In the same neighborhood was a young preacher who
had shortly before come into it from somewhere farther
North. In the course of one of his regular services
he offered up a prayer in which he expressed the hope
that the good Lord would find a way to break the bands
of all who were in bondage. That smacked of Abolitionism
and at once there was a commotion. The minister
was asked to explain. This he declined to do,
saying that his petition was a matter between him and
his God, and he denied the right of others to question
him. That only increased the opposition, and
in a short time the spunky young man was compelled
to resign his charge.
About that time there appeared a lecturer on slavery—which
meant against slavery—who carried credentials
showing that he was a clergyman in good standing in
one of the leading Protestant denominations.
In our village was a church of that persuasion, whose
pastor was not an Abolitionist. As in duty bound,
the visiting brother called on his local fellow-laborer,
and informed him that on the following day, which
happened to be Sunday, he would be pleased to attend
service at his church. On the morrow he was on
hand and occupied a seat directly in front of the
pulpit; but, notwithstanding his conspicuousness,
the home minister, who should, out of courtesy, have
invited him to a seat in the pulpit, if to no other
part in the services, never saw him. He looked
completely over his head, keeping his eyes, all through
the exercises, fixed upon the back pews, which happened,
on that occasion, to be chiefly unoccupied.
Such incidents, of themselves, were of no great importance.
Their significance was in the fact that they all occurred
on the soil of a free State. They showed the
state of feeling that then and there existed.
CHAPTER III
ONE OF THEIR TRAITS
The writer has spoken of the courage of the Abolitionists.
There is another trait by which they were distinguished
that, in his opinion, should not be passed over.
That was their extreme hopefulness—their
untiring confidence. No matter how adverse were
the conditions, they expected to win. They never
counted the odds against them. They trusted in
the right which they were firmly persuaded would prevail
some time or another. For that time they were
willing to wait, meanwhile doing what they could to
hasten its coming.
Benjamin Lundy, the little Quaker mechanic, who was
undeniably the Peter-the-Hermit of the Abolitionist
movement, when setting out alone and on foot, with
his printing material on his back, to begin a crusade
against the strongest and most arrogant institution
in the country, remarked with admirable naivete, “I
do not know how soon I shall succeed in my undertaking.”
William Lloyd Garrison, when the pioneer Anti-Slavery
Society was organized by only twelve men, and they
people of no worldly consequence, the meeting for
lack of a better place being held in a colored schoolroom
on “Nigger Hill” in Boston, declared that
in due time they would meet to urge their principles
in Faneuil Hall—a most audacious declaration,
but he was right.
