastened on
 
 LETTER FROM THOMAS CLARKSON. 59 
 
 by what has happened in the case of Cassius 
 M. Clay. The brutal treatment of him, and the 
 outrages committed since by the white mob 
 at Lexington, on the persons of the poor harm- 
 less black people residing in that city, will be 
 a fine engine for the citizens of the North, with 
 which to work. 
 
 I am very sorry that the present state of my 
 health will not permit me to send you the 
 contribution you desire against the forthcoming 
 Fair. A particular circumstance has occurred 
 which will stand in the way of performing 
 what otherwise would have been a pleasure 
 to me. An American, of the name of H. C. 
 Wright, who has been in England, but more in 
 Scotland, for sometime, and who has attended 
 several Anti- Slavery meetings at Edinburgh, 
 Glasgow, and other places, to the great advan- 
 tage of the cause, wrote to me a week or two 
 before the receipt of your letter, to do him a 
 great favor, which was, that as my History of
 
 60 LETTER FROM THOMAS CLARKSON. 
 
 the Abolition of the Slave- Trade contained the 
 facts relating to it only up to March 1807, 
 when the British Parliament put an end to it, 
 he wished to have some little farther history 
 of our proceedings in England since that time, 
 so as to take in the rise and means by which 
 slavery in England was abolished also. He 
 could get this he said (and he said truly) from 
 no other person now living but myself. I 
 consented to furnish him with a little account 
 though far from well at the time willing 
 to oblige a person who had done so much for 
 our cause, and thinking that it might afford 
 pleasure to some of our friends in America. I 
 agreed only to give him the facts, leaving it to 
 him so to embellish it as to make it a readable 
 little book. I had no other idea, however, 
 than that it would be the work, on my part, of 
 a fortnight only, though I had too many things 
 on hand even to spare that time ; but three 
 weeks have passed, and as I am now a very
 
 LETTER FROM THOMAS CLARKSON. 61 
 
 slow writer, it will take three weeks more 
 to finish the work. You will see, therefore, 
 how impossible it is for me, when this work 
 for Mr. Wright shall have been finished, and 
 in my present state of health, to write anything 
 fit to read, to be ready at the time of your Fair. 
 I will just say, that I was the more induced to 
 put myself to the trouble of writing 011 this 
 occasion, when I saw that in the Report of the 
 Glasgow Female Anti- Slavery Society Mr. 
 Wright had given so lofty and yet so true a 
 character of Mr. Garrison. 
 
 Notwithstanding I have said all this, I itill 
 think of a subject for the Fair, and will 
 endeavor, if I can steal a few moments, at 
 intervals, to begin it and go on with it ; and if 
 I can finish it in time I will send it you ; but 
 I must know what is the last day for receiving, 
 at Boston, publications for the press. 
 
 And here I will ask a question. I have 
 some memoirs of Henry Christophe, king of
 
 62 LETTER FROM THOMAS CLARKSON. 
 
 Hayli. I corresponded with him for three 
 years, and put him in the way of making- 
 improvement for the good of his country, 
 which I believe he followed. His only fault 
 was that of being a too rigid disciplinarian ; a 
 fault, indeed, which I cannot palliate ; but his 
 intentions were noble, and his projects great, 
 and he had a great mind. When I was at the 
 great Congress at Aix la Chapelle, in Germany, 
 trying to do something with the sovereigns of 
 Europe, then assembled, in favor of the aboli- 
 tion of the slave-trade, I found, unexpectedly, 
 in my pocket, a letter of king Henry, which I 
 had unknowingly brought with me from my 
 own house. This letter had in it remarks on 
 education. I showed it to the Emperor of 
 Russia, After having read it, he asked my 
 permission to show it to the Emperor of 
 Austria, and the king of Prussia. He did so 
 and told me that both of them were astonished 
 at it as a letter coming from a black man ; and
 
 LETTER. FEOM THOMAS CLAEKSON. 63 
 
 all the three agreed, that though they spared 
 no expense in getting the cleverest men in 
 Europe to be their ministers, and to sit in coun- 
 cil, no one of their then cabinet could produce 
 a better letter. Now the publication of such 
 memoranda in America might have a good 
 effect in many ways, for however they might 
 class the black man with the brute, in intellect, 
 Henry Christophe, a man as black as jet, had 
 powers of mind equal to those of any President 
 in America. Would such a work do good, 
 then, and would it suit your Liberty Bell ? 
 
 I will finish my letter with a saying of one 
 of the dearest friends I ever had, namely, 
 General Lafayette. I was with the General 
 often, and corresponded with him after his 
 coming out of his dungeon at Olmutz. But the 
 first time I knew him was when I was in Paris, 
 the year after the French Revolution, on the 
 subject of the slave-trade, and I assisted him 
 materially. He was decidedly as uncompro-
 
 64 LETTER FROM THOMAS CLARKSOX. 
 
 mising an enemy to the slave-trade, and 
 slavery, as any man I ever knew. He freed 
 all his slaves in French Cayenne, who had 
 come to him by inheritance, in 1786, and 
 shewed me all his rules and regulations for 
 his estate when they were emancipated. I was 
 with him no less than four different times in 
 Paris. He was a real gentleman, and of soft 
 and gentle manners. I have seen him put 
 out of temper, but never at any time except 
 when slavery was the subject. He has said, 
 frequently, " I would never have drawn my 
 sword in the cause of America, if I could have 
 conceived that thereby I was founding a land 
 of slavery." How would the people of Fayette 
 County like to hear this ? to hear their land 
 cursed by the man who gained it for them ? 
 I remain, 
 
 Dear Madam, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 THOMAS CLARKSON. 
 
 To Mrs. H. G. Chapman.
 
 SONG, BY E. L. FOLLEX. 65 
 
 FOR THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM. 
 
 FAXEUIL HALL. TWELFTH ANTI-SLAVERY FAI 
 BY ELIZA LEE FOLLEN. 
 
 HEART to heart, and hand in hand 
 Bound together let us stand, 
 Storms are gathering o'er the land, 
 
 Many friends are gone ! 
 Still we never are alone, 
 Still we bravely march right on, 
 
 Right on ! right on ! right on ! 
 
 To the Pilgrim spirit true 
 
 Which nor slave nor master knew, 
 
 Onward ! faithful, fearless few, 
 
 Liberty's the prize ! 
 Full of hope that never dies, 
 Spirits of the free arise ! 
 
 Arise! arise! arise! 
 6*
 
 66 SONG, BY E. L. FOLLEN. 
 
 Will you your New England see 
 Crouching low to slavery ? 
 Rise and say it shall not be ! 
 
 More than life's at stake ! 
 Rise and every fetter break ! 
 Every free-born soul awake ! 
 
 Awake ! awake ! awake ! 
 
 Listen to our solemn call, 
 Sounding from old Faneuil Hall, 
 Consecrate yourselves, your all 
 
 To God and Liberty ! 
 On your spirit's kindred knee, 
 Swear your country shall be free, 
 
 Be free ! be free ! be free ! 
 
 Heed not what m'ay be your fate, 
 Count it gain when worldlings hate, 
 Naught of hope, or heart abate, 
 
 Victory 's before ! 
 Ask not that your toils be o'er 
 Till all slavery is no more, 
 
 No more ! no more ! no more !
 
 SONG, BY E. L. FOLLEN. 67 
 
 Welcome, then, the crown of thorns 
 Which the faithful brow adorns ; 
 All complaint the brave soul scorns, 
 
 Burdens are its choice, 
 While within it hears a voice 
 Ever echoing, rejoice 1 
 
 Rejoice ! rejoice ! rejoice ! 
 
 Soon, to bless our longing eyes, 
 Freedom's glorious sun shall rise ; 
 Now it lights those gloomy skies 
 
 Faintly from afar, 
 Faith and love her heralds are, 
 See you not her morning star ? 
 
 Hurra ! hurra ! hurra ! 
 
 West Roxbury, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 A COMMUNICATION, 
 
 3. Communication. 
 
 BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 WHAT I am going to tell you is no fiction : 
 nor can it be called a dream. As to whence it 
 was derived, suffice it now to say that means 
 of insight into realities exist, powers of body 
 and soul for a certain recognition of unseen 
 tilings, which few are aware of, and scarcely 
 any know how to exert and employ. 
 
 A spirit, released from its present life and 
 connexions, shrank from entering upon that 
 state of ease and " glory " which it had been 
 led to anticipate as a good portion after death. 
 It preferred ceasing to live to living that kind 
 of life. Liberty of choice being left, however, 
 it chose a lot of service, eternal service of 
 men. It chose this work; to abide by our
 
 BY HAERIET MARTINEAU. 69 
 
 globe, and live in its shadowy parts ; to travel 
 with the gloom, and penetrate the deeper 
 gloom of mourning hearts. Its work was to 
 enter all sorrowing souls, unseen, unheard, un- 
 tracked, unfelt, except in the glow of hope 
 and comfort it was enabled to create. This 
 mission it fulfilled for centuries. 
 
 Of what it saw and was permitted to do, I 
 will now give you but one instance. One of 
 its first pauses was in a slave-ship in the 
 midst of the Atlantic, where the company of 
 wretched beings felt themselves in a vault 
 of blackness as terrifying as their fate. The 
 spirit penetrated them all, and found, as it told 
 me, " their hearts as deep as the sea they are 
 on, and as dark as the night about them. I," 
 it continued, " will be the opener of their dawn. 
 Gently gently will I let in the light : 
 only as they are able to bear it. There is no 
 haste : for what is so sure as the spread of the 
 dawn into perfect day ? "
 
 70 A COMMUNICATION, 
 
 Even in such work, pursued with such 
 powers, the spirit found some pain and draw- 
 back. Its aids were circumscribed by the 
 limitations of the capacities of the sufferers. 
 In this instance, it could impart only a vague 
 sensation of comfort and hope of relief. While 
 itself looking back and down upon the expanse 
 of centuries, and seeing the fire -fountains of 
 liberty welling up wherever man had put forth 
 his hand, and touched the soil for freedom in 
 the name of God; while itself perceiving 
 that all fetters of mind and body are perpetu- 
 ally wasting away under the prayers and tears 
 of the few who are ever praying and suffer- 
 ing for the enslaved in some corner of the 
 earth ; while itself seeing and knowing these 
 tilings, the ministering spirit could not make 
 them seen and known by eyes yet darkened, 
 and intellects yet torpid. It could but let in a 
 dim ray, and infuse a faint glow, whereby 
 however, the bowed head was raised, the
 
 BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. 71 
 
 silent spoke to each other, the infant was 
 pressed to its mother's beating heart, and an 
 undefined sense of well-being spread through 
 the band of sufferers, though none could tell 
 nor even incjuire whence came the intuition 
 of hope and help. 
 
 If you ask why I tell you this, I can only 
 reply that it animated me, (it being, as I 
 said, no fiction, nor yet a dream) and that I like 
 to impart to you whatever animates me in the 
 great cause for which you work and endure. 
 
 Ambleside, Westmoreland, England.
 
 72 OUR DUTY. 
 
 (Dor 
 
 BY BENJAMIN S. JONES. 
 
 WHY should we rest ingloriously 
 When earth is filled with strife, 
 And Error shouts her battle cry 
 . Upon the field of Life? 
 
 The labor we were sent to do, 
 
 Is steadfastly to seek 
 A knowledge of the Eight and True 
 
 With spirit strong, yet meek. 
 
 To tread, unmurmuring, the way 
 The Sinless One hath trod, 
 
 And thus draw nearer ev'ry day 
 In likeness unto God. 
 
 The shadowy PAST has from us flown, 
 
 The FUTURE cometh late, 
 The PRESENT only is our own, 
 
 Nor will the PRESENT wait. 
 
 Salem, Ohio, U. S.
 
 EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH. 73 
 
 FROM A SPEECH AT THE ANTI-TEXAN MEETING IN 
 FANEOIL HALL, 1845. 
 
 BY SAMUEL J.MAY. 
 
 THE compromise of our fathers blunted the 
 sensibility of their children, so that they were 
 too easily turned aside from the high career 
 which was commenced by the Revolution, and 
 suffered the spirit of trade to usurp that place 
 in their bosoms which should have been kept 
 ever sacred to the spirit of Freedom. 
 
 Allusion has been repeatedly made in the 
 course of our debates to Plymouth Rock. Ah ! 
 sir, the fate of that rock is very similar to the 
 fate of the principle of liberty, upon which our 
 civil institutions were professedly based. Go, 
 sir, to Plymouth, inquire for the Rock, and 
 you shall be led to see where it is actually
 
 74 EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH. 
 
 buried in a wharf, and over it the busy sons of 
 trade daily trample, not conscious that it is a 
 sacred spot. It is true, sir, some 'of the pious 
 sons of the Pilgrims have rescued a portion of 
 the Keck from that desecration to which I 
 have alluded ; but, sir, the disposal they have 
 made of the fragment, (although with a dif- 
 ferent intention, and for a better purpose) 
 happens still to bear a striking resemblance to 
 the way in which the Declaration of our 
 Revolutionary sires has been treated. They 
 have brought that piece of rock to the side of 
 the most public high way, to be seen and 
 admired of all men to be seen, but not felt ; 
 for around it they have put a strong iron fence, 
 graced with the imperishable names of the 
 men who led in that great enterprise; but a 
 fence so high that none may leap over and 
 stand upon the rock, and actually feel beneath 
 him the stable foundation, upon which our 
 forefathers planted their feet.
 
 EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH. 75 
 
 The men of our day have treated the 
 glorious Declaration of our Independence 
 worse than this. They have set it forth in 
 all the decorations of typographic art. They 
 have placed it in gilded frames and hung it up 
 to be seen and admired. But he who has 
 dared to overleap the restrictions which the 
 Constitution would impose, and take his stand 
 upon the self-evident, eternal truths of the 
 Declaration, has been accounted a fanatic, a 
 pestilent fellow, not fit to live. 
 
 This recreancy to principle, Mr. President, 
 this loss of the sentiment and the love of 
 liberty, are the legitimate effects of the dis- 
 astrous compromise which was made by the 
 framers of our Constitution. 
 
 But a new leaf is to be turned in the history 
 of our nation. The doings of this Convention, 
 if they are what they ought to be, will be the 
 first bright record upon the unsullied page. 
 Taking warning from the past, let us see to it
 
 76 EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH. 
 
 that we do not commence the pregnant chap- 
 ter with a compromise, an evasion. No, sir. 
 No, sir ! Let us henceforth speak only what 
 is true, and consent to do only what is right. 
 
 Syracuse, N. Y.
 
 0oniute. 
 
 BY GEORGE THOMPSON 
 I. 
 
 THE sun breaks forth with his brightest beam 
 The music is sweet of the winding stream ; 
 The reaper is binding the yellow grain, 
 While the sky-lark carols his sweetest strain 
 Thin clouds career o'er the mountain's brow ; 
 In the vale the peasant holds his plough ; 
 And all is gladness, and joy, and peace, 
 The fertile field and the snowy fleece : 
 Nor can I through this realm descry, 
 As o'er it wanders the kindling eye 
 On the smiling farm, or the martyr's grave, 
 A lordly satrap or groaning slave. 
 When, Columbia ! when shall it be, 
 
 That the poet may sing the same of thee ! 
 
 7*
 
 78 SONNETS. 
 
 II. 
 TO BLANCHE. 
 
 I saw and loved ; but, it was holily, 
 Even as a brother, or a spirit might. 
 
 SPEECHLESS thou art; yet, able to commune 
 
 With spirits like thine own, and kindred 
 hearts. 
 
 What, though to thee has been denied the 
 boon, 
 
 Which God to all save few on earth im- 
 parts 
 
 Hast thou no language? Canst thou not re- 
 veal 
 
 The holy sympathies which mortals feel ? 
 
 Thou canst. To me, thine have been all 
 made known, 
 
 In language silent, eloquent, thine own. 
 
 Thine eye has glanced a meaning full and 
 deep, 
 
 And told the thoughts which o'er thy spirit 
 sweep.
 
 SONNETS. 79 
 
 Yes ! I have read thee and I know thy 
 mind 
 
 High toned, and pure, and sanctified, and kind. 
 
 Though mute, thou canst the soul-sung an- 
 them raise, 
 
 And thy full heart can speak thy Maker's 
 praise. 
 
 Newingtoji, near Edinburgh.
 
 80 THE LIBERTY BELL. 
 
 Cibertjj 8*11. 
 
 BY S. MARGARET FULLER. 
 
 IT was a legend of Germany, that, in the 
 time when the faith of Christendom was live- 
 ly, and her heart aspiring to be devout, if she 
 had not sufficient clearness of mental view to 
 avoid great mistakes as to the way, a certain 
 society of knights had vowed, with the 
 straitest vow, their service to the oppressed 
 in every part of their country. And so faith- 
 ful was their adherence to this vow, that 
 Heaven took them under its especial care and 
 allowed them supernatural assistance, that 
 they might multiply good deeds more and 
 more. In their chapel hung a bell, whose 
 silver blazonry chronicled the acts of many 
 who had imitated their Master not only in 
 purity and self-denial, but, also, in active be-
 
 THE LIBERTY BELL. 81 
 
 nevolence towards their fellow-men. Its silver 
 sound was, in itself, almost a prayer. It was 
 a beautiful and solemn sight when this sound 
 called many votaries to kneel before the altar. 
 The soft light, that fell through windows 
 painted with figures of saints and angels 
 already admitted to the joys of perfect obedi- 
 ence and intelligent ministry, gave to view 
 faces which showed a kindred spirit, a spirit 
 that could never rest or dally on the upward 
 path to the mount of Salvation, that craved 
 the nearest approach to the sun and stars, the 
 purest, if the coldest, atmosphere which the 
 human frame is able to bear. There was the 
 gray haired man, whose features were marked 
 by a thousand characters that told of noble 
 deeds achieved, or failures well redeemed; 
 there was the youth, in whose eye the light 
 was borrowed, not from the torch of passion, 
 but the morning star of God's own day ; there 
 was the minstrel, who had turned his lyre into
 
 82 THE LIBERTY BELL. 
 
 a sword, because the time seemed to demand 
 a sharper service to relieve his fellow-men, 
 and those precepts of the Master which for- 
 bade that way had not yet been translated; 
 there was the lover, whose mistress had 
 dismissed him to aid his brethren ; and many 
 a one beside for whom fortune had prepared 
 pleasant homes in the green shade and beside 
 fresh fountains, but who could not rest and be 
 merry while their fellow-men watered with 
 blood and tears the path of the conqueror, the 
 domain of the tyrant 
 
 These men were of different mould one 
 from another; the veins of some ran with 
 water, of others with wine ; and very unlike in 
 degree was the majesty of their course, the 
 firmness of their grasp. But when they all 
 knelt together at the sound of that bell, all 
 true hearts echoed to its call, and gave forth 
 tones, each of which was wanted to swell the 
 strain of heavenly music.
 
 THE LIBERTY BELL. 83 
 
 And those hearts, once thus awakened, 
 retained a sensibility so delicate that when 
 any act of oppression was about to be perpe- 
 trated on the earth, the votary of this most 
 holy order, who was nearest, heard in the air 
 the warning sound of that consecrated bell. 
 Then did he immediately long, with all his 
 force, to embrace the occasion, not counting 
 the cost, not to be deterred by weariness, 
 sickness, or scenes of happiness to be forsaken. 
 The means of reaching the scene where his 
 devoir was to be done, were instantly afforded 
 him. On the land a white steed bore him, on 
 the waters white swans impelled his bark. All 
 that was necessary for him, in the conduct 
 of the journey, was to keep his mind clear 
 from malice, anger, impatience and all wrong 
 thoughts, till he reached the spot where his 
 courage and energy were required. God 
 would show the way, if he kept himself 
 worthy to be the instrument. If he failed in
 
 84 THE LIBERTY BELL. 
 
 this, the ministry was transferred to another, 
 one more steadfast in the sense that 
 
 " Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends, 
 Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends." 
 
 This legend made a deep impression on me, 
 and though, even in the fairest visionary time 
 of youth, I never met in the greenwood or 
 descried upon the stream one of those chosen 
 servants, with his attendant snowy steed, or 
 swan, and the seal of the shining ones upon 
 his brow, yet I believed such an association 
 could not have died out. These faithful ser- 
 vants must have felt too much the earth's 
 need of redemption to have died in peace 
 without choosing successors worthy to per- 
 petuate the talisman. Still, no doubt, that 
 sanctuary gathered in its worshippers ; still 
 they sped through the world dispensing bene- 
 fits unexpected as manna to those who did 
 not know that the wrongs of the innocent or 
 penitent always woke the sound of the bell.
 
 THE LIBERTY BELL. 85 
 
 But, I supposed, only eyes purged to spiritual 
 sight could see them now. 
 
 One day I read, in the album of a distin- 
 guished contemporary, this signature, " Dan. 
 O' Council, of the Order of Liberators." Of 
 this Daniel, I, at that time, knew little ; not 
 enough to judge whether he, like the great 
 Israelite, was one able to brave the fiery 
 furnace, and the lion's den, and the silken 
 lures of a court, and speak truth always with 
 a poet's power. But it flashed upon me at 
 once, that the Order to which he vowed 
 himself must be that of the Consecrated Bell, 
 under a new form. 
 
 Yes ! it is surely so. We know too much 
 now to be content with merely freeing individ- 
 ual victims from their chains. We know 
 enough to war with the errors which forge 
 them. We must liberate men, but we must 
 also establish the principles of liberty for man. 
 
 We need not the white steed to show us the 
 
 8
 
 86 THE LIBERTY BELL. 
 
 way ; it is now too well marked to be missed 
 by any who choose to see it. 
 
 But now, more than ever, do we need the 
 consecration of the spirit which should pre- 
 cede, the pure tone of conscience which shall 
 direct, our action ! Let none consider himself 
 vowed to the Order of Liberators who is not 
 willing, like the knights of old, to fail in his 
 efforts and see the work given to another, if he 
 cannot keep his heart clean from impatience, 
 a love of excitement for its own sake, intoler- 
 ance, and the bitterness of partisan hatred. 
 For to such, whatever they may outwardly 
 accomplish, He whose name they invoke must 
 surely say, in the hour of spiritual ordination, 
 " I never knew ye." 
 
 We stand, it has been said, in a time of 
 revolution ; so do men ever. Yet that this is a 
 moment of great and peculiar importance, we 
 do believe. Principles cannot die; but the 
 earthly embodiment of one of the greatest
 
 THE LIBERTY BELL. 87 
 
 that give man his claims to spiritual hope, 
 lies gasping with a wound that threatens a 
 long trance, or convulsion. Never did the 
 earth more need the salt to show its savor. 
 Bring the sacred bell ; and at its sound must 
 move, before the sincere worshipper, millions 
 of spirits yet unborn to the woes of this world ; 
 the scenes of centuries to come demanding 
 his agency to avert evils that shame imagina- 
 tion. Bring, then, the silver bell ; but ye who 
 obey its summons, believe, also, that the time 
 demands, and God commands, a deeper, larger 
 wisdom, a severer devotion than those that 
 enabled Milton and Washington to leave us 
 their legacy. We have it to pay over, princi- 
 pal and interest, to our heirs; the mint is 
 ready ; let not the pieces which bear the name 
 of Texas be stamped on the reverse with 
 slavery, and the lone star be given for a tin-one 
 to him who has forfeited the title of Lucifer, 
 except as bitter mockery. Let it not be so, if
 
 88 THE LIBERTY BELL. 
 
 well-considered purpose, if flame-like ardor 
 and purity of life, can prevent it. Or, if you 
 feel yourselves unfit to aid in this cause, 
 consider well whether you forever forego 
 admission to the Order of Liberators, since, if 
 you forbear this test of service, you incur a 
 vast debt to humanity, which fate may not, 
 in your own age, afford you opportunity to 
 cancel. Consider well, but not slowly, for the 
 time is short. 
 
 " God calls; the angels wait; and fellow-men, 
 
 Betwixt the spasms of pain, still question, ' When 
 
 Shall our crushed hearts be healed to say, Amen ? ' 
 
 Our brothers are our keepers; ask them why 
 
 Immortal hopes in life-long graves must lie, 
 
 And they the demons of such destiny ? 
 
 Cain slew the body they would slay the soul : 
 
 To the unborn extend their fell control. 
 
 To thee, oh Lord, our blood doth upward cry, 
 
 Not unavenged and not in vain we die : 
 
 Thy justice is our surety. Happy they 
 
 Through whom to the dark earth its light finds way ; 
 
 Accursed who shut out each gleam of coming day ! "
 
 A FRAGMENT. 89 
 
 .fragment. 
 
 BY JANE E. HORNBLOWER. 
 
 GOD'S glorious works ! free, as the chaiiiless 
 
 winds, 
 
 Far as the eye can stretch, ye widely spread ! 
 The immortal heavens that canopy your head 
 Are glorious glorious the immortal minds 
 That bless your beauty. On your mountains' 
 
 brow 
 Free prayers are breath'd, and holy dreams 
 
 inspir'd ; 
 
 From the pure heights above, in clouds attir'd, 
 Fall radiant thoughts, stainless as mountain 
 
 snow, 
 
 And visions not of earth. The oppressor, here, 
 Fac'd by the free winds, and the bright ex- 
 
 panse 
 
 8*
 
 90 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Of earth, air, water, that invites his glance, 
 Might own, for once, that liberty was dear. 
 Free are the creatures all of this bright sphere : 
 The sheep stray fearless in each dangerous 
 
 path, 
 
 The eagle combats with the tempest's wrath, 
 The chorus of the birds is wild and clear. 
 
 The very sun shoots down unfettered rays, 
 Lighting, at will, each glade and rock and tree. 
 The clouds in their bright charioting are free ; 
 Man's laws are powerless to confine the blaze 
 Of glorious light, pervading Nature's face. 
 In liberty the waters freshly flow, 
 And free the eye wanders the depths below, 
 The changing views, the dark ravines to trace. 
 
 Oh ! glorious Liberty ! thy name is trac'd 
 
 In every work from thy Creator's hand, 
 
 And the great bounty which his goodness 
 
 plann'd 
 E'en tyrant man achieves not to efface
 
 A FRAGMENT. 91 
 
 With all his blighting power. The corn 
 
 waves free ; 
 Oh! free it should be gather'd. Blades and 
 
 flowers 
 Eise up in thousands from the Spring's warm 
 
 showers, 
 And they are man's to use to taste to 
 
 see. 
 
 Given with a Father's blessing, hateful strife 
 And base restriction vainly step between ; 
 A mightier power enfranchises each scene. 
 Since God has charter'd wheat, the poor man's 
 
 life, 
 Gather the sheaves in freedom free they 
 
 grow ! 
 
 His golden sun has painted that bright grain, 
 His rains have fertilized that moving plain, 
 He bade those fields in Summer beauty glow ! 
 
 Eternal Nature ! 'midst thy shows sublime 
 No tyrant foot should enter even there.
 
 92 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 In that great temple of the free-drawn air, 
 Sits Freedom, thron'd coeval with all time. 
 Call'd by her Maker's fiat, there she sees 
 Her subject realms in boundless beauty move ; 
 And, fired with heaven's own atmosphere of 
 
 love, 
 A glory on the hills, and vales, and trees. 
 
 England.
 
 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 93 
 
 IJro^Slarerg Appeal 
 
 TO THE WORLD FOR SYMPATHY, ANSWERED 
 
 FROM OLD IRELAND. 
 BY JAMES HA TIGHT ON. 
 
 IN an Address read by the Hon. T. F. 
 Marshall, on the occasion of the suppression, 
 by lawless violence, of C. M. Clay's paper, 
 " The True American," I find the following 
 passage : " For our vindication, under the cir- 
 cumstances, we appeal to Kentucky and to 
 the world." 
 
 I know not how this audacious appeal may 
 be met by the people of Kentucky : but as 
 an Irishman I reply, your acts of violence on 
 this occasion only deepen the feelings of 
 contempt entertained in my country for Ameri- 
 can slave-holders, feelings which deepen
 
 94 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 
 
 from day to day, as we see more clearly the 
 inconsistency between their professions of lib- 
 erty and their acts of oppression. 
 
 It is lamentable to behold the position now 
 occupied by the United States of America in 
 the estimation of the rest of the world. Slave- 
 ry, it is true, exists in other countries, but 
 nowhere else is its hideous deformity so appa- 
 rent. The charter of man's inalienable right 
 to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
 is ostentatiously paraded before the world, 
 while, at the same time, this magnificent 
 recognition is continually trampled under foot 
 by her citizens. And, strange to say, their 
 perceptions of justice and honor are so pervert- 
 ed by the blighting influences of slavery, that 
 they imagine they stand forth among their 
 fellow-men, arrayed in spotless purity ! 
 
 But such monsters, in the moral creation, 
 have no just pretensions to associate with the 
 rest of mankind. When they leave their own
 
 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 95 
 
 sphere, they are obliged to put on the garb of 
 virtue ; but it sits awkwardly upon them, and 
 cannot conceal their real character. These 
 " wolves in sheep's clothing " walk uneasily, 
 when they step beyond their own polluted 
 boundary. Such at least is the condition of 
 all pro-slavery Americans who visit old Ireland. 
 Yes ! thanks to the fearless exposures and 
 denunciations of O'Connell and his son John, 
 we know how to treat American " soul-driv- 
 ers." 
 
 The incendiaries in Lexington may there- 
 fore rest assured that they will meet with no 
 friendly response from us. In return for their 
 blind and bootless attempt to smother free 
 discussion, and their unmanly attack upon the 
 property and privileges of a man who had the 
 magnanimity to free his slaves, and to combat 
 a depraved public opinion by reason and 
 argument, let them know that Ireland will 
 make every pro-slavery American, who sets
 
 96 PRO -SLAVERY APPEAL. 
 
 foot upon her soil, feel that she looks upon 
 him as a degraded being, fit only to associate 
 with sheep-stealers and highway-robbers. 
 
 That my answer is a true Irish answer, 
 every packet-ship from our shores to America 
 will bear ample testimony. 
 
 Oppression, in some shape, exists in all lands, 
 and the poor are its victims in a greater or less 
 degree, everywhere. In some countries open 
 and unblushing tyranny is sanctioned by the 
 laws and ancient usages of society ; in others, 
 misery and destitution prevail, arising partly 
 from unjust social arrangement, from erroneous 
 legislation, from intemperance and ignorance. 
 But, even in these cases, the oppressed are 
 generally allowed to complain ; their friends 
 are permitted to advocate their cause, and the 
 evils under which they groan are open to 
 inquiry and amelioration. The slave-holding 
 American Union alone would remain wilfully 
 lark and blind, doggedly determined to shut
 
 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 97 
 
 out the light. She alone claims the right 
 forever to repress the free aspirations of the 
 soul, to transform her victim from a man to a 
 brute, and to keep him so. And if one of her 
 slave-holders, becoming convinced of the sin- 
 fulness of his position, struggle through the 
 legal impediments which she has thrown in 
 his way, give freedom to his bondmen, and 
 peaceably advocate the equal rights of all, 
 she hunts him down as if he were a raven- 
 ous wild beast. 
 
 Thus, with a Constitution the most glorious 
 ever offered for the admiration and acceptance 
 of any people, it is reserved for America to 
 exhibit the most infamous tyranny that exists 
 upon earth. We do not wonder when we 
 hear of forcible attempts to repress the ex- 
 pression of opinion, in obedience to the 
 mandate of a monarch, in countries where 
 political freedom is denied to the mass of the 
 people. This is only what might be expected.
 
 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 
 
 But we start when we first learn that such 
 things happen in the United States, where the 
 right of free speech and free discussion is 
 guarantied to all, by solemn compact, and 
 embodied in a written Constitution. 
 
 Nevertheless, while we strive to bring the 
 power of enlightened public opinion to bear 
 upon the unjust acts of American slave-holders, 
 we should be diligent in laboring for an abate- 
 ment of the evils which afflict our own poor. 
 He who sends his sympathies across the ocean, 
 and is deaf to the cries of sufferers at home, is 
 a hypocrite, and deserves not to be trusted. 
 
 But, happily, the United States are engaged 
 in a fruitless struggle against free discussion 
 they cannot shut out the light. Happily 
 for the master as well as for the slave, in 
 spite of all his efforts to overcome the con- 
 viction, the master feels that he is at war with 
 all the higher instincts of his own nature. He 
 is at continual war with God, in his own soul,
 
 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 99 
 
 for he knows that he is ever doing violence 
 to the divine laws. Other sinners may de- 
 ceive themselves by the plea that they are 
 acting in accordance with the propensities 
 which God has implanted. The warrior may 
 urge the plea of self-defence, and the pro- 
 vocation which his natural propensities of 
 destructiveness and combativeness have re- 
 ceived ; the highwayman or the sheep-stealer 
 may seek to satisfy his accusing conscience 
 by pleading that the laws under which he 
 lives are partial and unjust, and deny him his 
 fair share of the means of life. But as easily 
 could I believe that a man might thrust his 
 hand into a flaming furnace and feel no pain, 
 as that a man could buy a man and work him 
 without wages and not know that he was do- 
 ing wrong. He may endeavor to conceal the 
 conviction from himself, by the aid of corrupt 
 public sentiment, and by resolutely silencing
 
 100 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 
 
 his conscience ; but that the consciousness of 
 injustice is a living principle in his soul is 
 proved by the state of uneasiness in which he 
 lives. He is ever in fear, he is the slave of 
 boisterous passions, he enacts cruel and bloody 
 laws to protect himself against the ever-living 
 opposition of his human cattle. Truly, despite 
 his polished manners to strangers, and his 
 haughty demeanor towards his equals at home, 
 the man-stealer is a miserable creature. It 
 would be an act of mercy to release him from 
 the bondage of a system which makes him 
 thus wretched in himself and contemptible in 
 the eyes of the world of that world to which 
 Mr. Marshall and his compeers have made 
 their audacious appeal. If they have hearts 
 capable of being touched by any feelings of 
 truth and honor, deep will be their humiliation 
 at the response they will receive from the 
 civilized world. The folly of these men in
 
 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 101 
 
 suppressing a paper conducted by one whose 
 aim was to shed light abroad on the subject of 
 slavery, will array the free pens of the world 
 against that vile system, and strengthen our 
 indignant abhorrence. May the bloody institu- 
 tion soon be uprooted from its very foundation. 
 Oh, people of America ! the heart of human- 
 ity shall rejoice when the song of universal 
 emancipation shall resound through the length 
 and breadth of the Union; when it shall be 
 borne with acclamation from summit to sum- 
 mit of your everlasting mountains ; when the 
 glad waters of your magnificent rivers shall 
 carry onward the jubilee of freedom; and 
 when your mighty forests and boundless 
 prairies shall no longer echo to the wailing of 
 the bondman ; when your Marshalls and your 
 Calhouns, your M'Duffies and your Henry 
 Clays, shall shake off the selfishness which 
 degrades and depresses them, and shah 1 rise 
 9*
 
 102 PRO-SLAVERY APPEAL. 
 
 up in the dignity of their nature, free and 
 disenthralled! Then, indeed, may your citi- 
 zens appeal with confidence to the world to 
 justify their actions, but not until then. 
 
 Dublin, October, 1845.
 
 103 
 
 fttbtUe. 
 
 BY ALLEN C. SPOONER. 
 
 THE Equinox is past, 
 October's days fly fast, 
 
 Its leaves are sere : 
 The sea, with darker swell, 
 Pale skies and keen airs, tell 
 
 Stern winter near. 
 
 The husbandman, his spoil, 
 Won from the earth by toil, 
 
 With joy surveys ; 
 And, for his bounteous board, 
 Full barns and garners stored, 
 
 To God gives praise. 
 
 The fisher, on the shore, 
 Hears the loud tempest roar, 
 Careless and free
 
 104 
 
 And, safe in peaceful cot, 
 Forgets his toilsome lot, 
 To farm the sea. 
 
 In crowded cities vast, 
 The friendless and outcast 
 
 Together cower : 
 A blight is on their souls, 
 And slowly o'er them rolls 
 
 The heavy hour. 
 
 Near by, in lighted halls, 
 Where wild profusion palls 
 
 The sated sense, 
 The sons of luxury strive, 
 With feast and song, to drive 
 
 Earth's sorrows thence. 
 
 And, as the seasons fly, 
 The preacher's homily 
 Is " watch and pray !
 
 105 
 
 For what are human years ? 
 A shade which but appears, 
 Then shrinks away." 
 
 But what to us is time ? 
 Eternity sublime 
 
 And boundless scope 
 To live and work and grow, 
 Enjoy, achieve and know, 
 
 Are ours, in hope. 
 
 Then let us fearless live ! 
 What's freely given, still give 
 
 With liberal hand : 
 For love, when like a scroll 
 The heavens together roll, 
 
 Secure shall stand. 
 
 Without remorse or fear, 
 Each swiftly passing year, 
 We'll see depart :
 
 106 JUBILEE. 
 
 And, by distrust unvexed, 
 
 Look forward to the next 
 
 With tranquil heart. 
 
 And, as time sweeps along, 
 We'll raise the joyful song, 
 
 And bid him fly : 
 True heart and lofty soul 
 Own not his stern control ; 
 
 His power defy. 
 
 Oct. 1845.
 
 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 107 
 
 BY ALLEN C. SPOONER. 
 
 THE outward evils of man's lot are but the 
 exponents and visible manifestations of in- 
 ward darkness or corruption. The unjust 
 institutions, pernicious customs and violent 
 deeds of mankind, are superficial merely, and^ 
 of consequence chiefly as they indicate the 
 interior state of men's hearts and thoughts. 
 Men do not love evil and wrong for their own 
 sakes, and never justify them as such. All 
 the world admits, for example, that if slavery 
 be an evil and a wrong, it is indefensible 
 and ought to be abandoned. Its defence is 
 grounded rather upon the position that it is in 
 fact as near to right as the present condition 
 of human nature will admit.
 
 108 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 
 
 Nor is this position so entirely false or 
 fallacious as it is frequently stated to be. On 
 the contrary, in the present state of the slave- 
 holder's heart, reinforced as he is by the 
 sympathy and self-interested opinion of others 
 and sustained and justified by the clerical 
 expounders of the will of God, is it not literally 
 true that slavery cannot be abolished? But 
 withdraw the reinforcement of public opinion, 
 silence the clerical defenders of wrong and 
 purge the mind of the slave-holder from error 
 and selfishness, and slavery becomes impossi- 
 ble. 
 
 We are apt to grow impatient and despairing 
 at the persistency of mankind in what we think 
 demonstrated to be wrong. Thoroughly per- 
 suaded in his own mind, the reformer looks to 
 see the considerations which influence and 
 decide him, fall with corresponding force and 
 effect upon the minds of others. But it is 
 not to be disguised that hitherto only a very
 
 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 109 
 
 small portion of mankind have so far attained 
 their full stature as to form their opinions, still 
 less regulate their conduct, with simple refer- 
 ence to right and wrong. It is not wonderful, 
 nor any ground for despair, when so few in all 
 the ages have reached this point, if great 
 masses of men should fail to reach it at a 
 bound. 
 
 It is to be considered also, that the prevail- 
 ing law of human action, hitherto, has been 
 self-interest; a low form of expediency. 
 However true it may be that, in a large view, 
 rectitude and true self-interest concur, it is 
 manifest that a view so large (not to say 
 deep) as to perceive this identity, is to be 
 expected of but very few. Meanwhile, the 
 law of expediency, as practically understood 
 and applied, means what is expedient for me, 
 what will conduce to my advantage, and not 
 what is expedient on the whole and will 
 
 conduce to the joint advantage of myself and 
 10
 
 110 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 
 
 the world. An appeal to this law, implying 
 as it cannot but do, the low and degraded 
 condition of mankind, is now and ever has 
 been the readiest method of influencing 
 masses of men. It is the perpetual postulate 
 of the politician and too oft6n of the priest. 
 In dealing with an " institution " so inwrought 
 into the whole fabric of society and character 
 as slavery, it is no easy task to satisfy even 
 candid minds of the wisdom of its abolition, 
 as a mere point of self-interest or expediency. 
 Still more difficult is it to bring masses of 
 men to throw aside all considerations of 
 interest, and sternly look at slavery as a 
 naked question of right and wrong. 
 
 Furthermore, it is - every day's experience of 
 human nature, that men will and do persist in 
 practices long after they are convinced that 
 they are hurtful and even sinful. It is only 
 by sudden lightning-flashes of energy, or by 
 continual droppings as of the rain, that the
 
 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. Ill 
 
 iron chain of habit can be rent or worn 
 asunder. We may then fairly expect that 
 sound opinion will precede, by a long interval, 
 right action. And through what wildernesses 
 of error and prejudice have even the free 
 citizens of New England to struggle before 
 they will arrive at even a sound opinion on 
 the subject of slavery ! The quickened con- 
 science and resolved will must follow after; 
 and may they follow soon ! 
 
 The very religion of mankind has hitherto 
 been a mixture of blind superstition, ridiculous 
 mummery and base hypocrisy, far enough from 
 practical righteousness and nearly as far from 
 common sense. The application of rigorous 
 morals to the personal, social and political 
 business and relations of men* has but just 
 begun. And even now, out of the limits of a 
 very narrow circle, it is considered prepos- 
 terous to subject practical affairs to the test of 
 moral principles. A member of Congress
 
 112 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 
 
 would be laughed at who should oppose war 
 with Mexico on the ground simply that all war 
 is wrong. A merchant would be considered 
 unfit for business who should decline to avail 
 himself of his neighbor's ignorance of a rise in 
 the price of flour, to buy his whole stock 
 below the market price. The preacher will 
 extol the majesty of the moral law in sounding 
 phrase, on Sundays. It is a familiar trick with 
 the orator to sound a period or complete a 
 climax with the august name of God. It is 
 deemed becoming in women to be pious and 
 punctual at prayers and preachings. But far 
 enough from business men, who live out of 
 doors and in the light, and carry on the actual 
 work of the world, has hitherto been the 
 needless punctilio and unmanly weakness of 
 bowing obediently to the stern law of right. 
 
 It is the glory of this age that it is beginning 
 to import truth and justice and benevolence 
 out of the realms of theory and fancy into
 
 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 113 
 
 actual life and bring them to bear upon actual 
 persons, institutions, relations, usages and 
 opinions. Properly speaking, this is the only 
 fit business of mankind ; or rather it is these 
 principles which ought to regulate all activity. 
 Institutions for the blind, the insane, the 
 orphan, the destitute, temperance societies, 
 anti-slavery societies, are only so many forms 
 of the application of religion to life. All of 
 them are partial, most of them are tainted 
 with somewhat of selfish ambition for office, 
 distinction or applause, in their principal pro- 
 moters ; but they are the best things men have 
 yet attained to socially they show how high 
 the tide has yet risen. 
 
 Looking at the world from day to day, it is 
 hard to tell whether this tide is coming in, or 
 going out; and perhaps it is actually rising 
 here while it is refluent yonder. Yet taking 
 into view a period of a century, we see that 
 
 there is a steady progress onwards. In New 
 10*
 
 114 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 
 
 England we can note in the last ten years a 
 very marked advance in the general mind 
 towards truth and justice. In the metropolis, 
 the State House and Faneuil Hall arc con- 
 ceded, without objection, even to the Aboli- 
 tionists. The newspapers, reflecting popular 
 sentiments with tolerable- accuracy, are not 
 half as bitter as they were ten years since 
 against fanatics and disorganizes. Public 
 men too, are growing quite shy of defending 
 Southern prejudices and institutions, and are 
 beginning to trim their sails to the new blasts 
 of freedom. Even the churches arc not now 
 exclusively devoted to doctrinal theology and 
 town-meetings, but to a considerable extent 
 are open for purposes of general philanthropy 
 and humanity. This is something. Still, it is 
 undeniable that the mass of New England 
 people are very little disturbed by all the 
 atrocities attending the annexation of Texas. 
 They do not understand the principles of
 
 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 115 
 
 liberty xvith sufficient clearness, or they do not 
 attach to them sufficient importance, to be 
 impelled to any vigorous opposition. The most 
 earnest and assiduous efforts of the friends 
 of freedom have been able to bring out but a 
 feeble numerical manifestation, and there can 
 be no doubt that the general feeling is one of 
 almost total indifference. This shows how 
 much more remains to be done even here than 
 has been already accomplished. 
 
 " From within, out of the heart of man," 
 have proceeded all the giant wrongs which 
 obstruct the pathway of humanity. The re- 
 medial energy must be awakened and evoked 
 from the same human heart. Slow as the 
 work is, every blow tells. Late though the 
 harvest be, every wayside seed shall germi- 
 nate. 
 
 The need of the philanthropist is unwaver- 
 ing faith and untiring patience. Faith that 
 no wrong can so entrench itself in God's world
 
 116 DISCOURAGEMENTS AND INCENTIVES. 
 
 as to escape the dissolution to which it is 
 doomed, and 110 truth be so beleaguered that 
 it shall not finally prevail. Patience to 
 work on uncheered by the vision of speedy 
 results, and to maintain a serene peace, which 
 neither disappointment nor delay can ruffle. 
 The noble words of the ancient astronomer 
 are full of the true inspiration : " If God has 
 waited six thousand years for a man to dis- 
 cover his plan, I can well wait for posterity to 
 appreciate my labors."
 
 117 
 
 OX READING J. H. W1FFEN S TRANSLATION OF TASSO. 
 BY GEORGIANA FANNY ROSS. 
 
 THREE hundred years had passed above him 
 
 The Bard, who Salem's conquest sung; 
 But none, alas, had learned to love him, 
 
 Save those who spoke his mother-tongue. 
 We breathed his glorious name in sadness, 
 
 With labor made some gems our own ; 
 Far better by his wrongs and madness, 
 
 Than triumphs of his genius known. 
 
 If some, with daring hand, endeavored 
 To clothe his rhymes in English dress, 
 
 The spirit from the form they severed ; 
 We closed the book in weariness.
 
 118 STANZAS. 
 
 Forever, through their own unmeetness, 
 They made his glowing numbers tire : 
 
 We only heard their native sweetness, 
 In some stray note from Spenser's lyre 
 
 Till thou, sublimely thus transfusing 
 
 The essence of the Poet's thought, 
 No word or spell of beauty losing, 
 
 At last the noble work hast wrought. 
 From thee, to him, delighted turning, 
 
 As fireside songs his lays we boast; 
 For pride and pleasure scarce discerning 
 
 Which charms the raptured spirit most. 
 
 In thee no beam of genius dwindles 
 
 To cold reflected light away ; 
 In passing, each its fire rekindles, 
 
 O, Poet, at thy soul's warm ray. 
 No empty shades, no phantoms meagre, 
 
 Vex those who hold thy model dear ; 
 We read with eyes and pulses eager, 
 
 As if tli' original were here.
 
 119 
 
 Yes, themes to whose harmonious measure 
 
 Venetian waters wept of yore, 
 Have now become our England's treasure. - 
 
 An added wealth of household lore. 
 Strains of the spheres, sublime and lonely, 
 
 A foreign lay the mind may move, 
 But in our native accents, only, 
 
 Becomes the song of home and love. 
 
 O, honor to each hand, that twining 
 
 In every soil the fairest flowers, 
 A glorious coronal combining, 
 
 Has made some rare exotic ours ! 
 And if, perchance, in gathering, shaken, 
 
 Some dew be from its blossom gone, 
 What though the freshness thence is taken, 
 
 Is not the fragrant flower our own ? 
 
 London, Sept. 25th, 1845.
 
 120 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 
 
 1 Vision of % Jatljer0. 
 
 BY JOHN W. BE.OWNE. 
 
 I DREAMED a dream. Time had withdrawn 
 into himself the last fifty-seven years of our 
 history, and they were as though they had not 
 been. I stood in the Convention of Massachu- 
 setts, met at Boston, in 1788, to consider of 
 the adoption of the Constitution of the United 
 States, just then proposed to the States of the 
 Confederation the time of stillness and ex- 
 pectation before the nation was born. John 
 Hancock was in the chair. His compeers, to 
 the number of more than three hundred, were 
 seated before him ; graver and more manly 
 persons than I meet as I walk these streets 
 now. The clause, in the new Constitution, 
 concerning the representation of three-fifths of 
 the slaves, and that of the continuation of the
 
 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 121 
 
 slave-trade till the year 1808, were under de- 
 bate. A member rose, and said 
 
 " Mr. President : I consider myself not as 
 an inhabitant of Massachusetts, but as a citi- 
 zen of the United States. My ideas and views 
 are commensurate icith the Continent; THEY 
 
 EXTEND, IN LENGTH, FROM THE ST. CuOIX TO 
 
 THE ST. MARY'S ; AND IN BREADTH, FROM THE 
 ATLANTIC TO THE LAKE OF THE WOODS ; 
 for over all this great territory is the Fed- 
 eral Government to be extended. No gentle- 
 man within these walls detests every idea of 
 slavery more than I do ; it is generally detested 
 by the people of this Commonwealth; and I 
 ardently hope the time will come when our 
 brethren, in the Southern States, will view it 
 as we do, and put a stop to it. The Federal 
 Convention went as far as it could in regard to 
 the slave-trade. The migration or importation, 
 which is not to be prohibited till the year 1808, 
 
 is confined to the States now existing, only; 
 11
 
 122 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 
 
 new States cannot claim it. CONGRESS, BY 
 
 THEIR ORDINANCE OF 1787, FOR ERECTING NEW 
 STATES, DECLARED THAT THE NEW STATES 
 SHALL BE REPUBLICAN, AND THAT THERE SHALL 
 BE NO SLAVERY IN THEM." 
 
 He took his seat, and another member rose 
 and said " Sir, I have been sorry to hear so 
 many objections raised against the paragraphs 
 under consideration. I think them wholly 
 unfounded. I think that gentlemen will do 
 well to connect the clause concerning the 
 representation of three-fifths of the slaves with 
 the other Article, which permits Congress, in 
 the year 1808, wholly to prohibit the importa- 
 tion of slaves, and in the meantime to impose 
 a duty of ten dollars a head on such blacks 
 as should be imported before that period. 
 Besides, by the new Constitution, each State 
 is left, at its own option, totally to prohibit 
 the introduction of slaves into its territories. 
 What could the Convention do more ? It
 
 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 123 
 
 would not do to abolish slavery by an act of 
 Congress, in a moment, and so destroy what 
 our Southern brethren consider as property. 
 But we may say, that though slavery is not 
 smitten ivith an apoplexy (yet by the clause 
 permitting the prohibition of the slave-trade'] it 
 has received a mortal tvound, and will die of a 
 consumption" * 
 
 As he was finishing, there came upon the 
 wall, above the head of the President and over 
 against all the members, drawing all eyes to 
 itself, a map of the United States, as at the 
 treaty of 1783, with outlines of fire the St. 
 Croix, the St. Mary's, and the Lake of the 
 Woods conspicuously marked. Soon the fiery 
 outline expanded, and took in, first, Louisiana, 
 and then Florida, and then Texas. The free 
 
 * It was the current belief of the time that slavery 
 was nourished by the slave-trade, and that if the trade 
 should be suppressed slavery would die out. That day 
 did not dream of slave-breeding.
 
 124 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 
 
 States, to the number of thirteen, remained all 
 in light ; and the slave States, to the number of 
 fourteen, were all in shadow ; their names in 
 solemn black, ending to the South with Florida, 
 to the South-west with Texas. And Oregon, 
 embraced within the fiery outline which had 
 gradually spread itself to the West, was cqver- 
 ed with the living figures of two adverse 
 armies, rushing to battle. In the midst of the 
 shadow appeared the veiled genius of Liberty, 
 her drooping forehead resting upon her hand, 
 her eyes sadly closed, while at her feet crouch- 
 ed a slave. Beneath the whole, in letters of 
 fire, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN 1845 
 
 SLAVE POPULATION THREE MILLIONS. 
 
 While all eyes were fixed upon this it be- 
 gan to pass away ; and in its place came out, 
 on the wall, the figure of a man, with his right 
 hand extended, branded S S, on the palm. 
 He walked from the wall down in front of the 
 President's chair, and seating himself by the
 
 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 125 
 
 side of Solomon Freeman, of Harwich,* one 
 of the delegates, he seemed earnestly to speak 
 with him. 
 
 As he passed from the wall, there took his 
 place upon it the image of a prison, with its 
 rows of cells. Over the door of one of them 
 was inscribed, as on a grave-stone, CHARLES 
 TURNER TORREY, of Massachusetts for five 
 years from April, 1815, for aiding the escape 
 of slaves. The door slowly opened, and there 
 came from it the figure of a young man, pale 
 and emaciated, who went directly to the seat 
 of Charles Turner, one of the delegates from 
 Scituate, and bowed his head upon his knees 
 and embraced them, while the hand of the old 
 man laid itself in benediction upon his head, 
 and he bent down toward him as one listening. 
 All saw how the face of the old man and the 
 young man answered in likeness to each 
 other, as it might even be father and son. 
 
 * Jonathan Walker's home. 
 11*
 
 126 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 
 
 All this passed in a preternatural silence, no 
 man looking at his neighbor, but all at the 
 scene before them. At length Charles Turner 
 rose to his feet, and said " My brethren, our 
 hopes are delusive. The prophecies of good 
 which we have just heard here shall never be 
 realized. Coming events have cast their 
 shadows before, and we have seen them even 
 now. Behold God has pictured to us what 
 lies in the possibility of the future in embryo, 
 in the womb of time, waiting for one act to be 
 born into visible existence. By no act of ours 
 shall this possibility be made fact. The curse 
 of slavery shall live and not die, if by our act 
 this Constitution is adopted. The suppression 
 of the foreign slave-trade, after the year 1808, 
 shall only give place to a domestic slave-trade, 
 which shall make a coast of Guinea on this 
 side the Atlantic. Proud Virginia, the land of 
 Washington and Jefferson, exhausted in her 
 soil by slavery, shall be abased into the slave-
 
 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 127 
 
 breeder for this proposed union. We all see 
 the revelation it is clear to us as the voice of 
 God. The curse of slavery shall not only live 
 at the South, if this Constitution be adopted, 
 bat shall come home to our doors. My brother 
 from Harwich shall declare what this revela- 
 tion has specially opened to him, as I will now 
 declare what it shall bring to the public weal, 
 and what it has brought home to my house 
 and heart." 
 
 He proceeded to state, as prophecies, all the 
 history of slavery under this government, as 
 we to-day know it ; the purchase of Louisiana 
 and Florida ; the Missouri compromise ; the 
 Texas revolution and annexation ; the rewards 
 offered in the Southern States for the persons 
 of citizens of Massachusetts ; the rule for lay- 
 ing petitions, touching slavery, upon the table 
 in Congress; the resolutions to censure, the 
 threats to expel from the House of Represent- 
 atives, and murder, John Q. Adams, for his
 
 128 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 
 
 advocacy of the right of petition ; the whipping 
 of Amos Dresser at Nashville ; the- rifling of 
 the Post Office and the burning of its contents 
 in the square at Charleston, South Carolina ; 
 the shooting of Lovejoy at Alton, in Illinois ; 
 the mob, in Washington street, in Boston, 
 haltering, and ready to murder, him who shall 
 be, in all time hereafter, the most renowned 
 son of Massachusetts ; the burning of Pennsyl- 
 vania Hall ; the imprisonment of the colored 
 citizens of the free States, in the Slave states, 
 and their sale into slavery, to pay their jail 
 fees ; the demand of the Secretary of State of 
 the United States, in 1840, of England, to pay 
 for American slaves cast upon her islands, as 
 they were being carried to New Orleans, and 
 liberated by her laws; the hopeless desecra- 
 tion of the honor of Massachusetts, in the igno- 
 minious expulsion of Mr. Hoar from Charleston 
 and Mr. Hubbard from N. Orleans ; the meet- 
 ing of organized rebels, pillaging the office of
 
 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 129 
 
 Cassias M. Clay, in Kentucky to silence the 
 only voice that had ever dared, in the slave 
 States, to lift itself up for freedom to the 
 slave ; the branding of the hand of Jonathan 
 Walker, in Florida ; the imprisonment of Web- 
 ster, and Paine, and Fairbank, and Work, and, 
 finally, of his own grandson, the son of his 
 daughter, Charles Turner Torrey, in the jail at 
 Baltimore, for aiding slaves to obtain their 
 freedom, in Maryland, in 1844. 
 
 He sat down. A long period of silence 
 followed; all sitting motionless in their seats, 
 in the act of thought. Then they spoke to 
 each other in consultation, and the vote was 
 taken upon the adoption of the Constitution. 
 It was rejected unanimously. All the New 
 England and Middle States followed the ex- 
 ample of Massachusetts; and, in the history 
 of the Republic, the shameful events which 
 slavery has written, stood unrecorded; the 
 loom of time stopped ; and from the web of
 
 130 A VISION OF THE FATHERS. 
 
 our country's fate, as it was weaving there, 
 the black, black threads were cut, and again it 
 went on weaving. 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 A REMONSTRANCE. 131 
 
 3. Hcmonstrana. 
 
 BY ALARIC A. WATTS. 
 
 OH ! say not thou art all alone 
 
 Upon this wide cold-hearted earth ; 
 Sigh not o'er joys forever flown 
 
 The vacant chair, the silent hearth ; 
 
 Why should the world's unholy mirth 
 Upon thy quiet dreams intrude, 
 
 To scare those shapes of heavenly birth 
 That people oft thy solitude ? 
 
 Though many a fervent hope of youth 
 
 Hath passed, and scarcely left a trace ; 
 Though earth-bom love, its tears and truth. 
 
 No longer in thy heart have place ; 
 
 Nor time, nor grief, can e'er efface 
 The brighter hopes that now are thine ; 
 
 The fadeless love, all-pitying grace, 
 That makes thy darkest hours divine !
 
 132 A KEMONSTRANCE. 
 
 Not all alone ; for thou canst hold 
 
 Communion sweet with saint and sage, 
 And gather gems, of price untold, 
 
 From many a consecrated page ; 
 
 Youth's dreams, the golden lights of age, 
 The poet's lore, are still thine own ; 
 
 Then, while such themes thy thoughts 
 
 engage, 
 Oh ! how canst thou be all alone ! 
 
 Not all alone ; the lark's rich note, 
 
 As mounting up to heaven she sings ; 
 The thousand silvery sounds that float 
 
 Above below on morning's wings ; 
 
 The softer murmurs twilight brings, 
 The cricket's chirp, cicada's glee ; 
 
 All earth that lyre of myriad strings 
 Is jubilant with life for thee ! 
 
 Not all alone ; the whispering trees, 
 The rippling brook, the starry sky,
 
 A REMONSTRANCE. 133 
 
 Have each peculiar harmonies 
 To soothe, subdue, and sanctify ; 
 The low sweet breath of evening's sigh, 
 
 For thee hath oft a friendly tone, 
 
 To lift thy grateful thoughts on high 
 
 To say thou art not all alone ! 
 
 Not all alone ; a watchful eye 
 
 That notes the wandering sparrow's fall, 
 A saving hand is ever nigh, 
 
 A gracious Power attends thy call. 
 
 When sadness holds thy heart in thrall, 
 Oft is His tenderest mercy shown ; 
 
 Seek then the balm vouchsafed for all, 
 And thou canst never be alone ! 
 
 London, Eng. 
 
 12
 
 134 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 
 
 <&!) Prcam tmtljin a Prmm. 
 
 ALTERED FROM THE GERMAN OF JEAN PAUL F. RICHTER. 
 BY E. LEE. 
 
 HIGH above the earth hung the serene sky. 
 A rainbow, like the ring of eternity, encircled 
 the horizon, and broken thunder-clouds, that 
 still murmured with the retreating thunder, lay 
 near the eastern gate of Eden. The evening 
 sun looked behind tears in its setting, and 
 shone on the thunder-clouds, and touched 
 with glory the triumphal arches of nature. 
 
 The spectacle made me happy, and I closed 
 my over-full eyes. As the last rays of the 
 sun penetrated my closed eyelids, I heard no 
 sound but the low whisperings of nature. 
 Then fell the dew of sleep upon my soul, and 
 the spring around was shrouded with a soft
 
 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM 135 
 
 gray cloud; but soon, beams of light, in varie- 
 gated lines of beauty, began to play upon the 
 cloud, and in my sleep the cloud was painted 
 over with the bright pictures of dreams. 
 
 I dreamed I stood upon the SECOND WORLD. 
 Around me were deep green fields, that in the 
 distance seemed covered with flowers and 
 variegated with broken woods, through which 
 mountains, streaked with golden light, appear- 
 ed. Meanwhile the meadows wavered, but 
 riot as if touched by zephyrs, but by the invisi- 
 ble wings of souls that hovered over them. 
 These souls of the second world were to me 
 invisible, for the body is there a transparent 
 veil. 
 
 On the shore of this second world stood the 
 Virgin Mary, near her son, and looked down 
 into our earth, with its pale and transient 
 spring, that swam beneath them, as upon a 
 sea of ether, and appeared only as a reflection 
 of the sun upon its dark and troubled waves,
 
 136 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 
 
 Mary looked tenderly upon her old beloved 
 earth, and said to Jesus " Ah, my son, my 
 heart languishes to know something of my 
 brethren upon the earth! Draw the earth 
 towards us, that I may look into their eyes. 
 Let me look into the hearts also of living men, 
 and behold again their joys and their sorrows." 
 
 Christ replied, " The earth is full of dreams ; 
 thou must sleep, that they may appear to 
 thee." 
 
 Mary answered, " I will gladly sleep, that I 
 may dream of men." 
 
 But, said Christ, " What shall the dream 
 reveal ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Mary, " show me human love ! 
 Show me human justice ! Show me the belov- 
 ed, meeting again after a long separation ; and 
 the suffering, made happy by human mercy." 
 
 While she spake, the angel of sleep stood 
 behind her ; and Mary sank back, with closed 
 eyes, upon his breast.
 
 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 137 
 
 The earth arose, but as it drew near, it 
 appeared smaller and paler than before. The 
 clouds parted, and the fog rolled away, and 
 laid open the night upon the earth, wherein 
 its own stars were visible. The children of 
 of the earth slept peaceftdly, and smiled when 
 Mary appeared to them in their dreams. But 
 in this night there was one unhappy ; one that 
 no dream could soothe ; only her complaints 
 were now silent, her sighs were exhausted, 
 and her eye had lost all, even its tears ! An 
 echo from the Gods-acre* repeated the sighs 
 and the whispers from the house of mourning. 
 The heart of the bereaved one melted within 
 her, and the tears gushed anew from her 
 wounded eyes, and she cried, beside herself 
 with grief, " Didst thou call me, O ! beloved, 
 with thy cold lips ? Didst thou speak to thy 
 bereaved one? Oh, speak once again; only 
 once again ! No ! all is silent ; there is no 
 
 * Graveyard. 
 12*
 
 138 THE DREAM WITHIN A DE.EAM. 
 
 voice from the grave ! The buried lies dumb 
 there, and his broken heart emits no sound ! " 
 
 But Mary heard a voice that called from the 
 second life " Wherefore weepest thou, be- 
 loved ? Where have we been so long ? We 
 dreamed that we had lost each other ! " 
 
 They had not lost each other ; they had met 
 again ! From Mary's closed eyes gushed tears 
 of joy ; and before she could wipe them away 
 the earth had again sank down. 
 
 Now there arose a meteor from the earth, 
 and a fleeting soul trembled at the gate of 
 the second world, as though it had left the 
 earth unwillingly. The body from which this 
 soul had departed lay now in peace, although 
 with all the deep-worn scars of a long life 
 upon it. Near the fallen tabernacle of the 
 spirit stood an old man, who thus addressed it : 
 " I am as aged as thou ! Why then true, faith- 
 ful wife, didst thou leave me alone ? Every 
 morning, every evening, I think how low thou
 
 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 139 
 
 wilt sink in the earth ere I also shall sink 
 beside thee ! Oh why am I alone ? No one 
 listens to the old man now ! Every morning 
 I long for thy true hand, and thy gray hair ; 
 and that my feeble life may close with sorrow ! 
 Ah! then, All- Good! close it to-day, without 
 pain ! " 
 
 But Christ sent not the death-angel with his 
 cold hand. He looked himself upon the desert- 
 ed old man with such a sun-warmth in his 
 heart that the ripe fruit loosened of itself; 
 and like a clear flame his spirit broke from his 
 breast, and met, at the threshold of the SECOND 
 WORLD, the beloved partner of his life; and 
 gently, together, they entered Paradise. 
 
 Mary reached both hands lovingly to them, 
 and said, in her dream, " Blessed ! remain for- 
 ever united ! " 
 
 But wherefore is thy face so radiant, Mary, 
 like that of a happy mother ? Is it because thy 
 earth becomes more radiant with its spring
 
 140 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 
 
 flowers, and rises more nearly to the second 
 world? Thou smilest as happily as if them 
 saw a mother who had found her child. 
 
 " And is it not a mother," Mary answered, 
 " who bends herself, and opens her arms, and 
 cries, ' My child ! come again to my heart ? ' Is 
 it not her own child, that was so early parted 
 from her, and now stands, innocent, near its 
 guardian angel, so early made happy? The 
 mother draws her again to her full heart, warm 
 with a mother's love ! 'Oh ! look at me, thou 
 dear one, and smile thus forever ! ' " 
 
 Mary said, turning to her son, " Ah ! only 
 a mother can love thus only a mother ; and 
 her happiness is like that of the second world." 
 
 Now ascended from the earth a crimson 
 pillar of vapor and smoke, and gathered itself 
 together to conceal a battle-field. At length 
 the smoke parted and revealed wounded men, 
 that lay in each other's bleeding arms. Among 
 them were lofty friends, who had sacrificed
 
 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM 141 
 
 each other, and their friendship, to their re- 
 spective countries. " Rest thy wounded breast 
 on mine, beloved friend ! thou hast sacrificed 
 me to thy country, and I, thee ! Now we 
 may again exchange our hearts before our life 
 bleeds away ! Ah, we can now only die with 
 each other." 
 
 But death turned back, and the iceberg with 
 which it crushes mortals, melted upon their 
 warm hearts. They rose from the terrible 
 battle-field men, to whom the earth could give 
 nothing more. Mary looked significantly at 
 her son ; lie only could comprehend, and con- 
 sole, and fill the hearts of such men. 
 
 But Mary turned away her eyes, and mel- 
 ancholy, even in her sleep, filled her heart ; for 
 the voice of crime, and the moan of sorrow 
 were still heard in her beloved earth. 
 
 She slept again and now the sounds of 
 jubilee and joy broke upon her dreaming ear. 
 They arose far above our little earth, and
 
 142 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 
 
 reached the shores of the second world. Mary 
 looked, and her face was radiant with a higher 
 joy than had yet shone upon it. She saw that 
 cruelty and oppression had ceased ; the chains 
 of the slave had fallen off! Millions of human 
 hearts that were full of tenderness, and honor, 
 and noble virtues, had become free ! Families 
 and friends were rushing together with cries 
 of rapture ! Children were pressed to the 
 hearts of mothers, who had groaned and lan- 
 guished when they were torn away! Hus- 
 bands and wives, separated and sold into 
 distant slavery, were again united ! The young 
 maiden, brutally forced to serve a strange 
 master, had found again her betrothed ! Oh ! 
 what a soul-reviving sound of deep heart-felt 
 joy, mingled with gratitude and reverence, 
 went up from these millions of human hearts. 
 
 Mary looked at her son. A divine rapture 
 irradiated her features. " Son," she said, " thy 
 precepts are fulfilled upon the earth! Men
 
 THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 143 
 
 begin to love each other as brethren! The 
 great plague-stain and shame-spot is washed 
 from our earth! The fair portion, where a 
 pestilential vapor had hidden the slough of 
 crime and cruelty, infamy and despair, is 
 changing into a blooming Paradise of faith 
 and love, human virtue and celestial hopes ! " 
 
 I awoke ! My dream ! Ah, was it a dream ? 
 Will it not be a reality? 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 144 THINK OF THE SLAVE. 
 
 of 
 
 BY JOHN BOWRING. 
 
 SONS of the hills! who feel the fresh, free 
 
 breeze, 
 
 See the free birds among the waving trees, 
 Hear the glad sounds of heaven's free melo- 
 dies 
 
 Think of the slave ! 
 
 Sons of the vales ! where flows the unfettered 
 
 rill, 
 
 Singing its inland song rejoicing still 
 Wandering or lingering at its own sweet will 
 Think of the slave ! 
 
 Sons of the ocean ! when the raging sea 
 Dashes the rocks, majestically free 
 While the storm's thunders shout of liberty 
 Think of the slave !
 
 THINK OF THE SLAVE. 145 
 
 Sons of the desert ! where the fierce simoom 
 Mantles with clouds the earth, the sky with 
 
 gloom, 
 
 But flees when gentler influences come 
 Think of the slave ! 
 
 Sons of the city ! where the eternal tide 
 Of agitation rolls on every side, 
 Urging its restless surges far and wide 
 Think of the slave ! 
 
 Sons of the Deity ! whose word hath said, 
 " I of one blood have all all nations made, 
 I am their common Father and their head " 
 Think of the slave ! 
 
 London, Sept. 29, 1845. 
 
 13
 
 146 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 BT WILLIAM H. FURNESS. 
 
 A GREAT crowd had gathered and were fol- 
 lowing Jesus of Nazareth, that strange young 
 man, wrought up to the highest pitch of ex- 
 pectation by the astonishing things he was 
 doing, and by the air of authority with which 
 he bore himself. " This is the man," they began 
 to say within themselves, " to lead us on to 
 conquest, and realize the glorious predictions 
 of our ancient prophets." Visions of greatness 
 were beginning to flit before the excited im- 
 aginations of the Jewish multitude. 
 
 But in the midst of their glowing dreams, 
 he, upon whom the public attention was so 
 intensely fixed, and on whose steps this great 
 crowd was pressing, turned, and said, " Who- 
 soever doth not bear his cross and come after
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 147 
 
 me, cannot be my disciple." What a sensa- 
 tion must these words have produced! Me- 
 thinks I see the people turning one to another 
 with looks of astonishment and inquiry, 
 wondering what was meant. " What is it that 
 he says? No man can be a follower of his 
 unless he take a cross, that horrible instrument 
 of death, and follow this Jesus, bearing it on 
 his shoulders, like a doomed person carrying 
 the cross on which he is to suffer, to the place 
 of execution ! " What a revulsion must the 
 language of Jesus have caused in the minds of 
 the crowd ! How deeply must they have 
 been shocked ! 
 
 And, judging as the world is accustomed to 
 judge, now-a-days, we must say that his lan- 
 guage was very indiscreet. The idea of the 
 present day is, that if one seeks to reform his 
 fellow-men, he must be very cautious in the 
 language he uses. He must take good care 
 how he breathes a word that shall offend those
 
 148 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 whom he is trying to correct. He must be 
 careful not to waken the evil passions which 
 he strives to chain. He must contrive to lull 
 men into a sort of mesmeric slumber, in which 
 their darling prejudices and beloved sins may 
 all be skilfully amputated, without their ever 
 having the slightest suspicion of it. Would to 
 God there were such a way of getting rid of 
 the evil that is in us, of cutting out the diseased 
 parts of our spiritual frame, without wounding 
 any sensibilities ! There are many wonderful 
 discoveries in these days, but this would be 
 the greatest discovery made yet. But there is 
 no such way. Yet we would fain dream 
 otherwise. And accordingly we must pro- 
 nounce the language of Jesus very injudicious. 
 There was he, trying to win people to listen to 
 him ; and yet on a public highway, in the pres- 
 ence of a promiscuous crowd, made up of wise 
 and simple, friends and foes, he declared that 
 to be a friend of his a man must hate father
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 149 
 
 and mother, and consider himself condemned 
 to a most terrible death ! What occasion did 
 he give to the evil-disposed to misrepresent, 
 and to the well-disposed to misunderstand 
 him ! " Why listen to him," might his enemies 
 exclaim " he would abrogate the sacred dic- 
 tates of nature. He teaches people to hate 
 father and mother. He flies in the face of the 
 instinct of self-preservation, the first law of our 
 being, telling men they must hate themselves ! 
 He is crazy, why hear ye him?" And his 
 friends could only say : " He means well. It 
 is a pity he talks thus, he only hurts his own 
 cause." 
 
 But the words of Jesus, which to our igno- 
 rant way of thinking seem so unguarded, have 
 proved to be words of consummate prudence, 
 of the soundest judgment. What though they 
 shocked all who heard them, although few or 
 none caught so much as a shadow of their 
 
 meaning ; what though they were uttered, inci* 
 13*
 
 150 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 dentally, in an obscure corner of the earth, and 
 no one stood by with pen in hand to write 
 them down, and not an individual in all that 
 crowd thought of committing them to memory ; 
 yet they fell like drops of flame, and burnt 
 themselves into the mind of the world. They 
 passed from the lips of Jesus into the common 
 air ; and now, for ages, they have floated like 
 the air around the world, mingling with the 
 elements which are the principles of all vital- 
 ity. They could not but be remembered, and 
 they will never be forgotten. They shall 
 sound, as they have sounded, in the ears of 
 centuries of men. 
 
 And it is because they are so strong, be- 
 cause they are weakened by no qualifying 
 clauses, because they express a great truth 
 greatly, with a force of expression correspond- 
 ing in some degree to the importance of the 
 thought expressed, for this reason they have 
 been powerful enough to perpetuate them-
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 151 
 
 selves. Had Jesus spoken with caution, lie 
 would have spoken without force. If he had 
 startled 110 prejudices, he would have made no 
 impression. It was needful that the hearts of 
 men should be stirred to their inmost depths, 
 that the truth might penetrate to their hidden 
 springs. 
 
 Besides, Jesus could not have spoken other- 
 wise. He knew that what he had to say was 
 true, and that being true, it was invested with 
 the qualities of omnipotence and eternity, and 
 had all the forces of nature, animate and 
 inanimate, visible and invisible to protect and 
 aid it. While, therefore, he never needlessly 
 shocked human hearts, yet when occasion 
 came for the truth to be spoken, he spoke it 
 with a commanding authority, without qualifi- 
 cation and without fear. Had he studied the 
 caprices of men, had he timidly sought to 
 avoid misapprehension, it would have implied 
 a respect for the ignorance and willfulness of
 
 152 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 men, which they do not merit, (for what are 
 these against the truth of God?) and a distrust 
 of the supremacy of truth, which would have 
 ill become one who knew that he was repre- 
 senting the majesty of the Almighty, and who 
 had been foretold as one whose coming should 
 be as with wind and fire from Heaven. 
 
 The occasion demanded strong language. 
 Those multitudes were following Jesus with 
 hearts throbbing with hopes of vengeance and 
 national renown. Had he shown the slightest 
 disposition to avail himself of the interest he 
 had awakened, they would have rushed to 
 arms at his word. On other occasions he was 
 forced to hide himself, so bent were the people 
 upon making him their leader. On the pres- 
 ent occasion, he was resolved, as it seems, to 
 cut up their false expectations by the roots. 
 They were hoping he would lead them to a 
 throne. He saw before him the grim figure of 
 the cross. He was declaring truths against
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 153 
 
 which an unprincipled hierachy were leagued. 
 He saw how the things he said were at war 
 with the established customs and institutions 
 of the world around him, how men would be 
 enraged at him, how necessary it was that he 
 should seal his testimony to truth with his 
 blood. A like fate, he knew, awaited every 
 one who joined him. It was inevitable. The 
 friend of truth must suffer, and must make up 
 his mind to it once for all. Whoever intended 
 to be a follower of Christ must steel his heart 
 against all the importunities of affection and 
 self-love. He must be as insensible to the 
 strongest domestic ties as if no such ties bound 
 him ; as indifferent to his nearest kindred and 
 to his own life, as if he loathed them ; as fully 
 prepared to be crucified as if he were bending 
 under the weight of the cross and were on his 
 way to execution. Shocking as this state of 
 the case was, still it was the truth ; and it was 
 necessary that the people should know it
 
 154 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 Jesus wished them to count the cost of disci- 
 pleship ; to follow him, not blindly, but with 
 their eyes open, as he himself says in this 
 same connexion. " For which of you, intend- 
 ing to build a tower, sitteth not down first and 
 counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient 
 to finish it ; lest haply after he hath laid the 
 foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that 
 behold it begin to mock him, saying, this man 
 began to build and was not able to finish." 
 
 Such is the Christian doctrine of self-denial. 
 Whosoever would be a friend of Jesus, must 
 carry his cross and follow him. This was the 
 indispensable condition. In no other way 
 could one be a Christian. Is it so still? Or 
 is it not so ? That the words of Christ had an 
 application at the time they were uttered, 
 which they have not now, I will not deny. 
 But some seem to think that their pertinency 
 is now wholly done away, that the day of 
 persecution is past. But who says that ? It
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 155 
 
 is true, fidelity to truth does not expose one to 
 the tortures of crucifixion. Still let any one 
 endeavor to live by the plainest precept of 
 Christ that reiterated commandment of his, 
 for instance, which bids us love our neighbor 
 as ourself, and acknowledge the lowest of 
 men as a brother of Jesus, nay, as Jesus him- 
 self, and he must be prepared to see friends 
 grow cold, and hearts alienated, in whose 
 good-will he rejoices. He must endure the 
 reproach of an unwise zeal, and be content, if 
 others in their charity only pronounce him. 
 insane. In this proud day of Freedom and 
 Christianity, it is not safe to plead the simple 
 cause of Christian love, of human mercy. It 
 endangers our comforts. It exposes us to cold 
 looks and hard words, and fills our path with 
 sharp and painful annoyances. These things 
 are not to be named with the tortures to which 
 the first friends of Jesus were subjected. 
 Still such things are, and it requires the self-
 
 156 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 renouncing spirit of Christianity to bear them ; 
 and they show that self-denial is as necessary 
 as ever. It is impossible to be a Christian 
 without it. All claims to the Christian name, 
 no matter how fully they may be conceded 
 by men, are worthless without the spirit of 
 self-sacrifice. Without that, no matter what 
 else we have, we are strangers to Jesus no 
 friends of his. 
 
 And it is wise to consider to what such a 
 condition of estrangement from him amounts. 
 If we have no spiritual relation to him, if we 
 lack the mind that was in him, we lack the 
 spirit of true men. Alienated from him, from 
 his truth and love, we are alienated from all 
 good, all peace, all hope, all life. And the 
 question whether we will adopt Christian 
 truth and live by it, is a question of life and 
 death with us, in the deepest meaning of the 
 words. Shall our existence be a miserable 
 defeat, or a glorious victory our joy or our
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 157 
 
 shame our heaven or our hell? Shall we 
 join the immortal communion of the just, and 
 rejoice in the ministry of all good angels ? Or 
 shall we give ourselves up to be enslaved and 
 tormented by the powers of evil and darkness ? 
 This is the question, and nothing less than 
 this ; and to one or the other alternative we 
 must make up our mind. 
 
 But how can we obtain this essential virtue 
 of self-denial ? How get courage to encounter 
 the deprivation of things which we fondly 
 love ? How make up our minds to enter upon 
 a path, of the difficulties of which we can see 
 no end, no diminution but in the grave ? Jesus 
 and his friends relinquished every pleasant 
 prospect in life. Danger and death stood 
 always before them. How can we ever find 
 it in our hearts to follow them ? It is hard to 
 bear the alienation of those we love, to ex- 
 change their confidence for their indifference 
 
 if not their ill will, to part forever with all the 
 14
 
 158 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 delicious flatteries of friendship, and all the 
 satisfactions of popularity. Where shall we 
 get the strength that is needed ? 
 
 If we rightly estimate the importance of 
 being friends with Jesus, if we have a just 
 sense of the worth of the things for which all 
 these sacrifices are to be made, we shall find 
 nothing in the world so easy as to do and 
 endure to the uttermost for truth's sake. We 
 shall rejoice to suffer for it. This is the way 
 to destroy the difficulty of self-denial and give 
 to its bitterness the sweetness of heaven by 
 an entire devotion to right. When the heart 
 is once possessed with this devoted love, there 
 is no longer any such thing as self-sacrifice. 
 Then we live. And life, by whatsoever bur- 
 thens crushed, even under the terrible weight 
 of the cross, becomes a luxury, and it is bless- 
 edness to live even amidst tears and blood. 
 
 This truth is illustrated in far inferior mat- 
 ters. Let a man be inspired with an ardent
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 159 
 
 love of knowledge, and when lie is once an 
 enthusiast in any department of science, there 
 is no privation, no suffering that he will not 
 endure, and cheerfully, for the sake of his 
 favorite pursuit. Fatigue, hunger, thirst, sep- 
 aration from friends and from all human so- 
 ciety, the dangers of unexplored wildernesses, 
 wild beasts and savages, all these things he 
 accounts as nothing, if he is adding to the 
 stores of his beloved science. You have 
 heard of the surgeon who, after performing a 
 painful operation, began to praise the fortitude 
 of the patient, and was told that the patient 
 had been screaming at the top of his voice all 
 the while. But the surgeon had not heard 
 him. Thus the action of the bodily senses 
 even may be suspended, when any object has 
 taken possession of the heart. The lover of 
 gain to what sacrifices does he submit, of 
 which he is wholly unconscious ! He cares 
 neither for sleep nor food. All the enjoyments
 
 160 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 of company, all the delights of the country he 
 surrenders for the sake of his dim and dusty 
 counting-room. He gives up all the pleasures 
 of spending money, for the sole satisfaction of 
 making it. No religious devotee ever submit- 
 ted to greater self-sacrifices. But in fact he 
 does not know what you mean, when you 
 speak of his self-denials. He is happy in his 
 bargains and his profits, and has meat to eat 
 that you know not of. Would he speak his 
 honest mind, he would pronounce literature, 
 poetry, art, freedom, and truth, all the most 
 arrant humbugs. 
 
 In like manner the friend of Jesus and 
 servant of Truth must be so occupied with 
 his service it must be such a passion with 
 him that he does not know annoyance. We 
 read of martyrs feeble women, who have 
 endured the acutest tortures without a groan 
 with songs of triumph. The fact is they were 
 so elevated by the consciousness of serving
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 161 
 
 the truth, that their physical sensibilities were 
 deadened. Thus was it with the personal 
 friends of Jesus very humble men, poor 
 fishermen, whose aims never extended beyond 
 the sea of Galilee and the simple occupations 
 of then- craft, their boats, and their nets. But 
 Jesus came and filled their minds with a great 
 idea, and instantly they are emboldened to 
 confront magistrates and mobs, and endure 
 dungeons and death. 
 
 Thus must all men, in all times, find strength 
 to bear their burthens, to become men in great 
 thoughts, in right principles sacred truths 
 living in the heart, and opening its inexhausti- 
 ble fountains of power. Thus alone can we do 
 our duty in our social relations. We need the 
 inspiration of truth, and the love of truth. 
 This is the grace of God, this the power of 
 the Holy Ghost, necessary to the growth of 
 those private affections that gather round the 
 
 domestic altar, and to the life of every great 
 14*
 
 162 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 public cause, the establishment of a religion, 
 the revolution of a nation, the vindication of 
 great natural rights. We must have faith in 
 principles Truth, Justice, Mercy, the found- 
 ations on which the world rests, the pillars of 
 the everlasting throne, the attributes of the 
 Omnipotent, and then alone shall we have 
 power. 
 
 And although it may seem hard to become 
 interested in these things invisible and eternal, 
 as we must be interested ; although they now 
 appear to most visionary, mere abstractions 
 and not principles more solid than the rocks 
 and mountains, yet God has made us to be 
 interested in nothing so deeply. And there is 
 nothing the worth of which is in so many 
 ways made manifest The whole universe is 
 the gospel of their kingdom, and poets, patri- 
 ots, apostles and martyrs, all join in hymning 
 their majesty. By the illustrations of their 
 value which every page of man's history pre-
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 163 
 
 sents, by every violation of them that we 
 witness, how solemnly is their sovereign 
 dignity asserted! The wrongs of that great 
 multitude upon our soil, who lie under the 
 mountain- weight of merciless prejudice and 
 trampled under the feet of unjust power, how 
 do they appeal, irumpet-tongued, in behalf of 
 Justice and Mercy ! The highest in nature is 
 pleading thus with the highest and deepest in 
 man ; and although individual voices may be 
 silenced, this voice of God will keep sounding 
 on, till all hearts quake at the thunders of its 
 remonstrance. We may for a while persist in 
 being interested in other things, in the vanish- 
 ing shadows and corruptible gew-gaws of the 
 senses. Still nothing can so take hold of the 
 inmost heart of man, nothing so kindle it into 
 a glow, as the sense of the right and the true. 
 And the coolest, most self-interested and most' 
 calculating man on earth shall throw his mon- 
 ey-bags into the sea, if need be, and set fire to
 
 164 SELF-DEXIAL. 
 
 his houses, with his own hand, when once his 
 heart is touched with the divine love of Free- 
 dom, Justice, and Mercy. It is the love of all 
 goodness, the love of God, the soul of all 
 religion, the fountain of all life, the gate of 
 Heaven. May God's grace descend upon us 
 and breathe into us a boundless love of what 
 is just and humane, and so give us to be 
 partakers of the Divine nature and power. 
 May humanity be the all-commanding interest 
 with us; for what does the Lord our God 
 require of us but that we do justly and love 
 mercy and walk humbly with our God. Mark 
 the phrase, love mercy. Love is active, irre- 
 pressible. It does not fold its arms, but runs 
 on the wings of the wind to defend the weak 
 against the mighty, and to search out the 
 cause of the friendless and the oppressed. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U. S.
 
 FIGHT ON ! 165 
 
 n! 
 
 BY W M . LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 IN retrospection, champions of th' enslaved, 
 Great triumphs have been won, as ye behold ; 
 The foe grows weak as ye in hope wax bold, 
 And greatly fears what once he madly braved. 
 Yet, though your pathway be with glories 
 
 paved, 
 
 And fresh recruits are constantly enrolled, 
 How much remains, ye need not now be told, 
 For you to vanquish, ere the land be saved. 
 Still groan the suffering millions in their 
 
 chains, 
 
 Still is the arm of the oppressor strong, 
 Still Liberty doth bleed at all her veins, 
 And few are they who side not with the 
 
 wrong: 
 
 Consider then your work as just begun, 
 Until the last decisive act be done. 
 
 Boston, November, 1845.
 
 166 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 0ome |)assaje0 from joetr of Cife. 
 
 BY MART HOWITT. 
 
 HUMAN life is full of poetry. From the 
 cradle to the grave the life of every man and 
 woman is an epic poem. Look only at that 
 little child, brim full of life and love and laugh- 
 ter, with his round plump limbs, his rosy 
 cheeks, his merry eyes sparkling with arch 
 meaning, and his curling golden locks ; he is 
 the very personification of every object and 
 idea of happiness. He might fitly represent 
 spring, or joy, or love ; for what does he know 
 of faded or fading leaves and flowers, of hearts 
 broken or of disappointed hopes ? Such a one 
 as he might the second-born of Eve have 
 been, ere he learned to tremble before the 
 anger of his elder brother. Such a one might 
 have been young John, girt about with his
 
 FROM THE POETRY OF LIFE. 167 
 
 garment of camel's hair, playing alone in the 
 wilderness. Such might have been the very 
 Saviour himself, seated on his mother's knee, 
 and looking into her face with those eyes of 
 intensest love, or playing, like a descended 
 angel, beside the work-bench of the carpenter 
 Joseph. 
 
 Yes, indeed, a little child, whether prince or 
 peasant, is beautiful in its young joyous hu- 
 manity ! It is the opening page of life's epic, 
 and it begins, like a spring morning, all songs 
 and sunshine, and when every drop of dew is 
 a lesser rainbow. 
 
 Turn now to the closing page or rather 
 look upon that old man. His frame is bent, 
 his limbs are slow and heavy, his hair is thin 
 and frosted and white as snow ; his eyes are 
 sunken and dull, and he takes but a cool in- 
 terest in whatever passes before him. Day 
 after day, winter and summer, the whole year 
 through, may he be seen breaking stones to
 
 168 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 mend the highway. God help him ! It is a 
 joyless and monotonous occupation; yet that 
 is a fair sample of old age, for the man is 
 neither crippled by accident nor disfigured by 
 disease. He will even laugh at some quiet 
 jokes, or make merry over many a story of his 
 younger days. He will tell you moreover that 
 he has nothing to complain of; " he can earn 
 his shilling a day; and, bless the Lord! the 
 parish is willing to pay his rent." 
 
 Between the first and the last page what a 
 long and varied and strange history, yet all is 
 poetry ! Not written out in measured lines to 
 fall upon the ear with a sweet cadence, but 
 to startle the heart with its vitality, to come 
 home to our own bosoms with all the force of 
 experience, and to infuse into our spirits a 
 holy, yet sad sympathy, and a kindly Christian 
 love ! Oh if we would but regard our human 
 kindred in this broad spirit of philanthropy, 
 how different would its lot soon become. For
 
 FROM THE POETRY OF LIFE. 169 
 
 this spirit is Christianity, which is poetry in its 
 most elevated form, and in this spirit all men 
 are brothers ! Then should we see many a 
 sinner, not with the eyes of human judgment, 
 but as the Saviour himself saw them. Un- 
 happy women, walking the streets at nightfall, 
 who, having taken one downward step, can 
 never return, though weeping tears of blood 
 sinking into irretrievable ruin, because they 
 know that with their fellow-beings there is 
 neither pity nor pardon even such should 
 we often see more sinned against than sin- 
 ning ; for the spirit of Christianity is emphati- 
 cally that of mercy and forgiveness. 
 
 But now let us return, and between the first 
 few pages, which we hastily scanned, and the 
 last, let ns open at random anywhere, and 
 what shall we find ? 
 
 There is the child at school, suddenly re- 
 moved from all the domestic charities to a 
 
 little world of strangers, and often, more 's the 
 15
 
 170 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 pity, very hard-hearted towards the new- 
 comer. He wears, poor little soul, a brave face 
 all the day, because he has been told that it is 
 unmanly to cry ; but as evening creeps on, 
 sad home-thoughts nestle about his heart, and 
 come crowding into his brain, and, do what he 
 will, he can resist no longer. And thus he gets 
 his first bitter experience of an aching heart. 
 
 Again, there is a group of poor children. It 
 is an evening in May, and they are all busied 
 over a little dreary triangle of mould in a din- 
 gy corner of a dingy city-court. They are 
 meanly clad, thin and squalid, and ill-grown, 
 and one or two of them are crippled yet 
 they seem happy at that moment. It is not 
 seeming, it is reality, for they have this day a 
 holiday. They are otherwise the bora thralls 
 of Mammon, of the system which requires the 
 daily labors of the poor man's youngest born 
 to eke out the miserable daily pittance. Poor 
 little wretches ! And yet for the present they
 
 FROM THE POETRY OF LIFE. 171 
 
 are happy. The day's work is for once remit- 
 ted, and here in this dismal nook of the thickly 
 peopled city, has the influence of Spring pene- 
 trated, and they are making a garden ! What 
 a melancholy attempt to create something 
 pleasant to look upon. The meanest of us 
 has an inborn craving after the beautiful. 
 Thus is it therefore that the withered remains 
 of the nosegay, brought by one of their fathers 
 about a week ago out of the real country, are 
 stuck about, looking to their imagination as 
 natural as life. Yes, and there is the gerani- 
 um too, which grows in a broken teapot, and 
 has been borrowed for the occasion, from the 
 good-natured widow in the corner ; and some- 
 body else has contributed a sickly wall-flower 
 which has languished, not lived, through the 
 winter, in an old blacking-bottle ! This forlorn 
 attempt at a garden is really a very affecting 
 thing to any heart that has an atom of sympa- 
 thy, and we should eschew the man who
 
 172 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 would scoff at it. For ourselves, we could 
 shed tears over it, for it tells of strong but 
 ineffectual yearnings, and of small experience, 
 picking up two or three miserable grains of 
 happiness, and contriving to make them yield 
 marvellous contentment. 
 
 But sadder by far than the squalid city 
 children, playing at a sham garden, is it to see 
 them, the melancholy victims of hereditary 
 disease, lying on hospital beds we have 
 seen them and who that has gone the round 
 of a hospital has not? nor shall we soon 
 forget them. 
 
 In the midst of a room full of suffering 
 wretches, lay one on its little bed, pale and 
 patient, dying by a doleful disease, yet withal 
 wonderfully beautiful. At that moment it was 
 asleep, with flushed cheek, and abundant soft 
 brown hair parted from its white forehead, 
 and its thin pale hand, holding with a re- 
 laxed grasp a gaily painted, and somewhat
 
 FROM THE POETRY OF LIFE. 173 
 
 expensive toy, which some visitor, touched 
 with pity, like ourselves, had sent. We re- 
 marked upon the beauty of the child. 
 
 " Poor thing ! " said the kindly physician 
 who was with us, " she has been with us two 
 months, but she will not be here much longer." 
 
 " Indeed ! " we replied with pleasure, " then 
 she is much better." 
 
 " She is incurable ! " replied he, " she must 
 either die shortly, or live a loathsome specta- 
 cle of disease." 
 
 " Ay, poor dear," remarked the matron who 
 was standing by, " it is a thousand pities, for 
 she's as gentle as a lamb. But, bless you, 
 we 've only too many such ! " 
 
 So it was ! And as we left the walls of the 
 hospital, we felt that twenty homilies could 
 not have spoken half so forcibly in favor of 
 virtue, as did the wretched, suffering forms of 
 those guiltless victims of shame and sorrow ! 
 
 But there are bright as well as dark pas^ 
 15*
 
 174 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 sages in this epic of ours. There is the band 
 of rosy village children setting forth, warmly 
 cloaked, this Christmas Eve, to sing in their 
 sweet young voices some old carol which tells 
 quaintly the glad event that happened in Gali- 
 lee when the shepherds and the wise men 
 also, went up, guided by the wonderful star, 
 to worship and to rejoice over the new-born 
 Saviour. Then there is the sudden striking 
 up of sweet music at midnight, whether it 
 be of heaven or of earth, we cannot at the 
 moment tell horns and drums, and shrill 
 fifes, and deep-toned instruments, to celebrate 
 the same advent. And there is the ringing of 
 bells on a bright calm Sabbath morning, filling 
 the universal air with a floating murmur of 
 sweet sound, for it is the Sabbath through the 
 whole length and breadth of Christendom. In 
 ancient famous cities peal out the cathedral 
 bells ; and down in sequestered vallies among 
 the pastoral hills, and from the rocky glens of
 
 FROM THE POETRY OF LIFE. 175 
 
 the mountains, wherever there is a village 
 church, rises the glad sound also. We won- 
 der no longer that honest John Bunyan tells 
 us that " all the bells of the heavenly city rang 
 again for joy as Christian and his companion 
 entered at the Celestial Gate!" for there is 
 no sound more joyful and heavenly than the 
 ringing of church bells on a bright Sabbath 
 morning. It is full of poetry ! 
 
 And is there not poetry also in the throngs 
 that pass onward on the Sabbath morning 
 through the streets of cities, to their several 
 places of worship ? Family after family are 
 there ; the aged man and the infant, fathers, 
 mothers and little children, rich and poor, all 
 attired in their best, bound on the holy errand 
 of worshipping the Universal Father. Yes. 
 there is poetry in it ! So is there also and 
 deep soul-stirring poetry too in the Catholic 
 woman who has been forth on some little 
 errand of household duty perhaps, and who
 
 176 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 places her basket beside her and kneels down 
 a solitary worshipper in some ever-open cathe- 
 dral. So also, when at the hour of vespers the 
 toiling fishermen leave dragging their nets, 
 and, taking off their caps and folding their 
 hands upon their breast, sing the hymn to the 
 Virgin. Or, when the little child, going or 
 coming from school, kneels bareheaded at the 
 wayside cross, repeats its simple prayer, and 
 then runs homeward. Religion is poetry in 
 its sublimest form ! 
 
 Birth and death are the beginning and the 
 ending of our epic, and christenings, marriages 
 and funerals are consequently among its con- 
 spicuous events. Hark ! now, how the bells 
 ring again, the merry bells of one village 
 see too, how the whole village is alive ! Old 
 and young are looking out from door and win- 
 dow, for the squire's daughter is this day to be 
 married. " Happy is the bride whom the sun 
 shines on," and this day the morning is golden
 
 FROM THE POETRY OF LIFE. 177 
 
 with sunshine. And see, here comes the 
 bridal array, open carriages, prancing horses, 
 smartly arrayed postillions displaying their 
 white favors ; and there sits the bride blushing, 
 in all her beautiful attire; and her attendant 
 bridemaidens, all looking more lovely than 
 common creatures of the earth. And the 
 bridegroom and his men, how handsome and 
 gallant are they ! It is a gay and happy com- 
 pany ; who would not wish them joy ? 
 
 There is something in all this, however, 
 which causes a thrill at the heart, and sends 
 the tears to the eyes. The very pageantry of 
 the thing, independently of its human interest, 
 has an electric effect on the spirit, for every 
 pageant is more or less affecting. God help 
 us, for simple-hearted souls ! but there has 
 come a choaking sensation in the throat when 
 even a Whitsuntide procession of matrons 
 and maidens, each bearing " her flower-lipped 
 wand," has passed in a goodly array, to the
 
 178 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 sound of music, and with a crimson and blue 
 banner borne aloft, up the street to the open 
 church; for there, too, we felt that there 
 was poetry ! 
 
 There is poetry too in every funeral. In 
 that of the little child borne to its early grave 
 by six young maidens, all in white. Yes, 
 truly, in every funeral ! from the stately 
 hearse with nodding plumes, and six black 
 horses in their trappings of woe, with its 
 attendant mourning coaches, its solemn mutes, 
 and its coffined procession, by torch-light, to 
 the ancient vault of the family ; aye down 
 to that of the parish pauper, borne in his shell 
 of naked boards 011 the shoulders of his 
 pauper brethren, to his shallow grave in 
 some crowded and desolate town church-yard. 
 There is indeed much poetry in a funeral ! 
 And who has not been suddenly aware, as we 
 ourselves have been, perhaps in some dull 
 winter's afternoon, of a low wailing music
 
 FROM THE POETRY OP LIFE. 179 
 
 coming onward from a distance, that never- 
 to-be-forgotten " dead march in Saul," which 
 announced a soldier's funeral? The most 
 striking funeral however of this sort which we 
 ever witnessed, had very little of parade about 
 it ; it was merely the funeral of a young re- 
 cruit. There came up the market-place of 
 the town where we then were, this low sad 
 melody; and then we saw not the plumed 
 cap and sword laid upon the coffin, and the 
 led horse, with the numberless accoutrements, 
 nor, following after, his brother soldiers as 
 mourners ; there was in this case only the old 
 black hat, with its gaudy ribbons round it, and 
 his old brown jacket for he was a coun- 
 try lad, who had enlisted ; but immediately 
 followed a woman, whom there was no mis- 
 taking for a moment; she was his mother. 
 She had followed her son from a distant 
 county, full of trouble and anxiety, in the 
 hope of buying him off and taking him back
 
 180 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 with her : for he was her only son, and she 
 was a widow. She had sold and pawned 
 various little articles to prepare herself for this 
 long and arduous journey, and to release her 
 prodigal. She came a stranger to the town, 
 only to find her son dead, and to follow his 
 body to the grave. To see her was to feel a 
 portion of her anguish. A soldier supported 
 her, and the loud wail of her lamentation 
 mingled with the melancholy music. Never 
 did the pathos of real sorrow strike our hearts 
 as at that moment ! 
 
 Are not meetings and partings also moment- 
 ous tilings ? Lovers' first meetings, for in- 
 stance, from which all after-life takes its tone 
 of misery or bliss. And partings ! Partings 
 on the eve of battle partings at the foot of 
 the scaffold partings in the midst of ship- 
 wreck, to meet again a few moments after, in 
 eternity partings on the sea-beach fare- 
 wells, whose tone can never pass away from
 
 FROM THE POETRY OF LIFE. 181 
 
 the heart and partings, also, sometimes of 
 strange mystery. Do we not ourselves know the 
 young wife, whose husband, a happy-visaged 
 and kind-hearted man, and a man of easy cir- 
 cumstances also, laid down the book he was 
 reading to her after dinner, and taking up his 
 hat, said he would return for tea ? " Good-bye, 
 love," were his words, spoken with an un- 
 troubled voice as he closed the door. He 
 hummed a merry air as he stood for a moment 
 on the outer step, passed into the street, and 
 thenceforward was never heard of more ! He 
 was a man of good reputation ; his fortune 
 was prosperous ; not the slightest imputation 
 was whispered against him ; he was happy in 
 his home, a loving and beloved husband, and 
 he had many friends ; there was no earthly 
 reason for his concealing himself. It was 
 broad daylight, in the long days of summer, 
 and in a seaport town, where he lived and 
 
 where he was well known. But neither in 
 16
 
 182 SOME PASSAGES 
 
 ship nor boat had he left the port ; nor could it 
 be discovered that he had left the town either 
 by coach or any other conveyance. The earth 
 might have opened and swallowed him up, for 
 any trace that could ever be gained. From 
 that night forth he never was heard of, either 
 in England or any other land. It was a mys- 
 terious fate, to which death, in any form, had 
 been preferable. 
 
 " Good-bye, love ! " was forever in the ear of 
 that bereaved woman, and she became old 
 before her time. By intense listening, night 
 and day, for his returning footstep, she has 
 become partially deaf; there was a wild 
 anxiety in her eye whenever the door opened, 
 which told painfully what had become the 
 habit of her mind through melancholy years of 
 hope deferred. What his fate really was, 
 heaven only knows, and whether he will ever 
 return. Were he ever to do so, their meeting- 
 moment would be the concentrated joy of a
 
 FROM THE POETRY OF LIFE. 183 
 
 life ; like a condensed essence, strong enough 
 to kill. 
 
 Yet there have been such meetings. Ship- 
 wrecked men have returned after long years 
 of absence ; prodigal sons have come back to 
 their fathers' house ; the secret captive has 
 been released from his prison-cell, and restored 
 to his family like one whom the grave had 
 given up ; for human life, as we have before 
 said, has many a sorrowful and many a strange 
 incident. 
 
 Clapton, England.
 
 184 CHARACTER. 
 
 Bonnet... .Character. 
 
 BY WM. LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 WHO talks of weariness in Freedom's cause, 
 
 Knows nothing of its life-sustaining power; 
 Who in the conflict for the right would pause, 
 
 Beneath a tyrant's rod was made to cower ; 
 Who something loves more than his brother 
 man, 
 
 Holds it more sacred, at a higher price, 
 Fails to discern Redemption's glorious plan, 
 
 Or in what sense Christ is our sacrifice ; 
 Who stands aloof from those who are agreed 
 
 In charity to aid and bless mankind, 
 Because they walk not by his narrow creed, 
 
 Himself among the fallen spirits shall find ; 
 Who would show loyalty to God must be 
 
 At all times true in man's extremity. 
 
 Boston, November, 1845.
 
 THE CHURCH. 185 
 
 BY WENDELL PHILLIPS. 
 
 " Let not the Pope, the bishops, or the monks exclaim against us, 
 WE are the Church ; he who separates from us, separates himself 
 from the Church. There is no other Church save the assembly of 
 those who have the word of God, and who are purified by it." 
 MELANCTHON. 
 
 " One hour of justice is worth seventy days of prayer." KORAN. 
 
 " CEASE to trouble our meetings with this 
 subject. The Church is no Anti-slavery So- 
 ciety." 
 
 Will you join me then in a specific effort to 
 abolish slavery ? 
 
 "No. "Pis a dangerous thing this forming 
 of societies for each single evil. I preach the 
 Gospel, which will gradually cure them all." 
 
 Doubtless the Gospel is the only cure for 
 human evils and sins the cross of Christ the 
 only sheet-anchor for the hopes of the race. 
 
 From the newly opened pages of the Bible 
 16*
 
 186 THE CHURCH. 
 
 burst forth the dawn of that civilization which 
 gladdened the West of Europe. That same 
 sun still rides high over its noon and is to 
 know no setting. All this we acknowledge ; 
 but hcnv is the work to be done ? 
 
 Not by Christian scholars growing gray over 
 the disputed texts of the Epistles : 
 
 Not by divines immersed in the question 
 whether a goblet, or a running stream is 
 necessary for Baptism : 
 
 Not by churches rent asunder with theories 
 of three orders of clergy, or none. 
 
 No. But by the earnest thought and works 
 of Christian men and women, looking not at the 
 things which are behind, but pressing forward 
 to grapple with the wants and the woes of 
 their own day. Why does God's spirit 
 strengthen human nature with all the graces 
 of the Christian character? That the pos- 
 sessor may sit and contemplate his own per- 
 fections ? If he do, like the youth of classic
 
 THE CHURCH. 187 
 
 fable, his soul will die feasting on its own 
 beauty. That he may build up a sect ? That 
 he may sit and think how surely he would have 
 avoided the scepticism of the Sadducee, or the 
 bigotry of the Pharisee, and not have stoned 
 the Prophets ? 
 
 No. Men and women are endowed by 
 Christianity with hearts lifted above selfish- 
 ness filled with love for their race con- 
 vinced of the possibility of virtue of the 
 safety of doing right of the value of truth 
 not only or wholly for their own sakes, but 
 that these powers may be used intently and 
 earnestly in analysing the institutions and 
 exposing the corruptions of society, defending 
 the rights of the poor, seeking out the hidden 
 sources of public suffering, "attending to the 
 neglected and remembering the forgotten ! " 
 
 Christianity is not merely a contemplative 
 hermit, rapt in visions and dwelling on its 
 own states of feeling no acute metaphysi-
 
 188 THE CHURCH. 
 
 cian, nervously weighing creeds but a living 
 voice, crying to the busy throng, " repent ; " a 
 denouncer of "wickedness in high places," 
 telling unjust wealth to "weep and howl;" 
 bidding " kings to rule in righteousness ; " full 
 of woes for such as " devour widows houses ; " 
 setting "at liberty them that are bruised." 
 She is as proud of Benezet as of Pascal ; 
 and loving Fenelon well, gives as bright a 
 crown to Howard, and girds as cheerfully for 
 the battle the rough and sturdy frame of 
 Luther and the wild zeal of Savonarola. 
 
 Now-a-days the mass of society recognise 
 the duty and the worth of alms-giving and 
 Sunday Schools cheap soup and the primer. 
 For the Church remains a higher and a harder 
 work. Standing in the van, her prophetic eye 
 should be the first to descry suffering, even 
 though the cloud be no bigger than a man's 
 hand: her heart, touched with liveliest sym- 
 pathy, is to be poured out first in its behalf:
 
 THE CHURCH. 189 
 
 hers is to be that wisdom, the child of good- 
 ness, which \sfirst to devise the remedy. 
 
 How shall that body dare to call itself the 
 Church of Christ, which allows any, out of her 
 pale, to go before her own sons in keen sym- 
 pathy with suffering, or active effort for its 
 relief? In the tender heart, the open hand, 
 the brain that beats not for sectarian or selfish 
 ends, but only that the wide race may be hap- 
 pier and better, dwells the true Church of 
 Him " who went about doing good." 
 
 Instead of this the Church, which has been 
 for ages getting ready to do her work, now 
 refuses to set about it. Having scattered so 
 long the seeds of reform and elevation, she 
 sits still, now that the fields are white for the 
 harvest. She disowns the principles which 
 have sprung from her bosom, brands them as 
 infidel, and gathers into her idle fold those 
 timid sheep, which she can still govern, lest 
 they be corrupted by the "running to and
 
 190 THE CHURCH. 
 
 fro and increase of knowledge" the very 
 blessing of which her prond prophets heralded 
 her as the bearer. Claiming to have on the 
 breastplate of righteousness she refuses to 
 have anything to do with the battle. Claim- 
 ing to hold the sword of the Spirit she 
 keeps it nicely sheathed, while other men 
 contend for the faith once delivered to the 
 saints. 
 
 The Church rests, even in her own theory, 
 (among us) when she has reformed her own 
 subjects, forgetting that other duty of using 
 their virtues and her position to reform the 
 guilty institutions of society. This is her 
 theory. In practice she rests without reform- 
 ing either the individual or the mass. 
 
 Her army is all equipped and she idly 
 expects to keep them active and disciplined 
 without exercising their virtues in constant 
 warfare. God has paid back this desertion of 
 her post with barrenness. After copying the
 
 THE CHURCH. 191 
 
 Jesuits " in lengthening the creed and shorten- 
 ing the Decalogue," Christians seem to think 
 that Christianity itself, in the abstract, is some- 
 how or other to work wonders, but with all 
 that they have nothing to do. 
 
 " Stand still, and see the salvation of the 
 Lord," said Dr. Arnold, "was true advice to 
 the Israelites on the shores of the Ked Sea. 
 It would have been false when they were to 
 conquer Canaan." 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 192 TO THE TRANS-ATLANTIC 
 
 Ctnes 
 
 TO THE TRANS-ATLANTIC FRIENDS OF THE SLAVE. 
 BY DANIEL RICKETSON. 
 
 YE, who across the broad Atlantic wave, 
 Have sent your kindly voices hitherward, 
 Whilst those who should by our right side be 
 
 found, 
 
 Have recreant proved to Nature and to Truth, 
 We gladly hail ye as our cherished friends ! 
 Ye, who afar from such heart-rending scenes, 
 As blot the fair fields of our native land, 
 Have wept to hear the distant tale of woe. 
 Ye, in whose breasts no base-born hate resides, 
 Ye, who can look on Afric's sable sons, 
 And call them brethren, heirs of the same 
 
 rights, 
 
 That the great Giver of all good designs 
 For Man, wherever found throughout the globe.
 
 FRIENDS OF THE SLAVE. 193 
 
 We love to rank ye with, the truly great 
 The noble benefactors of our race. 
 Clarkson, thy life awakens in our souls, 
 The truest worship due to Love and Truth. 
 Our infant lips oft lisped thy reverend name, 
 And with increasing years our love has grown. 
 And ye of later date, ye noble ones, 
 To whom we owe so much of cheer and 
 
 strength ! 
 Your names are watch-words in our sacred 
 
 cause. 
 
 Thompson, thy thrilling tones of eloquence, 
 Upraised for Scotland in the name of Right, 
 Not yet have died away upon our ears 
 Those words of truth are treasured in our 
 
 hearts. 
 
 Bowring, thy gifted pen, so freely lent, 
 To spread the cause of Freedom and of Truth ; 
 Haughton and Webb, so constant at your posts, 
 Ye clear and fearless pleaders for the Right ; 
 
 And Martineau and Pease, your generous aid, 
 17
 
 194 TO THE FRIENDS OF THE SLAVE. 
 
 We fondly prize among our choicest gifts : 
 Abdy, thee, too, whose rich and classic claims 
 Are unsurpassed but by thy feeling heart ; 
 And Morpeth, nobler in the cause of Truth, 
 Than in thy own illustrious name and rank ; 
 We love ye all, and in the Bondman's name, 
 Invoke Heaven's blessings on your noble lives. 
 
 Woodlee, New Bedford, Massachusetts.
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY AT THE WEST. 195 
 
 Hecollectums of ^tnti-SlaDnrg at % 
 
 BY CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 
 
 ONE of the most striking features of a 
 residence in Detroit to me at least is the 
 frequent arrival of escaped slaves, on their 
 way to Queen Victoria's country. Scarce a 
 week passes that parties of worn wayfarers 
 the lashes sometimes yet unhealed on their 
 poor shoulders do not present themselves 
 to the friends of freedom, imploring aid to 
 cross the river into Canada. Sometimes one 
 solitary wretch the wreck of a strong man, 
 perhaps with his iron joints and their wiry 
 sinews almost laid bare by famine, his heart 
 sunken to infant weakness, and unbidden 
 tears coursing down his cheeks, as he tells his 
 hapless tale, asks aid, which a few days more 
 of suffering would have rendered unavailing.
 
 196 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 " Are you a single man ? " said a dear friend 
 of ours once to just such an one. 
 
 " Wife and seven children, massa," was the 
 reply; and with it such a burst of grief as 
 unnerved all present. 
 
 Harpies, such as money will always buy, 
 haunt the ferry and the avenues leading to it, 
 so that the steamer, which plies continually 
 between Detroit and Sandwich, is of no service 
 to the fugitive. In canoes, at dead of night, 
 " in silence and in fear," do the descendants of 
 those who left all for Freedom, submit to 
 smuggle into the dominions of the very power 
 against whose tyranny their ancestors revolted, 
 native-born Americans, driven into exile by 
 the injury and oppression of their own country- 
 men. 
 
 And when the canoe reaches British ground, 
 before dry footing can be obtained, what sights 
 have the noble beings, who peril so much for 
 the unfortunate, witnessed among these poor
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY AT THE WEST. 197 
 
 souls, who are thought by some to Jiave no 
 souls ! What plunging into the shallow water, 
 and wading to the shore so longed and prayed 
 for ! What prostrations upon the earth, what 
 shouts and tears of joy, what madness of ex- 
 ultation, that the goal is at last reached! 
 What kissing of the friendly soil British 
 soil! Alas! Alas! 
 
 Not always alone, or accompanied only by 
 fellow-sufferers, do these poor dumb witnesses 
 of fraternal cruelty seek the Canadian shore. 
 An incident, which will forever be fresh in our 
 memory, occurred while we were residents of 
 the West. A family of slaves, wearing not 
 the crushed aspect of the fugitives we were 
 accustomed to see, made their appearance at 
 Detroit, decently clad, and accompanied by 
 their mistress and owner. She, a woman of 
 little education and plain manners, had not 
 only willed to emancipate them, but, in order 
 
 to assure the freedom which she knew would 
 
 17*
 
 198 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 be so insecure in a slave state, had left all, 
 and travelled with them, through incredible 
 difficulties and embarassments, even to the 
 verge of that country which alone, of all the 
 earth, is capable of the desperate attempt to 
 make Freedom and Slavery walk hand in 
 hand. She was unacquainted with even so 
 much geography as would have taught her the 
 States through which she must pass to reach 
 Michigan ; and her inquiries on the road had 
 been answered by information purposely cal- 
 culated to mislead and perplex her. She had 
 been for years laboring under a conviction that 
 she had no right to those slave-people, though 
 she had not so much as heard that there was 
 a body of persons calling themselves Abolition- 
 ists, who interested themselves in favor of 
 those in bondage. Not one single human 
 being among her neighbors and acquaintance 
 who did not condemn her course ; not one to 
 whom she could look for advice or sympathy.
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY AT THE WEST. 199 
 
 Yet this uncultivated but lofty soul was un- 
 daunted, and quietly followed up its noble 
 purpose, until the whole number of grateful 
 freed-men were safely landed upon the shores 
 of Canada. 
 
 Then did their happy friend, no longer bur- 
 thenecl with the title of mistress, take leave of 
 her charge, amid the unutterable blessings of 
 their hearts, and return to the American side 
 to sleep and, as she said, in peace, for the 
 first time for years ; so dreadful had been her 
 sense of wrong, and so great her fear that 
 death might interpose before her plans and 
 their great result could be consummated. 
 
 One of the earliest and warmest friends of 
 the slave, in the State of Michigan, was Dr. 
 Arthur L. Porter, who departed this life in the 
 height of his usefulness only a few months 
 since. For years he labored almost single 
 handed, enduring opposition, contempt, slan- 
 der, loss of worldly goods, all that the
 
 200 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 worldly spirit most fears and hates, deter- 
 mined to awaken the generous heart of the 
 West to the true view of the slave question 
 He was well known in New England as a 
 person of high scientific attainments, and he 
 entered upon the practice of medicine at De- 
 troit under such auspices as would have 
 insured success. But the avowal of decided 
 anti-slavery sentiments was at that time 
 equivalent to renunciation almost of daily 
 bread, when that bread was to be earned 
 among those who were called the "higher 
 classes" at the West. Day after day saw 
 every engine which the world knows so well 
 how to turn against those who unflinchingly 
 follow out the dictates of conscience, brought 
 to bear against Dr. Porter. His character was 
 maligned, his medical practice traduced, and 
 every death that occurred among his patients 
 was made the instrument of a fresh attack on 
 his reputation and his means of living.
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY AT THE WEST. 201 
 
 But without one moment's wavering with 
 an eye single, as it would seem, to the one 
 holy purpose to which he had devoted his 
 life, did he pursue his course, until, before his 
 death, the goodly leaven had spread throughout 
 the mind of the State; and nowhere at the 
 North has a wanner and more decided anti- 
 slavery sentiment sprung up than in Michigan. 
 Nowhere are conventions more eagerly attend- 
 ed, funds more liberally contributed, and 
 talent and effort more freely offered in the 
 service of Freedom than in that far away 
 State; and of all this, we who watched the 
 whole progress of the change, consider Dr. Por- 
 ter to have been, under the blessing of Heaven, 
 the author and most earnest promoter. 
 
 His fellow-citizens, to their honor be it 
 spoken, learned to know his worth. When he 
 was suddenly stricken from the ranks of 
 Christ's own faithful soldiery, the tears of all 
 who had lived within his influence attested
 
 202 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 how lovely is goodness, and how ill the world 
 can spare its light ; and the whole city felt the 
 blow with a sensibility alike honorable to the 
 deceased and to itself. No purer spirit ever 
 toiled and prayed for its welfare; and none 
 has been more sincerely regretted. 
 
 When one remonstrated with Dr. Porter 
 upon the loss and hatred he was incurring in 
 the anti-slavery cause, he replied, " Loss ! If 
 by laying down my life I could advance the 
 emancipation of our slaves but a single day, I 
 could do it cheerfully ! " And without doubt 
 he spoke the words of truth and soberness. 
 May God supply so great a loss by sending 
 many such laborers into his vineyard ! Noble 
 souls there are yet on the same ground, con- 
 tending still with ignorance and prejudice 
 enough ; but the way is comparatively smooth 
 before them ; and it may reasonably be hoped 
 that before long it will be as impossible for the
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY AT THE WEST. 203 
 
 slave-catcher to exercise his blood-guilty trade 
 in the state of Michigan, as it now is within 
 the time-honored shadow of Faneuil Hall. 
 
 New York.
 
 204 PHOBBE MALLORY. 
 
 iltallon) ; % last of % 
 
 BY EDMUND 
 
 " But when returned the youth? The youth no more 
 Returned exulting to his native shore ; 
 But forty years were past, and then there came 
 A worn-out man, with withered limbs and lame ; 
 His mind oppressed with woes, and bent with age his frame." 
 
 CEABBE. 
 
 I WAS once a great pedestrian; and have 
 performed feats in my time, which, should 
 entitle me to a respectable standing, if not an 
 exalted rank, in the sporting world. I used to 
 think little of forty miles a day; and have 
 " made " my six miles within the hour. But 
 all that is over. 
 
 " It is not now as it hath been of yore ! " 
 
 "Walking, for its own sake, like virtue on the 
 same terms, is but too apt to be an enthusiasm 
 of youth. I have not, indeed, entirely sub- 
 sided into the opinion which a gentleman,
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 20-5 
 
 recently deceased, who successively distin- 
 guished himself in the gay world, at the bar 
 and in the pulpit, once pronounced ex catfiedra, 
 in my hearing, that "legs are given to man 
 only to enable him to hold on to a horse : : ' 
 but still a sober ten miles satisfies me now. It 
 will be well for me if this be the only good 
 habit of my youth from which I have fallen 
 away. 
 
 During my days of pedestrious grace I 
 resided in Boston, and my walks made me 
 tolerably familiar with the beautiful country 
 that environs it for ten miles on every side : 
 itself being ever the crowning charm of the 
 landscape. It is a great advantage Boston 
 possesses over most other cities that one can 
 almost immediately exchange the bustle of the 
 streets for some of the most lovely and rural 
 scenes in the world. An hour's drive, or an 
 afternoon's walk, transports you, as it were, 
 into the heart of the country. The winding 
 IS
 
 206 PHCEBE MALLORY; 
 
 country roads, and green lanes, hedged with 
 barberry bushes, might beguile you to believe 
 that you were a hundred miles from a great 
 city, were you not continually tempted to turn 
 and see how gracefully, at airy distance, she 
 seems to sit upon her three hills and lord it 
 over the prospect. 
 
 One fine autumn afternoon, about ten years 
 ago, when I had been 
 
 " Wasting in wood-paths the luxurious day," 
 
 I found myself on the summit of one of a 
 chain of hills, looking towards the city. And 
 what a prospect lay before me ! On my right 
 were hills covered with woods clothed in the 
 gorgeous hues of autumn, looking like troops 
 of " shining ones " just alighted on some mis- 
 sion of mercy ; in the middle distance, tufted 
 groves, village spires, farm-houses, meadows 
 dotted with cattle, and a brimming river 
 sparkling in the slanting rays of the sun ; in
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 207 
 
 the distance the city, relieved against the 
 Blue Hills ; and on the left the noblest burst 
 of ocean ! Nahant breaking the expanse, 
 with Egg Rock beyond, and then stretching 
 leagues and leagues away, till it had put a 
 girdle round the earth ! It was a noble pros- 
 pect! 
 
 After I had feasted ray eyes and heart on 
 these glorious apparitions, I was recalled to a 
 sense of the things of earth by the reflection 
 which was forced upon me, that I had had no 
 dinner. I accordingly marked from my hill- 
 top, where all the country lay mapped out at 
 my feet, the course I would pursue on my 
 return home. Descending the precipitous face 
 of the hill, I plunged into 
 
 " an alley green, 
 With many a bosky bourne from side to side," 
 
 which led me, though somewhat deviously, in 
 the direction of the city. After I had followed
 
 208 PHCEBE MALLOEY; 
 
 its windings for some miles I began to wax 
 thirsty, and, to say sooth, a little weary to boot. 
 So I looked about me, as I walked, for some 
 hospitable door at which, though no saint, I 
 might ask for a cup of cold water. 
 
 I pique myself on my skill in the physiog- 
 nomy of houses, and it is not at every door, 
 any more than of every man, that I would ask a 
 favor. Accordingly I passed by several houses 
 of some pretensions, but which had to my 
 eye an ill-favored and ill-conditioned express- 
 ion, and passed onward till I came to one that 
 I thought might answer my purpose. It had 
 not much to recommend it in its exterior. It 
 was a cottage of the very humblest descrip- 
 tion, the walls of bare boards, blackened with 
 age ; but yet there was something about it that 
 made my heart warm towards it. It stood a 
 little withdrawn from the road and the grass 
 grew green up to the broad flag-stone, half 
 sunk into the earth, which served for its door-
 
 THE LAST OP THE SLAVES. 209 
 
 stone. There was no litter or dirt about the 
 door, the windows were all whole, and there 
 was a general air of neatness about it which 
 showed that the poverty of the inhabitant was 
 at least not sordid. 
 
 It had a promising look and I knocked at the 
 door. It was opened, after a short interval, by 
 an "old old" woman, as black as jet, slightly 
 bent by age and leaning upon a staff. Though 
 not expecting to see a person of color, I was 
 pleased to find, that, as far as I could judge 
 from her appearance, I had not been deceived 
 by the lineaments of her habitation. Her 
 dress was of the coarsest materials, but the 
 snowy whiteness of her cap and handkerchief 
 and the scrupulous cleanliness of her checked 
 gown proved the presence of that virtue which 
 is said, on high authority, to be akin to godli- 
 ness. She received me with the kindliness 
 and good nature which mark her race, and, 
 upon making my necessities known, she cor- 
 18*
 
 210 PHCEBE MALLORY; 
 
 dially invited me to walk in. This I did, 
 nothing loth, and while my hostess was select- 
 ing the best of her three mugs for my service, 
 I seated myself, at her pressing instance, in 
 one of her two flag-bottomed chairs, and took 
 a survey of the premises. 
 
 They were rough and bare enough, God 
 knows ; but still were not without that air of 
 comfort which thorough neatness and good 
 order can give to the humblest dwelling. Her 
 house could boast of but one apartment; but 
 that was sufficient for her purposes. A bed, 
 two chairs, an invalided table, and a pine 
 chest made up the sum of her furniture. The 
 walls could boast of no decoration except a 
 print, over the head of the bed, of the capture 
 of Andre, in which the cow-boy militiamen 
 were looking most truculently virtuous as 
 Andre tempted their Roman firmness with a 
 watch of the size of a small warming-pan. 
 The floor was well scrubbed and sanded, and
 
 THE LAST OP THE SLAVES. 211 
 
 some peat embers smouldered upon the hearth. 
 After I had slaked my thirst with some deli- 
 cious water, of which she was justly proud, 
 all cold and sparkling from the open well, 
 ministered unto by the picturesque puritanic 
 well-pole, she resumed her chair and her 
 knitting; and, as I rested myself, I entered 
 into conversation with her. 
 
 She seemed pleased with the interest I felt 
 in her affairs, and simply and frankly told me 
 all she had to tell about herself and her way of 
 life. She had lived on that spot for many 
 years, and had mainly depended upon her skill 
 as a laundress for her subsistence. As she had 
 grown old, however, and the infirmities of age 
 began to press heavily upon her, she confined 
 herself to the nicer branches of her profession ; 
 for the exercise of which the ladies of the 
 neighborhood supplied her with ample mate- 
 rials. Whatever deficiency there might be in 
 her means of comfort, after she had done her
 
 212 PH(EBE MALLORY; 
 
 best to provide them, was cheerfully made up 
 to her by the kindness of her neighbors. For, 
 to do them justice, neglect of the poor, black 
 or white, at their own doors, is not one of the 
 vices of the people of New England. She 
 seemed to be very well satisfied with her 
 share of the good tilings of this life, and evinc- 
 ed a degree of unaffected contentment which 
 is not always seen to accompany a much 
 higher degree of prosperity. I was greatly 
 interested in her character and history, and 
 never walked in that direction again without 
 calling to see her. In the course of my ac- 
 quaintance with her, I learned, at different 
 times, the simple incidents of her story, which 
 I am about to relate. They seemed to me, 
 when I heard them, to be worth the telling ; 
 but I am by no means sure that anybody else 
 will be of the same opinion. Such as they are, 
 however, you have them here.
 
 THE LAST OP THE SLAVES. 213 
 
 Phcebe was born somewhere about the mid- 
 dle of the last century, in the family of the 
 Honorable James Mallory, for many years one 
 of His Majesty's Council for the Province of 
 Massachusetts Bay. He used to live in that 
 fine old house with the Corinthian pilasters, and 
 the magnificent lime trees in the court-yard, 
 which stood on your left hand as you went 
 down King Street towards Long Wharf. It 
 vanished years ago, and gave place to one of 
 the granite temples of Mammon which have 
 long since thrust from their neighborhood all 
 human habitation. There was Phosbe born. 
 Her father and mother were both of them 
 native Africans, who had lived out all their life 
 of servitude under the roof of Mr. Mallory. 
 They were fortunate in falling into such good 
 hands. The few New England slaves were 
 mostly owned by the wealthy families and 
 were chiefly employed as house-servants, and 
 their treatment was at least as good as that of
 
 214 PHCEBE MALLOKY; 
 
 the same class in any country. But, Phoebe 
 said, nothing could prevent her father from 
 remembering the day, when, as he was hunt- 
 ing the hippopotamus in the sacred river that 
 flowed by his hut, just as he leaped from his 
 iron-wood canoe to draw the monster ashore 
 by the line fastened to his spear, a party, 
 of a hostile tribe, rushed from among the 
 reeds and hurried him to the sea-coast, fifty 
 miles away, and there sold him to a Bristol 
 trader. To be sure he had obtained civiliza- 
 tion and Christianity by his involuntary emi- 
 gration ; but as the one appeared to his half- 
 savage mind to consist in wearing clothes and 
 cleaning another man's shoes, and the other 
 in sleeping 011 his knees through family prayers, 
 and in being obliged to listen, from the gallery 
 of the Old South Church, for several hours 
 every Sunday, to sermons which he could 
 never have comprehended, delivered in a 
 tongue he very imperfectly understood, he
 
 THE LAST OP THE SLAVES. 215 
 
 must not be blamed as ungrateful if he 
 thought them but inadequate compensations 
 for the exchange he had made of the sunny 
 skies and golden sands of Africa for the 
 leaden firmament and rocky coast of New 
 England. 
 
 Phcebe was more fortunate than her parents 
 in being " native, and to the manner born ; " 
 so that her lot was much more tolerable than 
 theirs. She was kindly treated, and taught 
 to read and write. She felt all the strong 
 attachment of the African race to the house in 
 which she was bora and to the family which 
 had brought her up. To the end of her days 
 she believed that there was never a house 
 that equalled in magnificence that of Mr. 
 Mallory in King Street. There was never 
 any tiling half so graceful and dignified as the 
 manners of Mr. Mallory himself, or half so 
 beautiful and accomplished as the daughters, 
 or so handsome and good-natured as the sons,
 
 216 PHCEBE MALLORY ; 
 
 of his house. Many were the old-world 
 stories she told me of the loves and the feuds 
 of that generation, of their joys and their 
 griefs, of their festivities and their funerals. 
 A petted slave, brought up from infancy in 
 one of the foremost families of a small com- 
 munity, such as Boston was then, she became 
 a perfect incarnation of all the gossip and 
 scandal of that little world. And some very 
 choice bits of both I extracted from her, I 
 assure you. She, certainly, had no artistic 
 skill in her narrations, and yet there was a life 
 in the very simplicity with which she related 
 facts, which painted them vividly to the 
 mind's eye; and, I think, I have a clearer 
 notion of the way in which people lived in 
 Boston eighty years since, from them, than 
 from more generally recognised authorities. 
 
 Her admiration, however, was not entirely 
 monopolised by the higher powers of the 
 family. There was a certain Ambrose, who
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 217 
 
 had also been born in the house a few years 
 before Phoebe, and had been brought up along 
 with her, who claimed his share. They had 
 played together as children and worked 
 together when they grew older, and it will not 
 surprise the experienced reader to hear that 
 they fell in love with each other as soon as 
 they were old enough to take the infection. 
 Ambrose was a fine, well made, athletic young 
 fellow, shrewd and capable, and of the most 
 imperturbable good humor. His skill in music 
 was such that he was often summoned to the 
 parlor, with his violin, to excite the dance, 
 when his young masters and mistresses had 
 their friends with them. Both Ambrose and 
 Phoebe were great favorites with the whole 
 family, old and young, bond and free, and 
 their loves were looked upon by all with 
 complacent eyes. They formed a little under- 
 plot in the domestic drama, which was not 
 
 unamusing or uninteresting to the actors, 
 19
 
 218 PHOEBE MALLOKY; 
 
 or actresses, in similar scenes, above stairs. 
 Their true love flowed smoothly on, and it 
 seemed as if no obstacles could be interposed 
 to disturb its course. It was a conceded thing, 
 that at some convenient season Ambrose and 
 Phoebe were to be married. 
 
 While the affairs of the humble lovers were 
 in this prosperous train, great events were at 
 the door. The signs which prognosticate a 
 coming storm were frequent and menacing. 
 Voices were heard in the air telling of disaster 
 and woe to come. Portents were seen in the 
 political firmament, 
 
 " with fear of change, 
 Perplexing monarchs." 
 
 It was obvious to all discerning persons, who 
 Were willing to see, that great changes were 
 at hand. Mr. Mallory was a tory, as might be 
 expected from his official station and position 
 in society. Like many others of his way of
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 219 
 
 thinking, he exaggerated the power of the 
 British king to suppress disaffection, and 
 undervalued the powers of resistance of the 
 Colonists. Though he had never permitted 
 himself to doubt that the fever-fit of the 
 province would soon pass away, still his 
 position was sufficiently disagreeable while 
 it lasted. He had made himself obnoxious 
 to the popular party, and his situation was 
 at times worse than disagreeable, it was 
 absolutely unsafe. Phoebe described to me 
 the night when the mob, flushed by the 
 impunity which had attended their previous 
 excesses, came trooping down King Street to 
 execute summary justice on the tory Mallory. 
 Their approach was so sudden that the family 
 had barely time to escape, as they were, 
 through the garden, leaving the candles 
 burning, and the work-boxes and books open 
 on the table, as they fled.
 
 220 PH(EBE MALLORY J 
 
 Mr. Mallory's house would probably have 
 shared the fate of Governor Hutchinson's, 
 had it not been for a singular and unexpected 
 diversion. When the mob were gathering in 
 the street in front of the house, and preparing 
 for the assault, the hall door opened suddenly, 
 and Ambrose, like a new Orpheus, issued 
 from it with his violin in his hand. He 
 immediately struck up a lively air, and the 
 effect was magical. The many-headed mon- 
 ster was in a better humor than usual that 
 night. Whether it was that the edge of its 
 appetite was in some degree taken off by the 
 sop it had already had, or whether it was that 
 the patriotic punch (which has never yet had 
 its due as one of the main promoters of the 
 Revolution) had not yet more than half done 
 its work, still the mood of the mob was 
 changed at once from mischief to fun. This 
 unexpected apparition moved their mirth, and
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 221 
 
 Ambrose, taking advantage of their humor, 
 performed such antic tricks in the moonlight 
 as threw them into inextinguishable fits of 
 laughter. With all the caprice of a mob they 
 soon began to dance, themselves, to his music, 
 and not all the influence of their leaders could 
 bring them up again to the point of mischief: 
 
 "So Orpheus fiddled and so danced the brutes ! " 
 
 This danger over, the arrival of the British 
 regiments prevented any apprehension of its 
 renewal. But the situation of the Mallories 
 was gloomy and uncomfortable ' enough. The 
 gaieties, which the arrival of the forces pro- 
 duced, in the loyal circles, were no compen- 
 sation for the breaking up of old friendships, 
 and for the doubt and uncertainty that hung 
 over their future. At last the provincial re- 
 sistance began to assume a more threatening 
 form. The siege clasped the town around 
 
 with its iron arms. The beautiful hills which 
 19*
 
 222 PHCEBE MALLORY J 
 
 encompass the town were now changed into 
 mimic volcanoes, belching forth fire and 
 smoke and death against it. All who could, 
 and dared, fled from its borders. Mr. Mallory's 
 political offences were too flagrant to allow 
 him any choice. He was obliged to abide by 
 the result of the conflict where he was. To 
 be sure neither he nor his children would ever 
 admit, even to themselves, the probability 
 of the rebels being ultimately successful ; but 
 then there could not but be painful misgivings 
 as to what might befal before the insurrection 
 was finally quelled. It was a dismal winter, 
 indeed, as Phosbe told its private history. 
 Not all the balls and assemblies and private 
 theatricals that were devised to while away 
 the weary hours, could dispel the sense of 
 pain and apprehension which their situation 
 excited in the breasts of the loyalists. 
 
 It was not long before the forebodings of 
 their prophetic hearts were fulfilled. The
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 223 
 
 dreary winter wore away and the dreary 
 spring began. The intentions of the com- 
 mander-in-chief were kept strictly secret ; but 
 there were plenty of surmises abroad as to 
 what they were. But that Boston, open as it 
 was to the sea, of which England was the 
 mistress, would be occupied by the British 
 forces until the rebellion was suppressed, was 
 a thing that had settled down into a recog- 
 nised certainty. It could not enter into a 
 loyal heart to conceive that the royal troops 
 could be dislodged from the capital of New 
 England by the rabble-rout that surrounded 
 them. But at last the fatal news fell upon 
 their ears like a clap of thunder, that the town 
 was to be evacuated and abandoned to the 
 besiegers ! What distress and despair of those 
 who had placed themselves and all they had 
 under the protection of the British sceptre, and 
 who found it powerless in their utmost need ! 
 All remonstrance on their part was in vain.
 
 224 PH(EBE MALLORY ; 
 
 General Howe was inflexible, for he knew 
 that his post was no longer tenable; but he 
 assured the distressed loyalists of all possible 
 assistance in removing their persons and ef- 
 fects beyond the reach of the exasperated 
 rebels. 
 
 Phoebe described to me with life-like effect, 
 for it was what she had the most to do with, 
 the confusion of the few days that elapsed 
 between the announcement of the intended 
 evacuation and the embarkation. The grief of 
 the Mallories at leaving the home of their 
 childhood, perhaps forever, and the uncertainty 
 which hung over their future fate, was dis- 
 turbed by the necessity of deciding which of 
 their effects they should take with them. A 
 limited amount of freight was all that could be 
 possibly assigned to each refugee, and it was 
 hard to decide among all the objects which 
 habit had rendered necessary or association 
 dear, which should be chosen and which
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 225 
 
 abandoned. All was hurry and bustle and 
 distress. They were obliged to select such 
 articles as contained the most value in the 
 compactest form, and to leave the rest behind. 
 Their clothes, plate, jewels and such other 
 valuables as they could compress into the 
 smallest possible space were all that they could 
 take with them. But all the old companion 
 furniture, speaking to them of ancestry and 
 of happier days, the family pictures, the trifles 
 which affection magnified into things of mo- 
 ment, because they were seen through the 
 atmosphere of love and friendship which sur- 
 rounded them, all, all had to be left behind 
 them. 
 
 It was a dreadful night, that of the 17th of 
 March 1776, the last that they were to spend 
 in the home of their fathers. Early the next 
 morning they were to embark on board the 
 transports, to go they knew not whither. The 
 young ladies, deprived of their usual employ-
 
 226 PHOEBE MALLORY; 
 
 ments, and their recent mournful occupation 
 being over, as the trunks and packing-cases 
 were already on board, wandered about the 
 house, from room to room, like ghosts haunt- 
 ing scenes once loved, reluctant to look their 
 last upon those beloved walls. The gentle- 
 men of the family were busy in making what 
 arrangements they could to secure the wrecks 
 of their property. It was long past midnight 
 before they retired to rest, if rest they could, 
 for the last time under that old-accustomed 
 roof. They had not been long retired, how- 
 ever, when they were aroused again by a 
 clamorous knocking at the door, and the intel- 
 ligence that they must repair at once on board 
 ship, if they would not be left behind. The 
 rebels had taken up a position on Nook's Hill, 
 which rendered it necessary to evacuate the 
 town at an earlier hour than the one first 
 appointed. The confusion may be imagined. 
 The carriage was at length at the door, and
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 221 
 
 performed its last service, in conveying the 
 family to the wharf, before it passed into the 
 hands of the patriotic gentleman who had 
 purchased it at a fourth of its value. They 
 found, with some difficulty, the transport 
 assigned to them, and, embarking, awaited 
 the signal of departure. 
 
 While they were thus expecting their sail- 
 ing orders, one of the young ladies discovered 
 that, in her hurry, she had left her watch 
 behind her. It had a value beyond its intrinsic 
 worth, as having belonged to her mother. Her 
 distress was great, and the question arose 
 whether there was time to send for it. The 
 captain of the transport gave it as his opinion 
 that there would be ample time. Then, who 
 was to be the messenger? Ambrose could 
 not be spared from some essential service in 
 the arrangement of the luggage; so Phrebe 
 alone remained to perform the errand. She 
 was accordingly despatched with strict injunc-
 
 228 PHCEBE MALLORY; 
 
 tions to make a speedy return. It was a 
 raw blustering March morning, and as Phoebe 
 threaded the narrow streets the light snow 
 was blown in fitful gusts in her face. She 
 made a somewhat wide circuit to avoid the 
 principal streets, which were now full of sol- 
 diers, the inhabitants being under orders to 
 keep within doors until a certain hour. She 
 had some difficulty, too, in procuring the 
 house-key from the neighbor who had charge 
 of it ; and when at last she obtained entrance, 
 it was still dark and she had to strike a light 
 in order to commence her search. Every- 
 thing seemed to conspire to delay her return 
 to the ship. And after she had procured 
 a candle, the object of her search was not to 
 be found. She looked for it in every place 
 where it should and where it should not be, 
 but without success. This consumed many 
 precious moments. At last she abandoned the 
 matter in despair, thinking that her young
 
 THE LAST OP THE SLAVES. 229 
 
 mistress must have the watch about her, after 
 all, or else it had been dropped on the way 
 to the ship. After securing the house again, 
 she made what haste she could to the wharf. 
 But what was her amazement and despair at 
 seeing no sign remaining of the good ship on 
 board of which all her treasures were em- 
 barked ! 
 
 She could not at first believe her eyes, and 
 she stood for some time in mute astonishment. 
 But, before long, her mind received a distinct 
 impression of the dreadful truth, and she made 
 the air resound with her shrieks and lamenta- 
 tions. She flew distractedly up and down the 
 wharf, imploring to be taken on board some of 
 the transports destined for the same port, but 
 no one had any leisure to attend to her. It 
 was in the height of the hurry of the embark- 
 ation, and ship after ship was dropping down 
 with the tide and making what haste they 
 
 might to Nantasket roads. Almost immediately 
 20
 
 230 PHCEBE MALLORY ; 
 
 after Phoebe had left the ship, orders came 
 down directing her to get underweigh directly, 
 and she was already out of sight. She remain- 
 ed on the wharf in a state but little removed 
 from distraction, renewing her entreaties to all 
 she met for assistance in regaining her master's 
 party. But all the reply she received was 
 curses and orders to mind her own business 
 and to get out of the way. Exhausted at 
 length by her exertions, and finding there was 
 no hope for her, she returned, in agony of 
 mind, to the deserted house in King Street. 
 There, in solitude and despair, flung upon her 
 face on the nearest sofa, she lay for hours 
 weeping as one that refused to be comforted. 
 The merry peals of the bells, and the distant 
 sound of military music, might have told her 
 that General Washington and his victorious 
 army were making their triumphal entry into 
 the town ; but she neither heard nor heeded 
 them. Her heart and her eyes were following
 
 THE LAST OP THE SLAVES. 231 
 
 the stout ship which was bearing away from 
 her, probably forever, the friends of her child- 
 hood and the lover of her youth. 
 
 In this state she continued for four-and- 
 twenty successive hours. Bat after the first 
 paroxysm of grief and despair had exhausted 
 itself, Phoebe was not of a nature to abandon 
 herself to fruitless repinings. It was fortunate 
 for her that it was necessary to take some 
 immediate measures for her own support. For 
 the poor girl was now in a singularly unfortu- 
 nate predicament. She absolutely belonged 
 to nobody. The imperfect legislation of those 
 primitive days had not provided for such a 
 case of destitution. Had she had the luck to 
 live in these times, in the Southern States, 
 such an anomaly could not have occurred. 
 There, the abeyance of the abandoned proper- 
 ty in herself would have been terminated in 
 favor of the fortunate finder ; or, at worst, it 
 would have resulted to the State. But in
 
 232 PHOBBE MALLORY; 
 
 those days, before political economy, she was 
 suffered to escheat to herself! And so she 
 had nobody to take care of her! Thanks, 
 however, to the thorough breeding she had 
 received in Mr. Mallory's house, she was able 
 to command at once her choice of the best 
 services in the town; and she was soon as 
 comfortably situated as she could be under 
 her unhappy circumstances. 
 
 The long years of the war, of course, cut off 
 all definite intelligence of the Mallories and of 
 Ambrose. And the longer years of the peace, 
 which followed it, brought little more satisfac- 
 tory information about them. All that was 
 certain was, that Mr. Mallory had been pro- 
 vided for by an appointment in Antigua, and it 
 was taken for granted that he had proceeded 
 thither with his family. The humble Ambrose 
 of course had no share in these imperfect 
 advices, and Phoebe was left to guess at his 
 fate as best she might. The Mallories left no
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 233 
 
 relatives behind them in the province, and all 
 interest in them or their affairs soon died away. 
 There was but one humble heart Phoebe's 
 in which they occupied all the room that was 
 not before engrossed by Ambrose, their slave. 
 
 Meanwhile, more than thirty years rolled 
 away since the emigration. Phosbe was be- 
 come a prosperous woman. She had been 
 for some years retired from service and had 
 invested her earnings in a small confectioner's 
 shop, which was well frequented by those 
 who respected the excellence of her character 
 and of her pastry. She had never married 
 though not unsought but still remained con- 
 stant to the memory of Ambrose ; though she 
 had for many years abandoned all hope of 
 ever seeing or hearing of him again. 
 
 One aftemoon as she was sitting, sewing, 
 behind her counter, a man entered her shop. 
 His dress was sordid and travel-stained, and 
 
 he walked with difficulty, supported by a 
 20*
 
 234 PHCEBE MALLORY; 
 
 rough, stick. He stood with his back to the 
 light, so that Phoebe could not see his features 
 distinctly. He stood and gazed long and 
 earnestly in her face. She grew alarmed and 
 asked his business. In the act of replying he 
 shifted his position so that the setting sun 
 shone full upon him. She started from her 
 seat, shrieked, and fell senseless upon the 
 floor. 
 
 " I dropped," to use her own words, " as if I 
 was shot ! " It was Ambrose himself, come in 
 the flesh to claim her at last. Happily joy is 
 not a mortal disease, or Phoebe might not have 
 survived to tell me her story. Water was at 
 hand, and she soon opened her eyes upon the 
 face of him whom she had loved so long and 
 well. It was changed indeed. Years of 
 slavery had not passed over his head without 
 leaving furrows on the brow and wrinkles on 
 the cheek. But still it was his face, and that 
 was all she asked. Time and ill usage had
 
 THE LAST OP THE SLAVES. 235 
 
 grizzled his hair and bent his broad shoulders ; 
 but to her eyes he was still young, for she 
 saw him with the eyes of her heart. 
 
 It would be hard to say whether pleasure or 
 pain predominated in that first interview. But 
 it was not long before they knew that they 
 were happy. Phrebe took Ambrose to her 
 house, fed, clothed and nursed him ; and finally 
 married him. And though their union was 
 late, and did not continue long, it was as happy 
 a marriage as ever knit two hearts in one. 
 
 The story of Ambrose, when he was able to 
 tell it, was simple and common enough. He 
 had followed his master from Halifax to Lon- 
 don, and from London to Antigua. There Mr. 
 Mallory died. The young ladies married and 
 returned to England, and the sons took to bad 
 courses and died not long after their father. 
 Ambrose was taken in execution for a debt of 
 the last of them, and sold to a Jamaica planter. 
 In Jamaica he suffered for many years the
 
 236 PHCEBE MALLORY J 
 
 horrors of sugar-making, aggravated by the 
 contrast of the easy service of his previous life. 
 A few months before, he was sent to Kingston 
 with a load of sugar, and finding a vessel on 
 the point of sailing for New York he conceal- 
 ed himself on board, and succeeded in effecting 
 his escape. Arrived in New York he begged 
 his way to Boston, being detained on the road 
 by a fever caused by the sudden change of 
 climate, and arrived foot-sore, weary and sick 
 at heart, little expecting the happiness that 
 awaited him. 
 
 Before long Ambrose grew weary of the 
 town, and as his health had never been good 
 since his return home, Phrebe sold her shop 
 and bought the cottage in which I found her. 
 Here they supported themselves comfortably 
 enough for the few years that Ambrose lived. 
 But the hard winters of New England were 
 too much for the constitution of one so long 
 accustomed to the climate of the tropics. He
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 237 
 
 died of a consumption, lovingly watched over 
 and tenderly mourned by his faithful Phoebe. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Such is a plain narrative of the incidents of 
 her life, which I gathered from Phosbe Mallory 
 in the course of my acquaintance with her. I 
 think that they might have been invested with 
 a good deal of romantic interest, had they 
 fallen into the right hands. But such as I 
 have I give unto you. 
 
 Phoebe always averred that she was the last 
 surviving slave in the State; and as I could 
 not contradict her, I was willing to believe 
 that it was so. I confess it increased my 
 interest in her, and made me look upon her in 
 some sort as an historical character. And I 
 could not but think of the day when the last 
 American slave will excite a feeling in the 
 breast of some future inquirer, somewhat 
 analogous to that created by the sight of the
 
 238 PHtEBE MALLORY ; 
 
 last mouldering fragment of the Bastile. May 
 that day soon arrive ! 
 
 Several years ago I removed from the city 
 and lost sight of poor Phoebe. Not long since, 
 having a leisure day in town, I felt strongly 
 moved to go and see if she were yet alive. 
 Yielding to the impulse, I took the well re- 
 membered road that led by her hut. But it 
 had vanished away, and in its place stood a 
 fine Gothic cottage, with an Egyptian entab- 
 lature at one end supported by four fluted 
 Doric pillars. I knew at the first glance that 
 it would be of no avail to inquire after my old 
 friend at such a structure as this. So I con- 
 tinued my stroll till I came to the village about 
 two miles off There I inquired of the first 
 man I happened to meet, whether he knew 
 anything of the fate of Phoabe Mallory. I was 
 in luck in my man ; for he chanced to be none 
 other than good master Sexton himself. With 
 the cheerful solemnity which marks his calling,
 
 THE LAST OF THE SLAVES. 239 
 
 he informed me that she had died about three 
 years before and was buried in the church- 
 yard over against which we stood. I asked 
 him to show me her grave, which he did with 
 professional alacrity. It is the third grave 
 beyond the elm tree, on your right hand, as 
 you enter the gate, next the wall. 
 
 I could not but feel a sense of satisfaction, 
 mingled with regret, at the loss of my good 
 old friend, to think that the last relic of 
 Massachusetts' slavery lay buried beneath my 
 feet. I felt proud of my native State for what 
 she had done, as a State, to mark her aversion 
 to slavery. And I hoped that the time was 
 not far distant when she would brush aside 
 the cobweb ties which prevent her from telling 
 the hunter of men, in yet more emphatic tones, 
 that her fields are no hunting-grounds for him. 
 
 I have no taste for monumental memorials, 
 as a general thing. At least, I see no fitness 
 in attempting to preserve the memory of
 
 240 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 mediocrity or obscurity, by monuments whose 
 very permanence is a satire on the forgotten 
 names they bear. But I have no quarrel 
 with the feeling which prompts men to mark 
 with marble the ground where the truly 
 great repose ; or to record the resting-place of 
 humbler merit, when it is fairly invested with 
 some just historic interest. Of this latter class 
 I esteem the grave of Phosbe Mallory. And I 
 shall think it neither absurd nor extravagant, 
 if, within a few months, a plain white marble 
 slab should be found marking the spot where 
 she lies, with an inscription somewhat to this 
 effect : 
 
 "HERE RESTS FROM HER LABORS, 
 BENEATH THE FREE SOIL OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Pffbe ittallorji, 
 
 THE LAST SURVIVOR OF HER SLAVES ! " 
 Dedham, Massachusetts, Nov. 1845.
 
 THE FALCONER. 241 
 
 &!) .falcoiur. 
 
 BY J. R. LOWELL. 
 
 I HAVE a falcon swift and peerless 
 As e'er was cradled in the pine, 
 No bird had ever eye so fearless 
 Or wing so strong as this of mine ; 
 The winds not better love to pilot 
 The clouds with molten gold o'errun, 
 Than him, a little burning islet, 
 A star above the sunken sun. 
 
 But better he loves the lusty morning 
 When the last white star yet stands at bay, 
 And earth, half-waked, smiles a child's fore- 
 warning 
 Of the longed-for mother-kiss of day ; 
 
 Then with a lark's heart doth he tower 
 21
 
 242 THE FALCONER. 
 
 By a glorious, upward instinct drawn, 
 No bee nestles deeper in the flower, 
 Than he in the bursting rose of dawn. 
 
 What joy to see his sails uplifted 
 Against the worst that gales can dare, 
 Through the northwester's surges drifted, 
 Bold viking of the sea of air ! 
 His eye is fierce, yet mildened over 
 With something of a dove-like ruth, 
 I am his master less than lover, 
 His short and simple name is Truth. 
 
 Whene'er some hoary owl of Error 
 Lags, though his native night be past, 
 And at the sunshine hoots his terror, 
 The falcon from my wrist I cast ; 
 Swooping, he scares the birds uncleanly 
 That in the holy temple prey, 
 Then in the blue air floats serenely 
 Above their hoarse anathema.
 
 THE FALCONER. 243 
 
 The herd of patriot wolves, that, stealing, 
 To gorge on martyred Freedom run, 
 Fly, howling, when his shadow, wheeling, 
 Flashes between them and the sun ; 
 Well for them that our once proud eagle 
 Forgets his empire of the sky, 
 And, stript of every emblem regal, 
 Does buzzard's work for slavery. 
 
 Mount up, my falcon brave and kingly, 
 Stoop not from thy majestic height, 
 The terror of thy shadow, singly, 
 Can put a thousand wrongs to flight ; 
 Wherever in all God's dominions 
 One ugly falsehood lurks apart, 
 Let the dread rustle of thy pinions 
 Send palsy to its traitor-heart. 
 
 No harmless dove, no bird that singeth, 
 Shudders to see thee overhead ; 
 The rush of thy fierce swooping bringeth 
 To innocent hearts no thrill of dread ;
 
 244 THE FALCONER. 
 
 Let frauds and wrongs and falsehoods shiver, 
 For, still, between them and the sky, 
 The falcon Truth hangs poised forever, 
 And marks them with his vengeful eye. 
 
 Elmwood, Nov. 26, 1845.
 
 IS THERE ANY FRIEND ? 245 
 
 Is tljere ang JFrt 
 
 BY ADIN BALLOU. 
 
 I AM a slave. The hand of violence holds 
 me. I was stolen from my birth by one who 
 calls himself a man, a republican and a Chris- 
 tian. He says I am rightfully his property, 
 because my grandmother was kidnapped from 
 Africa, and my mother was holden a slave 
 by his father. If I assert that I am a man, 
 notwithstanding the wrongs done to my pro- 
 genitors, he frowns, and seizing the scourge, 
 bids me be silent. I learn that this nation is 
 professedly republican, and has declared that 
 all men are inalienably entitled to " life, LIB- 
 ERTY, and the pursuit of liappiness" I hear 
 that they are called Christians, and believe 
 that every man sJiould do unto others as he would 
 be done unto. Yet / am a slave, and treated as 
 
 a beast, not as a brother man. I have thought 
 21*
 
 
 246 IS THERE ANY FRIEND ? 
 
 to fly to some distant part of the country ; but 
 I hear that the citizens of the whole nation are 
 in a league to return me to my master. Some- 
 times I have meditated the dreadful alternative 
 of raising an insurrection among my fellow- 
 slaves, and thus obtaining my rights ; but I am 
 told the whole army, navy, militia and treasury 
 of the nation are sworn to crush the attempt. 
 I have proposed to petition the Congress of 
 the Union for redress ; but I am apprised that 
 slave-holders are at the head of the govern- 
 ment, and in full control of the National 
 Legislature ; that by constitutional league they 
 hold political power, beyond others, equal to 
 three-fifths of their human cattle ; and that 
 they declare slave petitions an intolerable in- 
 sult to their dignity. They will not permit a 
 petition from slaves to be received. I have 
 turned to the ministers and churches of re- 
 ligion to intercede for me. A few have wept 
 and prayed and plead for me; but the mass
 
 IS THERE ANY FRIEND ? 247 
 
 have been dumb, and some of the most influ- 
 ential have boldly taken sides with the op- 
 pressor using all their eloquence, learning 
 and sanctity to make it appear that God wills, 
 the Bible teaches, and the Saviour of the world 
 approves of, SLAVERY. I have cast my implor- 
 ing eyes upon the great seats and professors of 
 literature in the land, but with no better re- 
 sults. I would sue for sympathy to the mer- 
 chants, the manufacturers, the bankers, the 
 wealthy and affluent ; but they are either too 
 busy to notice me, or interested with the 
 oppressor, or intermarried with his family. I 
 would, if I could, hope something from poli- 
 tics ; but all parties are alike sworn to the 
 same compact, at least till it can be altered, 
 and are seeking their own glory rather than the 
 slave's redemption. Moreover, the great De- 
 mocratic party, whose most renowned apostle 
 taught the universal equality of human beings, 
 in their natural rights, and who truly asserted
 
 248 IS THERE ANY FRIEND ? 
 
 " that one hour of our bondage was fraught 
 with more misery than ages of" colonial sub- 
 jection to England this very party, claiming 
 to be of and for the common people, and being 
 in power, have forcibly annexed a vast terri- 
 tory to the nation, out of complaisance to 
 slave-holders, and for the indefinite extension 
 of their oppressions. I would cry in the ears 
 of the great mass of working men for help ; 
 but they are prejudiced against my color; 
 they are afraid I shall come and dwell among 
 them that I shall associate with them, and 
 share their advantages; they had rather see 
 me and my posterity forever slaves, than run 
 the risk of being annoyed by our freedom. 
 What shall I do? To whom shall I look? 
 Whither shall I turn ? Must I, must my child- 
 ren, must their children, and all our children's 
 children, be forever slaves ? Is there no friend ? 
 These chains ! these scourges ! these insults ! 
 these violent separations of the dearest rela-
 
 IS THERE ANY FRIEND ? 249 
 
 tives ! these degradations of body and mind ! 
 this ignorance of all that might enoble and 
 bless ! these groanings of spirit for liberty ! 
 these complicated miseries ! THIS SLAVERY ! 
 must they be eternal? WOMAN, tender, sym- 
 pathetic, affectionate, persevering woman, I 
 turn to God and thee. Help the slave ! Think 
 of the slave ! Plead for the slave ! Labor for 
 the slave ! Save the slave ! Be thou the 
 sun that shall melt down the icy hearts of 
 men in our behalf; that shall change public 
 sentiment throughout the land ; that shall give 
 the nation a new, merciful and just goverii- 
 ment ; that shall make all the people willing 
 to let the oppressed go free. And then the 
 blessings and gratitude of the ransomed shall 
 be thine to a thousand generations; hover- 
 ing over thee as a cloud of fragrant incense, 
 and ascending upward to Him who sitteth in 
 the heavens, our common Father. 
 
 Hopedale, Massachusetts, U. S.
 
 250 THE SLAVE-MOTHER. 
 
 BY MARIA LOWELL. 
 
 HER new-born child she holdeth, but feels 
 within her heart 
 
 It is not her's, bnt his who can outbid her in 
 the mart ; 
 
 And, through the gloomy midnight, her prayer 
 goes up on high, 
 
 " God grant my little helpless one in helpless- 
 ness may die ! 
 
 If she must live to womanhood, oh may she 
 never know, 
 
 Uncheered by mother's happiness, the depth 
 of mother's woe ; 
 
 And may I lie within my grave, before that 
 day I see, 
 
 When she sits, as I am sitting, with a slave- 
 child on her knee ! "
 
 THE SLAVE-MOTHER. 251 
 
 The little arms steal upward, and then upon 
 
 her breast 
 She feels the brown and velvet hands that 
 
 never are at rest ; 
 No sense of joy they waken, but thrills of 
 
 bitter pain, 
 She thinks of him who counteth o'er the gold 
 
 those hands shall gain. 
 
 Then on her face she looketh, but not as 
 
 mother proud, 
 And seeth how her features, as from out a 
 
 dusky cloud, 
 Are tenderly unfolding, far softer than her 
 
 own, 
 And how, upon the rounded cheek, a fairer 
 
 light is thrown ; 
 
 And she trembles in her agony, and on her 
 
 prophet heart 
 There drops a gloomy shadow down, that 
 
 never will depart ;
 
 252 THE SLAVE-MOTHER. 
 
 She cannot look iipon that face, where, in the 
 
 child's pure bloom, 
 Is writ with such dread certainty the woman's 
 
 loathsome doom. 
 
 She cannot bear to know her child must be as 
 she hath been, 
 
 Yet she sees but one deliverance from infamy 
 and sin, 
 
 And so she cries at midnight, with exceeding 
 bitter cry, 
 
 " God grant my little helpless one in helpless- 
 ness may die ! " 
 
 Elmwood, Nov. 26, 1845.
 
 WHAT IS ANTI-SLAVERY WORK ? 253 
 
 iDljat is 2lnti-0latW2 ttlork? 
 
 BT LUC RETIA MOTT. 
 
 The person alluded to in the following communication, was 
 placed in the State's Prison in Baltimore owing to some bankruptcy 
 in the family where she had been held a slave, and was likely to be 
 sold away from all her relatives and friends. A feeling appeal was 
 made to the friends of Freedom in Philadelphia, on her behalf, more 
 than a year ago, accompanied by the suggestion that a fund should 
 be raised, to be applied to such cases, and advising our young people 
 to retrench their expenses in superfluities, in order to have it in 
 their power to contribute to the purchase of such as had peculiar 
 claim on the sympathy of the benevolent. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, E. H. R. 
 
 I HAVE not been unmindful of the contents 
 of thy letter. Could an answer have been 
 given in accordance with thy wish for the poor 
 objects of thy sympathy, it should sooner have 
 been done. 
 
 After a free and full discussion of the ques- 
 tion of purchase, at a meeting of our Female 
 Anti- Slavery Society, the following resolution 
 
 was passed by a large majority : 
 22
 
 254 WHAT IS ANTI-SLAVERY WORK? 
 
 "Resolved, That while we deeply sym- 
 pathise with those who are making efforts for 
 their own emancipation, or that of their 
 relatives and friends, by soliciting funds to 
 purchase their freedom from those who unjust- 
 ly hold them in bondage, we nevertheless 
 must decline all pecuniary aid in such pur- 
 chase, regarding contributions for this object 
 as a worse than useless appropriation of money, 
 and as an indirect support of slavery. 
 
 " Resolved, That we will discourage such 
 contributions, because those who give aid in 
 this way, erroneously imagine they are pro- 
 moting the cause of human freedom, when 
 they may, in fact, be only transferring the 
 bonds to others, equally entitled to their 
 liberty." 
 
 The case of the poor victim of the op- 
 pressor's power, so feelingly depicted, is a 
 peculiarly hard one. But, were the circum- 
 stances attending the imprisonment and sale of 

 
 WHAT IS ANTI-SLAVERY WORK? 255 
 
 other inmates of that horrible prison, made 
 known, we might find most of them claiming 
 the especial sympathy of hearts interested in 
 their behalf. Should all the victims of this 
 monstrous oppression be purchased from the 
 inhuman trader in men, he would doubtless 
 advertise for more. And while the disposition 
 of the slave-holder is unchanged, and the trade 
 is legalized, the supply would be furnished. 
 
 It is worthy of consideration, whether such 
 purchase be not indeed an acknowledgment 
 of the right of property in man, and therefore 
 inconsistent for abolitionists to encourage. 
 
 For years, my sympathy was so wrought 
 upon by the many cases of peculiar hardship, 
 which an intimate acquaintance with the atro- 
 cious system of American slavery discloses, 
 that, without much reflection, I contributed 
 my mite toward the purchase of slaves. But 
 further reflection and observation convinced 
 me that it was misdirected benevolence not
 
 256 WHAT IS ANTI-SLAVERY WORK? 
 
 in accordance with the dictates of true human- 
 ity. The sum obtained in this way is often 
 used for the purchase of other slaves, thus 
 keeping up the inducement, either to kidnap 
 the poor creatures on the coast of Africa, or to 
 " breed " and raise them for sale in the north- 
 ern slave States. Here, an indirect support 
 is given to the system, even while we would 
 fain persuade ourselves that we are aiding in 
 its abolition. If the sums, raised for this 
 object, were appropriated to the enlightening 
 of the public mind on the enormity of the 
 whole system, how much more effective would 
 it be! 
 
 Many young people, in this city, are dis- 
 posed to curtail their expenses in dress, and 
 other indulgences, in order to aid in the circu- 
 lation of anti-slavery truth, through the length 
 and breadth of the land. We have evidence 
 that the appeals to the conscience and best 
 interests of the slave-holder, are not made in 

 
 WHAT IS ANTI-SLAVERY WORK? 257 
 
 vain. The occasional response from the 
 South, as well as the reiterated cry for liberty 
 from our Northern land, cheers us onward in 
 our holy enterprise. 
 
 Let us then extend our benevolence to the 
 whole class of " the suffering and the dumb," 
 rather than expend our means in acts of 
 sympathy towards a few isolated cases. 
 Thine for the oppressed, 
 
 L. MOTT. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 
 
 
 22*
 
 258 GOD AND LIBERTY. 
 
 
 
 " <8>0& anir Ctbertg." 
 
 BY CASSIUS M. C LAY. 
 
 FOR full four thousand years or more, 
 The glorious sun arose and set 
 O'er Heaven, earth, and ocean's shore, 
 In discord met ; 
 
 Till God himself, worn with the strife, 
 Of man and all material things, 
 From his mysterious presence, life 
 And quiet brings. 
 
 First, sounding o'er Judea's shore, 
 The everlasting fiat fell : 
 Earth, ocean, and the Heavens adore 
 And hosts of Hell ! 
 
 Delphos, and the Olympian Jove, 
 And Israel's consecrated fane, 
 Awed by the living voice of love, 
 Ne'er speak again !
 
 GOD AND LIBERTY. 259 
 
 Nor mystic priests, nor Magi more, 
 Darkly disclose the will above, 
 Since Christ the emblazoned banner bore, 
 " Man ! God, is love ! " 
 
 From tyrant hands the sceptre falls, 
 From the assassin's grasp, the sword ! 
 Liberty bursts her prison walls, 
 Quick, at the word ! 
 
 Man cannot dam the river's flood, 
 He cannot stay the eagle's flight, 
 Nor tame the tenants of the wood, 
 In all his might ! 
 
 Then, " spirit of the chainless mind " 
 That rides the storm the ocean wave, 
 Quick as the lightning or the wind, 
 Art thou a slave ? 
 
 No ! man may spurn the law Divine, 
 Like Persia's tyrant chain the sea ! 
 With cords and walls the limbs confine, 
 The mind is free ! " 
 
 Lexington, Kentucky, Nov. 1845.
 
 260 INFLUENCE OF EMIGRATION. 
 
 lift F .emigration 
 
 SUE LE SORT DE LA RACE AFRICAINE AUX 
 ETATS UNI3 D'AMERIQUE. 
 
 PAR LIN STANT. 
 
 C'EST surtout aux Etats Unis d'Amerique 
 que le prejuge de couleur a atteint son apogee. 
 Nous ne trouvons dans les annalles de 1'escla- 
 vage des negres aux Antilles, rien qui puisse 
 lui etre compare. II n'est done pas sans interet 
 de rechercher quelle influence exerce sur le 
 sort des esclaves, et des classes de couleur 
 libres, 1'emigration des Europeens aux Etats 
 Unis. 
 
 La condition avilie de la race Africaine dai 
 les Etats de 1'Union etant bien comprise, 
 n'est pas difficile de concevoir aussi pourquoi 
 chaque Europeen qui aborde ces pays, contri- 
 bue plus ou moins directement a entretenir, ou
 
 INFLUENCE OP EMIGRATION. 261 
 
 plutot a accroitre, le prejuge des blancs centre 
 la couleur des negres. Ceux qui emigrent, sont 
 en general, des individus qui vont chercher en 
 pays etrangers les moyens d'ameliorer leur 
 fortune, toutefois lorsqu'ils ne sont pas des 
 gens qui trouvent plus avantaguex de s'exiler 
 volontairement que de tomber aux mains de 
 la justice de leur pays. Acquerir des richesses, 
 voila leur but, et ils tachent d'y aniver, " per 
 fas aut nefas." Sitot que les emigrants Euro- 
 pe ens touchent le sol Americain, le premier 
 spectacle dont ils sont frappes c'est 1' existence 
 de deux castes: 1'une composee de blancs, 
 c'est a dire, de privilegies de 1'education, des 
 l^richesses, des emplois, des honneurs ; 1'autre 
 tde noirs, c'est a dire, de parias de la societe, 
 d'opprimes. Mus par leur interet prive, les emi- 
 F grants se mettent naturellement avec les riches 
 et les puissants; car ils ont compris que, si 
 quand ils sont dans le Nord, ils se permettent 
 de condamnerle prejuge de couleur, et de jnger
 
 262 INFLUENCE OF EMIGRATION. 
 
 leurs semblables, non pas d'apres la teinte 
 plus ou raoins coloree de leur epidemic ; mais 
 d'apres leurs qualites morales et intellectuel- 
 les ; ou bien si, quand dans le sud, ils censurent 
 la pratique ignoble et degradante de 1'esclavage, 
 peu importe d'ailleurs la forme sous laquelle 
 se raanifeste leur sentiment, que ce soit en 
 actions ou en paroles, ils seront immediate- 
 ment consideres comme des ennemis de la 
 communante, et ils verront la porte de la 
 fortune qu'ils sont venus chercher, se fermer a 
 jamais sur eux. Lorsque la morale et 1'e- 
 goi'sme ont a lutter ensemble, bien rarement 
 voyons lions la premiere triompher. Si ces 
 deux antagonistes ne peuvent s'accorder et 
 marcher de front, 1'homme trouve toujours d< 
 motifs specieux pour ecouter la voix insinuant 
 de son interet prive. Telle est I'alternath 
 dans laquelle se trouve I'emigrant Europeen, 
 qu'il a a se decider entre ses devoirs d'homme, 
 de membre de la grande famille humaine, et
 
 
 INFLUENCE OF EMIGRATION. 263 
 
 son egoi'sme, son bien etre particulier ; c'est at 
 dire, entre la pauvrete, on du moins la medio- 
 crite et des desagremens ; et les richesses, les 
 plaisirs de la vie ; son choix est bientot fait : 
 il prend le dernier parti, et il s'imit aux oppres- 
 seurs du pauvre. Chacun d'eux se repete ces 
 paroles du premier egoi'ste et du premier 
 assassin: " Suis-je le gardien de mon frere?" 
 paroles qui seront aussi im jour sa propre 
 condamnation. 
 
 Port au-Prince, HaVti.
 
 Sonnet in ilUmorj) of (Eltjabetlj Jrg. 
 
 BY ANNE WARREN WESTON. 
 " In prison and ye visited me." 
 
 THROUGHOUT all earth, adown all coming time, 
 Where'er the Gospel's promises are heard, 
 There shall the human heart be thrilled and 
 
 stirred 
 
 By the remembrance of a love sublime, 
 That, blotting out long years of grief and crime, 
 Forever glorified one woman's name. 
 Friend of the prisoner! shall not thy sweet 
 
 fame, 
 
 Like that of Mary, reach to every clime ? 
 It was not thine to pour rich perfumes down 
 Before the very presence of thy Lord; 
 But, in the poor, the outcast and abhorr'd, 
 Shrinking beneath the world's unpitying f] 
 Thou didst the image of thy Saviour see : 
 Shall He not say, " thou didst it unto me ? " 
 
 Wey mouth, Massachusetts. 

 
 THE WORST EVIL OF SLAVERY. 265 
 
 U)or0t ml of 
 
 iroi 
 the 
 
 BY WILLIAM HOWITT. 
 
 THE worst evil of slavery in a country is 
 that it debauches the public mind, destroys 
 the public sensibility, makes a nation a nation 
 of Jesuits and hypocrites. The very religion 
 of Christ is made to pander to the sordid evils 
 of slavery. Its sacred sanction is pleaded for 
 its existence, while it is carefully withheld 
 from the knowledge of the slaves ; because 
 very men who plead that Christianity 
 -sanctions slavery know that it is a lie, and 
 need no convincing, that if slaves once know 
 the truths of Christianity they will feel that 
 PR makes them free." There is nothing so 
 shocking to contemplate as the so-called re- 
 
 ligious slave-holder. It is an exhibition so 
 23
 
 266 THE WORST EVIL OP SLAVERY. 
 
 dreadful that they who are not indignant at it 
 must soon come to believe Christianity itself 
 is a farce and an instrument of selfish policy. 
 A national system of slavery is a national sys- 
 tem for the inculcation of Atheism; for they 
 who can once come to believe in its propriety, 
 must cease to believe that there exists a God 
 of justice. The greatest curse that can befall 
 an empire is to have a black mass of slavery 
 in it; because that is perfectly inseparable 
 from the destruction of everything that is 
 noble in the public character, every clear re- 
 cognition of human and divine right, every 
 glorious sentiment of sound benevolence 
 onward progress of man and his loftier d 
 iiies. Slavery rots the heart of a nationJM 
 eats out, like a canker, its sentiment of the 
 great, the noble, and the generous ; it setlH 
 on the defence of what it at the same time is 
 conscious is vile and indefensible, and thus 
 stiffens it, as it were, into a doggedness of de- 
 
 :;:
 
 THE WORST EVIL OF SLAVERY. 267 
 
 fiant evil, most mischievous to its fame, and 
 most revolting to contemplate. This is the 
 position of things in America at the present 
 moment, and that great republic, the United 
 
 States, 
 
 " Did but some power the giftie gie it, 
 To see itself as others see it," 
 
 would rise in a real phrenzy to get rid of the 
 growing curse of slavery; not because it 
 presses on the slave himself; not because 
 men are brutalized, and women worse than 
 brutalized by it ; not because blood and tears 
 are made to flow, because flesh is torn and the 
 spirit is trodden out of the negro bosom like 
 sparks of fatal fire; but because the com- 
 ission of wrong, the perpetration of cruelty 
 .d crime on the weak and defenceless ; be- 
 cause justice to man and honor to woman, out- 
 'raged by its maintainance, are acting worse 
 than the possession by seven devils on the 
 national mind; are confounding all princi- 
 
 spirit 
 
 sparks 
 missio 
 and ci
 
 268 THE WORST EVIL OF SLAVERY. 
 
 pies of right and wrong, of justice and magna- 
 nimity in it, and sinking the national character 
 from that glorious eminence which it assumed 
 at the Revolution, to the moral position in 
 which none but its enemies would wish to see 
 it. America must continue to raise a joyous 
 grin on the face of Satan ; must cast a practi- 
 cal sneer on her present fundamental principle 
 that " Every man is born free and equal ; " 
 must stand as the worst of obstacles in the 
 path of Christianity, and the growth of belief 
 in it; and must disappoint every one who 
 finally looked toward her career as to a great 
 and unexampled development of national 
 policy and mind, till she gives freedom 
 black as well as white Americans. 
 
 Clapton, England. 

 
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