it in execution, just when
you see fit.

"Gentlemen, I am a clergyman and a man of peace; I love peace. But
there is a means, and there is an end; Liberty is the end, and
sometimes peace is not the means towards it. [Applause.] Now, I want
to ask you what you are going to do. [A voice--'shoot, shoot.'] There
are ways of managing this matter without shooting anybody. Be sure
that these men who have kidnapped a man in Boston, are cowards, every
mother's son of them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare
that this man shall not go out of the city of Boston, _without
shooting a gun_--[cries of 'that's it,' and great applause,]--then he
won't go back. Now, I am going to propose that when you adjourn, it be
to meet at _Court Square, to-morrow morning at nine o'clock_. As many
as are in favor of that motion will raise their hands. [A large number
of hands were raised, but many voices cried out, 'Let's go to-night,'
'let's pay a visit to the slave-catchers at the Revere House,' etc.
'Put that question.'] Do you propose to go to the Revere House
to-night, then show your hands. [Some hands were held up.] It is not a
vote. We shall meet at _Court Square, at nine o'clock to-morrow
morning_."

* * * * *

On the following Sunday, May 28, in place of the usual Scripture
passages, I extemporized the following "Lesson for the Day," which on
Monday appeared in the newspapers:--

"Since last we came together, there has been a man stolen in the city
of our fathers. It is not the first; it may not be the last. He is now
in the great slave-pen in the city of Boston. He is there against the
law of the Commonwealth, which, if I am rightly informed, in such
cases prohibits the use of State edifices as United States jails."

"A man has been killed by violence. Some say he was killed by his own
coadjutors: I can easily believe it; there is evidence enough that
they were greatly frightened. They were not United States soldiers,
but volunteers from the streets of Boston, who, for their pay, went
into the Court House to assist in kidnapping a brother man. They were
so cowardly that they could not use the simple cutlasses they had in
their hands, but smote right and left, like ignorant and frightened
ruffians as they are. They may have slain their brother or not--I
cannot tell."

"Why is Boston in this confusion to-day? The fugitive slave bill
Commissioner has just now been sowing the wind, that we m