But what he found was a sad lack of interest in the slave.
Everywhere he went he encountered what appeared to him to be the most
monstrous indifference and apathy on the subject. The prejudices of the
free States seemed to him stronger than were those of the South. Instead
of receiving aid and encouragement to continue the good work of himself
and coadjutor, and for the doing of which he had served a term of seven
weeks in prison, men, even his best friends sought to influence him to
give it up, and to persuade him to forsake the slave, and to turn his
time and talents to safer and more profitable enterprises nearer home.
He was informed by these worldly wise men and Job's counselors that his
"scheme was visionary, fanatical, unattainable." "Why should he make
himself," they argued, "an exile from home and all that he held dear on
earth, and sojourn in a strange land, among enemies whose hearts were
dead to every noble sentiment?" Ah! he himself confessed that all were
against his return to Baltimore. But his love of the slave was stronger
than the strength of the temptation. He put all these selfish objections
behind him. As he has recorded the result of this experience:
"Opposition served only to increase my ardor, and confirm my purpose."
Strange and incomprehensible to his fellows is the man who prefers
"persecution, reproach, and poverty" with duty, to worldly ease and
honor and riches without it.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97