200 



AMERICAN JOURNEY. 



[Chap. V. 



then ministered) to take her stand for Freedom. Philip was 

 impressed with the earnestness and seriousness of the meeting. 

 He afterwards went to the prayer-meeting in the First Church 

 (Unitarian), which was quite full, many standing ; and to the 

 ministers' conference, where he heard Dr. Bartol's address. 



He then found his way to the Anti-slavery Convention, 

 where he " got out °of the atmosphere of beautiful, liberal, 

 fashionable Christianity, straight into humanity. There was 

 no mistake about it. Hall crammed, and I was thankful to sit 

 on the floor of the platform." He heard the usual invectives 

 against those who, while they were opposed to slavery, main- 

 tained the Union ; the speakers not dreaming that in two years' 

 time the disunionists would be the pro-slavery party, and that a 

 war for the Union was to end in the destruction of slavery. 

 One of the speakers was u a hard man, who blows up every one 

 else, except Abolitionists, and nine-tenths of them." Garrison, 

 however, expressed his dissent from him: "The cause never was 

 in such a flourishing state. 6 The winter of our discontent is 

 now becoming glorious summer.' I feel sunny — I am glad in 

 view of the signs of the times. This subject is now No. i in 

 everything. The slave is seen by everybody, and cannot be 

 put down. He is Banquo's ghost in every entertainment," etc. 



On the evening after the Unitarian festival, he went with 

 W. C. Gannett to the Music Hall, where it had been held, to 

 another thronged meeting of Abolitionists. At the table where 

 he sat writing his report for his friends were one male and two 

 female reporters. He heard Garrison, C. V. Remond, and 

 C. C. Birley ; and then Wendell Philips rose amidst enthu- 

 siastic applause. Philip gave a long report of his speech. 

 " You stand," he said, " where for ten years Theodore Parker 

 has uttered sentiments which, when I was first called to the 

 bar, were deemed blasphemous by the old Puritan law of 

 Massachusetts." Mr. Everett told the legislature, a few years 

 before, that Abolitionists ought to have been in a prison cell : 

 they were, instead, in the most luxurious hall in the city. 

 In the course of his speech Wendell Philips contrasted the 

 conduct of Massachusetts with that of England — a refuge for 



