EARLY MANHOOD -1851-1857 81 



Parker told me that he had arrived at the same conclu 

 sion, after talking with Count Gurowski, who was, in 

 those days, an especial authority. 



In due time came the evening for my lecture. As it 

 was the first occasion since leaving college that I had 

 appeared on any stage, a considerable number of my old 

 college associates and friends, including Professor (af 

 terward President) Porter, Dr. Bacon, and Mr. (afterward 

 Bishop) Little John, were there among the foremost, and 

 after I had finished they said some kindly things, which 

 encouraged me. 



In this lecture I made no mention of American slavery, 

 but into an account of the events of my stay at St. 

 Petersburg and Moscow during the Crimean War, and 

 of the death and funeral of the Emperor Nicholas, with 

 the accession and first public address of Alexander II, 

 I sketched, in broad strokes, the effects of the serf sys 

 tem, effects not merely upon the serfs, but upon the 

 serf owners, and upon the whole condition of the em 

 pire. I made it black indeed, as it deserved, and though 

 not a word was said regarding things in America, every 

 thoughtful man present must have felt that it was the 

 strongest indictment against our own system of slavery 

 which my powers enabled me to make. 



Next day came a curious episode. A classmate of mine, 

 never distinguished for logical acuteness, came out in a 

 leading daily paper with a violent attack upon me and 

 my lecture. He lamented the fact that one who, as he said, 

 had, while in college, shown much devotion to the anti- 

 slavery cause, had now faced about, had no longer the 

 courage of his opinions, and had not dared say a word 

 against slavery in the United States. The article was 

 laughable. It would have been easy to attack slavery and 

 thus at once shut the minds and hearts of a large majority 

 of the audience. But I felt then, as I have generally felt 

 since, that the first and best thing to do is to set people at 

 thinking, and to let them discover, or think that they dis 

 cover, the truth for themselves. I made no reply, but an 



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