ll good men and true, and all fast gaining converts.
And yet the abolitionists are a handful! The one society in fourteen
years and sixteen days, having one hundred and sixty auxiliaries; the
other in two years and three months, having, without the support of
state legislatures, or of ecclesiastical tribunals, not fewer than
five hundred; and yet the abolitionists are a handful. He (Mr. T.)
held in his hand a list of delegates to the New England Convention
which was held in the city of Boston, on the 25th of May, 1835. In
that list he found two hundred and eighty-one gentlemen, who, at their
own expense, had come from all parts of New England, to attend that
Convention. On the 27th May, it was stated that the Massachusetts
Society were in want of funds, and a committee was appointed to
collect subscriptions. That committee in less than an hour obtained
$1,800, and on the following day, $4,000, for the American Society. In
New York, at the anniversary, there had been collected $14,500--and
yet the abolitionists were a handful. The American Society at its
anniversary, had collected a larger sum than was collected by all the
other societies together, during the week set apart for the purpose;
and in Boston, $6,000 had been collected in two days; whilst in two
months, a friend of Mr. B's, viz. Mr. Gurley, had only been able to
collect, in the same city, about $600 for the Colonization Society. By
their fruits shall ye know them; do men gather grapes of thorns, or
figs of thistles? You may send to New England any foreigner you
please--but he must show his cause to be sound and practicable before
he can draw a dollar or a cent from a New Englander, who gets his
bread by early rising, and laborious attention to business--yet $6,000
were collected in two days. But the abolitionists are a mere handful!
Yes--they may be a handful, but they are most precious and multyplying
seed. Mr. B. said that many of the slave-owners were doing all they
could for the emancipation of the slaves; whether they were doing any
thing or nothing, we find New Englanders had endeavored to retrieve
the honor of their country, by a subscription for emancipation of
$6,000 in two days--and yet it was said, they were an odious handful!
When he saw the Colonization Society like a Juggernaut, endeavoring to
crush the bodies and spirits of colored men and colored women, he
would league himself with the despised and 'odious handful,' and labor
with them, and f
|