d impression
which he made on me. I can set no limits to the power of such a man as I
have just seen and heard. It may be (God grant it!) that it is not a
mere transitory emotion of enthusiasm that he is awakening among the
people of this land. It may be that the influence he is exerting is yet
to penetrate the rock of our selfishness and insensibility, and call
forth, in full flood, like one of our own great rivers, the mighty
stream of our sympathy that shall sweep away from our land and from the
earth, every vestige of oppression. Such a thing seems almost possible,
when we observe how the advocates of Slavery on our own soil tremble at
his approach, and fear to welcome him. Most devoutly do I hope that he
may exert such an influence. It is my fervent prayer. It is yours, too,
brethren, I do not doubt. But I cannot resist the conviction that he
must fail of achieving the object so near his heart, and for which he is
spending the strength of a giant, wearing away his life, if indeed a
life, so deep and so intense, capable of so much labour, can be worn
away.

Yes, friends, he must fail. And happy will it be for him, great,
wonderful as he is, if he comes out unscathed from the fiery and
searching trial of his principles, upon which he entered the moment he
stept upon our soil. Yes, he must fail. How can it be otherwise? He
must fail; not because this people are averse to the possibility of war,
for they have just come out from a war waged, not to extend Freedom you
know. He must fail, not because we revere the counsels of the Father of
our Country. But he must fail because there is a tremendous obstacle in
his way to our free, unfettered sympathy, upon which that fond hope of
his, that great heart of his, the treasury of a nation's woes, must be
broken at last.

When he spoke in this city the other evening, he repeated what he had
said more than once before, that he had come hither resolved to
interfere with no domestic concern of ours, with none of our party
questions. But there is one 'domestic concern,' one 'party question,'
which, while it is, in an obvious sense, a 'domestic concern,' does, in
fact, necessarily and vitally involve those rights of Humanity for which
this great man pleads, and which he is considered as representing when
he urges upon us the claims of his oppressed country. In reason, and in
the nature of things, it is connected with him and with his great
purpose.

So clearly is this so, that t