hile connubial love lighted up their rude
cabin, and sweetened their daily toil; but the additional anticipation of
LIBERTY, to their domestic happiness--oh blessed hope! How it quickened
their weary footsteps, and, with fixed eyes upon the star of the North,
they pressed forward through every difficulty, until they finally reached
Cincinnati, O. There they lived quietly, and with others, suffered the
terrors of the mob, where also he was chosen agent, to seek a more safe
and quiet home for his afflicted and outcast countrymen. The office was
accepted, and Lewis became the founder of the Wilberforce colony.
The personal appearance of Israel Lewis was prepossessing; his manner and
address easy and commanding. To those unacquainted with his private life,
his ungoverned passions, and his unprincipled, revengeful disposition, he
could appear the gentleman, the philanthropist, and the Christian.
His education was limited; yet he had managed to gather a sufficient
knowledge of the sciences to enable him to read and write, together with
quite a fund of general information; and then his shrewdness and tact
accomplished all the rest. To strangers he could appear a ripe scholar, if
left unquestioned. He was a good speaker, and once spake with eloquence
and marked effect before the Legislature, assembled in the Senate Chamber,
at Albany, N.Y.
Had the childhood of Mr. Lewis been passed under more favorable auspices;
had his intellectual faculties been so cultivated as to predominate over
his animal propensities, and his towering aspirations directed toward the
accomplishment of acts, lofty in their benevolence, noble in their
sacrifice, high in their honorable purpose, and great in their purity; I
can but believe that his powerful intellect would have achieved the fame
of a Lundy, or would have bequeathed to his brethren a memory like that of
a Clarkson. Instead, we have found him devoting his energies to the
gratification of his avarice, pride, and ambition--characteristics
directly opposed to the deportment of the humble Christian, and such as
our Heavenly Father has never promised to prosper. How truly has "the wise
man" said, "He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that
hateth gifts shall live." How strikingly has this passage been verified in
the course of Lewis! For a few paltry sums of gain, could he consent, not
alone to rob the poor, for whom it was kindly given as unto the Lord, but
to turn scornful
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