to relate the difficulties that followed.  There were visits from overseers, and prolonged sessions of committees; a great deal of talking with the accused, and still more talking about them.  A strong disposition was manifested to make capital against them out of the Darg Case.  Robert H. Morris, who was presiding Judge while that case was pending, and afterward Mayor of New-York, had long known Friend Hopper, and held him in much respect.  When he was told that some sought to cast imputations on his character, he was greatly surprised, and offered to give favorable testimony in any form that might be desired.  J.R.  Whiting, the District Attorney, expressed the same readiness; and private misrepresentations were silenced by a published certificate from them, testifying that throughout the affair Friend Hopper had merely “exhibited a desire to procure the money for the master, and the manumission of the slave.”

The principal argument brought by Friends, against their members uniting with Anti-Slavery Societies, was that they were thus led to mix indiscriminately with people of other denominations, and brought into contact with hireling clergymen.  There seemed some inconsistency in this objection, coming from the mouths of men who belonged to Rail Road Corporations, and Bank Stock Companies, and who mingled constantly with slaveholders in Southern trade; for the early testimonies of the Society were quite as explicit against slavery, as against a paid ministry.  However, those of their members who were abolitionists were willing to obviate this objection, if possible.  They accordingly formed an association among themselves, “for the relief of those held in slavery, and the improvement of the free people of color.”  But when this benevolent association asked for the use of Rose-street Meeting-house, their request was not only refused, but condemned as disorderly.  Affairs were certainly in a very singular position.  Both branches of the Society of Friends were entirely inert on the subject of slavery.  Both expressed pity for the slave, but both agreed that “the way did not open” for them to do anything.  If individual members were thus driven to unite in action with other sects upon a subject which seemed to them very important, they were called disorganizers.  When they tried to conciliate by forming an association composed of Quakers only, they were told that “as the Society of Friends saw no way to move forward in this concern, such associations appeared to reflect upon them;” implying that they failed in discharging their duty as a religious body.  What could an earnest, direct character, like Isaac T. Hopper, do in the midst of a sect thus situated?  He proceeded as he always did.  He walked straight forward in what seemed to him the path of duty, and snapped all the lilliputian cords with which they tried to bind him.