Another young man of Boston, and one bearing a name most honorably associated with American history from the earliest period, was led by the Alton tragedy to identify himself with the despised cause of abolition. I allude to Edmund Quincy, youngest son of Josiah Quincy, Sr., formerly a member of Congress from Boston, afterwards for several years mayor of the city, and later still president of Harvard University. Mr. Quincy was a graduate of Harvard, a young man of great intellectual ability, ripe culture, fine literary tastes, and unswerving rectitude of character. In a letter asking that his name might be enrolled as a member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, he said: "I have deferred too long enrolling my name on the list of that noble army, which for seven years past has maintained the right, and gallantly defended the cause of our common humanity, undismayed by danger and undeterred by obloquy; but I hope that in whatever fields yet remain to be fought you will find me in the thickest of the fray, at the side of our veteran chiefs, whether the warfare be directed against the open hostility of professed foes, or the more dangerous attacks of hollow friends." And well did he fulfil the promise conveyed in these words, though in doing so he incurred a measure of social obloquy which few others in our ranks were called to endure. Not once did he shirk any service for the cause which it was in his power to render. At the meeting called by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to commemorate the death of Lovejoy, he made his first anti-slavery speech, and a noble one it was, revealing a firm grasp of principles and a moral insight clear as the noonday sun. As a speaker, though impressive and forcible, he was not the equal of Phillips; but as a writer upon the questions of the day, he was highly gifted. His name and presence as a presiding officer lent dignity to many of our meetings, and his contributions to

"The Liberator" and "National Anti-Slavery Standard," from the time that he entered our ranks to the end of the conflict, were as important and valuable as they were numerous. It often fell to his lot to contribute editorial articles to "The Liberator," in the absence of the editor, and he was for twenty years or more an editorial writer and correspondent of "The Standard," which was established by the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York in 1840, to replace the "conveyed" "Emancipator," and which was continued, like "The Liberator," to the end of the conflict. During a considerable part of this time he was associated with James Russell Lowell, another man who deserves honorable mention for consecrating his fresh young manhood and his fine literary abilities to the cause of the slave. Some of his noblest poems made their first appearance in "The Standard." Mr. Quincy's leaders, in their adaptation to the needs of the hour, and in respect of their literary quality, were equal to the very best to be found in any other jour nal; while his letters from Boston - in "The Standard," under the signature of "D. Y.," and in "The New York Tribune" under that of "Byles,"—for their felicitous treatment of passing events as connected with the anti-slavery cause, and for both playful and caustic wit, were of the highest interest. In the days of Webster's apostacy and Boston's degradation as a hunting-ground for fugitive slaves, Mr. Quincy was our "Junius," and a great deal besides. It would be impossible to exaggerate the value to our cause of a writer of such varied gifts. I am certain that no series of editorial essays, written for any other journal during the Rebellion, and dealing with its everchanging phases, would so well bear examination now as those written by Mr. Quincy for "The Standard." They were remarkable for soundness of judgment in regard to past events, and equally so for that pre

science which is a characteristic of the highest wisdom. Mr. Quincy lived to see the fruits of his self-sacrificing labors in the broken chains of the slaves, and in their transformation from chattels to citizens. It was my privilege to be intimately associated with him in the conduct of "The Standard" for many years, and were it needful, I could recall many illustrations of the nobility of his character and of his unreserved devotion to the cause. He was exceedingly modest, sometimes even shy, never seeking conspicuity or courting applause; but when the camp was beleaguered by foes, or in danger of betrayal by traitors within, his sagacity and courage were equal to the occasion. He hated meanness and treachery, whatever guise they assumed, and could set a hypocrite in the pillory with a skill that left him no chance of escape.

XIV.

Attitude of the Churches Anti-Slavery Agitation among the Methodists-Persecution of Abolitionists - The Wesleyan Secession - The Division of 1844 - The Methodist Church a Type of Others - The Baptists - Orthodox Authorities - Old School Covenanters The Free Presbyterians - The Quakers.

IN not a few instances, in the preceding pages, I have spoken of the hostility of the great religious denominations of the country to the anti-slavery movement, but there is need of a more distinct presentation of this branch of my subject. I am the more convinced of this because, while some of my sketches were passing through "The Tribune," complaints were made in some quarters that my statements respecting ministers and churches were unhistorical and false. shall, therefore, devote this chapter to the subject. And I begin with the Methodist church, not only because it is one of the largest and most influential of American sects, but because I have been charged by a distinguished minister of that church with misrepresenting it.

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The Methodist Episcopal church, in its earlier years, set itself strongly against slavery, apparently with a fixed determination not to be defiled by it; but long before the anti-slavery movement began, its good resolutions had been forgotten, and it had surrendered to the enemy. Its degeneracy began early. During the Revolutionary period, the influence of Wesley on the rising church was withdrawn, and "the infernal spirit of slavery," as Bishop Asbury called it, gained ascendancy over the "dear Zion;" the rules against

slavery were relaxed; the foul flood began to percolate the dikes erected by Wesley, and they were at length practically swept away by its force. The church, so far as respects its laity, became a slaveholding church, nursing at its bosom a system of oppression which Wesley truly stigmatized as "the vilest that ever saw the sun." Whatever rules of discipline unfavorable to the system still remained upon its records, in the presence of this damning fact were as worthless as the Ten Commandments would be if inscribed on the walls of a gambling den. They could only serve to make the guilt of the church the more conspicuous. And yet there are those at the present day who point to these tattered remnants of laws contemued and violated, as proofs that the church, with thousands of slaveholders in her bosom, holding scores of thousands of slaves, buying and selling them at pleasure, keeping them in ignorance and degradation, and working them without wages under the lash, was yet an anti-slavery church, with, in the language of the Rev. Dr. Whedon, "a historic anti-slaveryism of her own, of which she is not a little proud." It seems to me that the pride which is built upon such a foundation must be of the sort that "goeth before destruction," indicating a "haughty spirit" that betokens "a fall." Shame and confusion of face, and tears of contrition. would better befit a church in such circumstances. The prodigal son did not seek to make his early but broken resolutions of virtue a cover and excuse for wasting his substance in riotous living," nor talk with pride" of his "historic" merit. God's moral law, let it be remembered, is the same for churches as for individuals.

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Slavery having once gained a foothold in the church, its power was augmented with every passing year. The period following the war of the Revolution was marked by a laxity of morals on every hand, which