been turned than during the quarter of a century just closing. Owing to the efforts of Brown and others sympathizing with him, the Institution of Slavery had already received many shocks; but it was still active and aggressive. For ought man could see to the contrary, it was fated to exist many years yet. It held unchallenged, fifteen of the states in this Union and was making strenuous efforts to fortify itself in the territories of the West. A bishop in the freedom-loving state of Vermont was, twenty-five years ago, finding scripture argument for the maintenance of Negro slavery. Across the Connecticut River, in New Hampshire, the head of her chief educational institution was teaching the young men under his care that slavery was of Divine origin, and, of course, as such must not be disturbed. In New York City, one of her foremost lawyers, Charles O'Conor, announced to his audience that Negro slavery not only was not unjust, "But it is just, wise and beneficent." Though there was disclaim at this statement, the vast majority of his immense throng of listeners applauded the sentiment to the echo. In our own Commonwealth, a human being had just been rendered back to slavery, and the most distinguished clergyman in Massachusetts had stood a trial for endeavoring to prevent the everlasting disgrace. In those days between "Fifty and Sixty," "Uncle Tom's Cabin" meant something. Its gifted author had set before every Northern reader a picture on which he could not look without blushing. Nearly all of us, here to-night, can recall the intense interest with which our parents perused the book. I well recall the burning face of my father as he turned page after page, and when, at times, tears coursed down his cheek I wondered what it was all about. He, too, had occasion to know how strong was the bond that slavery had laid upon the Nation, in the opposition aroused among his own people through his pulpit utterances on the forbidden subject. In those days, the Underground Railroad was in full operation. The Southern Black Man, however deep his degradation, knew the North Star, and towards it he was journeying at the rate of thousands yearly. We of to-day account it among our most precious heritages that our sires and grandsires kept stations on that same road, and many an escaped bondsman looking back from his safe asylum in Canada called them "blessed." Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-nine was in the halcyon days of "Fugitive Slave Law" lovers. If John Wesley considered Slavery the "sum of all villainies," I wonder what terse definition he would have given to this the vilest enactment that ever rested on our Statute Book. Not satisfied with whipping, shooting, hanging, destroying in a thousand ways these unhappy slaves, the aggressive South forced upon a passive North a law whose enormity passes description. Every man at the beck of the Southern kidnapper, by its provisions was obliged to play the part of a Negro catcher. So great was the passiveness of the North that her most eminent orator, instead of decrying the proposition as unworthy of humanity, even lifted up his voice in its defense. Virgil inveighed against the accursed thirst for gold—auri sacra fames; but it was not this thirst that made him, ofttimes called the "Godlike," turn against all the traditions of his birth and associations, and speak words which closed to him Faneuil Hall, the Cradle of Liberty, and drew from Whittier the scathing lines of

But his thirst was not appeased, and the South before which he had prostrated himself, turned away from him, spurning his bribe, and made a nomination which terribly disappointed Webster, and on account of which he went down to his grave broken hearted. Imagine if you can the astonishment of the student a hundred years hence, when he reads that the highest judicial tribunal in the land, voiced through its aged though not venerable chief, said in the year of our lord, 1857, and in the year of American Independence the eighty-first, that three millions of people, at that time represented in Congress through an infamous scheme of apportionment, had no rights that a white man was bound to respect. Two judges of that court, and be it ever remembered to their credit, dissented. Through the worse than Cimmerian darkness that overspread the Supreme Bench of those days, the names of McLean and Curtis shine forth, the only rays of light; and I may say with the exception of that of Taney, remembered through his unique position, the only names recalled to-day. I doubt whether any present can name three out of the six judges who concurred with their Superior in his opinion. It was the age, par excellence, of spread-eagle oratory, when the American Bird soared higher and staid up longer than he ever has since. Hail Columbias and Star Spangled Banners were in order, but the latter waved for the white portion of the people only. A flaunting mockery, our flag justly merited the reproach of other nations that pointed to our enslaved millions and then said: "Call ye that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?"

We know that all this is so, for we remember it; but the student of the future must get his knowledge from books, and in the light of progress what will he think of defenseless women being mobbed in a Connecticut town for allowing Negro girls to attend their school? Even now there is no distinction of color in our schools, and at the High School in this city, a colored girl has graduated whose foster father was a slave in Danville, Virginia, while the head master of the school was held there a prisoner of war. Side by side they sit in our schools of all grades, and, graduating from our Normal Schools, become teachers in the schools themselves. He will read that Garrison, Phillips, Foster and others, were often in peril of their lives for preaching liberation of the slaves; and how like a myth will it seem to him, when we, in twenty-five years from the death of John Brown, have seen colored men in both branches of the National Legislature, and to-day cannot look upon a lately issued Government Note without reading the name of one[A] who was once in bondage. Popular prejudice, the strongest barrier possible, is rapidly yielding; and the bayonet, the ballot and the spelling book, have wrought wonders. With all professions open to the colored man, with equal rights before the law, with millions of property accumulated since the war, who shall say that the soul of John Brown is not marching on?

In the days prior to those of Harper's Ferry Raid, this good City of Worcester, and the County of the same name, had spoken in no uncertain manner as to their appreciation of Slavery and its attendant evils. The first county in the Commonwealth to raise the question of the validity of Slavery in Massachusetts subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution, she well sustained her early acquired reputation in the more troublous times of later years. In 1839, in this city was tried the famous Holden Slave Case, where a native of Worcester County had brought to her early home from her more recent Southern one, a specimen of human property in the shape of a black girl fourteen years old, by name Anne. By special enactment of Massachusetts no one could be held in bondage thus unless perfectly willing, and certain citizens of Holden, knowing that the treatment which the girl received could not be borne except under duress, secured her person, and bringing her to the Heart of the Commonwealth, made her "Free indeed." For thus acting, these citizens were arrested and indicted, for just what, it seems difficult, at this time, to state; but they were deemed or