perchance inland seas, and at length the deep ocean itself. Some extracts will show in what sense he was a poet as well as a reformer. He thus raises the anti-slavery "war-whoop" in New Hampshire, when an important convention is to be held, sending the summons, — "To none but the whole-hearted, fully-committed, cross-the-Rubicon spirits. From rich 'old Cheshire,' from Rockingham, with her horizon setting down away to the salt sea from where the sun sets behind Kearsarge, even to where he rises gloriously over Moses Norris's own town of Pittsfield, and from Amoskeag to Ragged Mountains, Coos — Upper Coos, home of the everlasting hills, send out your bold advocates of human rights, wherever they lay, scattered by lonely lake, or Indian stream, or 'Grant,' or 'Location,' from the trouthaunted brooks of the Amoriscoggin, and where the adventurous streamlet takes up its mountain march for the St. Lawrence. "Scattered and insulated men, wherever the light of philanthropy and liberty has beamed in upon your solitary spirits, come down to us like your streams and clouds and our own Grafton, all about among your dear hills, and your mountain-flanked valleys-whether you home along the swift Ammonoosuck, the cold Pemigewassett, or the ox-bowed Connecticut. "We are slow, brethren, dishonorably slow, in a cause like ours. Our feet should be as 'hinds' feet.' 'Liberty lies bleeding.' The leaden-colored wing of slavery obscures the land with its baleful shadow. Let us come together, and inquire at the hand of the Lord what is to be done." And again; on occasion of a New England Convention in the Second-Advent Tabernacle, in Boston, he desires to try one more blast, as it were, "on Fabyan's White Mountain horn: ". "Ho, then, people of the Bay State, men, women, and children; children, women, and men, scattered friends of the friendless, wheresoever ye inhabit, if habitations ye have, as such friends have not always, along the seabeat border of Old Essex and the Puritan Landing, and up beyond sight of the sea-cloud, among the inland hills, where the sun rises and sets upon the dry land, in that vale of the Connecticut, too fair for human content and too fertile for virtuous industry, where deepens the haughtiest of earth's streams, on its seaward way, proud with the pride of old Massachusetts. Are there any friends of the friendless negro haunting such a valley as this? In God's name, I fear there are none, or few; for the very scene looks apathy and oblivion to the genius of humanity. I blow you the summons, though. Come, if any of you are there. "And gallant little Rhode Island; transcendent abolitionists of the tiny Commonwealth. I need not call you. You are called the year round, and, instead of sleeping in your tents, stand harnessed, and with trumpets in your hands, every one! "Connecticut! yonder, the home of the Burleighs, the Monroes, and the Hudsons, and the native land of old George Benson! are you ready? 'All ready!' "Maine here, off east, looking from my mountain post like an everglade. Where is your Sam. Fessenden, who stood storm-proof 'gainst New Organization in '38. Has he too much name as a jurist and orator, to be found at a New England Convention in '43? God forbid! Come one and all of you from 'Down East' to Boston, on the 30th, and let the sails of your coasters whiten all the sea-road. there are scarce enough of you to man a fishing boat. Come up mighty in your fewness." Come Alas! Such timely, pure, and unpremeditated expressions of a public sentiment, such publicity of genuine indignation and humanity, as abound everywhere in this journal, are the most generous gifts which a man can make. WENDELL PHILLIPS BEFORE THE MR. EDITOR: CONCORD, Mass., March 12, 1845. - We have now, for the third winter, had our spirits refreshed, and our faith in the destiny of the Commonwealth strengthened, by the presence and the eloquence of Wendell Phillips; and we wish to tender to him our thanks and our sympathy. The admission of this gentleman into the Lyceum has been strenuously opposed by a respectable portion of our fellowcitizens, who themselves, we trust, whose descendants, at least, we know, will be as faithful conservers of the true order, whenever that shall be the order of the day, — and in each instance the people have voted that they would hear him, by coming themselves and bringing their friends to the lecture-room, and being very silent that they might hear. We saw some men and women, who had long ago come out, going in once more through the free and hospitable portals of the Lyceum; and many of our neighbors confessed that they had had a "sound season this once. It was the speaker's aim to show what the State, and above all the Church, had to do, and now, alas! have done, with Texas and slavery, and how much, on the other hand, the individual should have to do with Church and State. These were fair themes, and not mistimed, and his words were addressed to "fit audience, and not few." We must give Mr. Phillips the credit of being a clean, erect, and what was once called a consistent man. He at least is not responsible for slavery, nor for American Independence; for the hypocrisy and superstition of the Church, nor the timidity and selfishness of the State; nor for the indifference and willing ignorance of any. He stands so distinctly, so firmly, and so effectively alone, and one honest man is so much more than a host, that we cannot but feel that he does himself injustice when he reminds us of "the American Society, which he represents." It is rare that we have the pleasure of listening to so clear and orthodox a speaker, who obviously has so few cracks or flaws in his moral nature, who, having words at his command in a remarkable degree, has much more than words, if these should fail, in his unquestionable earnestness and integrity, — and, aside from their admiration at his rhetoric, secures the genuine respect of his audience. He |