h
the questions of trade and tariffs also. He believed in liberty, civil,
religious, and commercial. He was in fact a radical free trader on moral
and humanitary grounds. "He is the most sagacious political economist,"
was a remark of his, "who contends for the highest justice, the most
far-reaching equality, a close adherence to natural laws, and the
removal of all those restrictions which foster national pride and
selfishness." And here is another like unto it: "Believing that the
interests of the American people in no wise materially differ from those
of the people of any other country, and denying the rectitude or
feasibility of building ourselves up at their expense by an exclusive
policy, obstructing the natural flow of material exchanges, I avow
myself to be a radical free trader, even to the extent of desiring the
abolition of all custom-houses, as now constituted, throughout the
world. That event is far distant, undoubtedly, but I believe it will
come with the freedom and enlightenment of mankind. My faith is absolute
that it will prove advantageous to every branch of industry, whether at
home or abroad."

The closing years of the reformer's life were years of great bodily
suffering. A disease of the kidneys and a chronic catarrh of the head
made steady inroads upon the resources of his constitution, made life at
times a wheel on which he was racked with physical tortures, all of
which he bore with the utmost fortitude and serenity of spirit. "The
longer I live, the longer I desire to live," he wrote Samuel J. May,
"and the more I see the desirableness of living; yet certainly not in
this frail body, but just as it shall please the dear Father of us all."
One by one he saw the little band of which he was leader dwindle as now
one and now another dropped by the way. And it was he or Mr. Phillips,
or both, who spoke the last loving words over their coffins. As the
little band passed on to the unseen country, a new joy awoke in the soul
of the leader left behind, the joy of anticipation, of glad reunion
beyond the grave. "How unspeakably pleasant it will be to greet them,
and to be greeted by them on the other side of the line," it seemed to
him as he, too, began to descend toward the shore of the swift, silent
river. The deep, sweet love for his mother returned with youthful
freshness and force to him, the man of seventy-three years, at the
thought of coming again into her presence. A strange yearning was
tuggin