the Abolition movement
more persistent and illiberal than in the theological seminaries, whence
the pulpits drew their supplies of preachers. Like master, like servant,
these institutions were indentured to the public, and reflected as in a
mirror the body and pressure of its life and sentiment. That a stream
cannot rise higher than its source, although a theological stream, found
remarkable demonstration in the case of Lane Seminary. Here after the
publication of the "Thoughts on Colonization," and the formation of the
National Society, an earnest spirit of inquiry broke out among the
students on the subject of slavery. It was at first encouraged by the
President, Lyman Beecher, who offered to go in and discuss the question
with his "boys." That eminent man did not long remain in this mind. The
discussions which he so lightly allowed swept through the institution
with the force of a great moral awakening. They were continued during
nine evenings and turned the seminary at their close, so far as the
students went, into an anti-slavery society. This is not the place to go
at length into the history of that anti-slavery debate, which, in its
consequences, proved one of the events of the anti-slavery conflict. Its
leader was Theodore D. Weld, who was until Wendell Phillips appeared
upon the scene, the great orator of the agitation.

Dr. Beecher had no notion of raising such a ghost when he said, "Go
ahead, boys, I'll go in and discuss with you." It was such an apparition
of independence and righteousness as neither the power of the trustees
nor the authority of the faculty was ever able to dismiss. The virtue of
a gag rule was tried to suppress Abolition among the students, but
instead of suppressing Abolition, it well-nigh suppressed the seminary;
for, rather than wear a gag on the obnoxious subject, the students--to
between seventy and eighty, comprising nearly the whole muster-roll of
the school--withdrew from an institution where the exercise of the right
of free inquiry and free speech on a great moral question was denied and
repressed. The same spirit of repression arose later in the Theological
School at Andover, Mass. There the gag was effectively applied by the
faculty, and all inquiry and discussion relating to slavery disappeared
among the students. But the attempt to impose silence upon the students
of Phillips's Academy near-by was followed by the secession of forty or
fifty of the students.

Ah! the Aboliti