s the spider
underneath his feet. But such eloquence is given to no man.
It was not given to the ancient Greek who 'shook the arsenal
and fulmined over Greece.' He that so often held the nobles
and the mob of Rome within his hand, had it not. He that
spoke as never man spake, and who has since gathered two
hundred millions to his name, had it not. No man has it. The
ablest must wait for time! It is idle to resist here and
now. It is not the hour. If in 1765 they had attempted to
carry out the Revolution by force, they would have failed.
Had it failed, we had not been here to-day. There would have
been no little monument at Lexington 'sacred to liberty and
the rights of mankind' honoring the men who 'fell in the
cause of God and their country.' No little monument at
Concord; nor that tall pile of eloquent stone at Bunker
Hill, to proclaim that 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience
to God.' Success is due to the discretion, heroism,
calmness, and forbearance of our fathers: let us wait our
time. It will come--perhaps will need no sacrifice of
blood."[215]

[Footnote 215: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, p. 334-337, 343-348,
351, 352.]

Gentlemen, I think Judge Finch could construct a misdemeanor out of
these words; you will find in them nothing but the plain speech of a
minister of the Christian religion.

On the 6th of July, 1851, I preached "Of the three chief Safeguards of
Society," and said:--

"Nowhere in the world is there a people so orderly, so much
attached to law, as the people of these Northern States. But
one law is an exception. The people of the North hate the
fugitive slave law, as they have never hated any law since
the stamp act. I know there are men in the Northern States
who like it,--who would have invented slavery, had it not
existed long before. But the mass of the Northern people
hate this law, because it is hostile to the purpose of all
just human law, hostile to the purpose of society, hostile
to the purpose of individual life; because it is hostile to
the law of God,--bids the wrong, forbids the right. We
disobey that, for the same reason that we keep other laws:
because we reverence the law of God. Why should we keep that
odious law which makes us hated wherever justice is loved?
Because we must sometimes do a disagreeable d