ers only as
public sentiment became more and more enlightened. They did not beard
the lion in full face, by coming out as the first thing with the maxim,
that all slavery ought and must be abandoned immediately. They began
with "inquiries as to the _impolicy_ of the _slave trade_," and it was
years before they came to the point of the abolition of slavery. And
they carried their measures through, without producing warring parties
among _good men_, who held common principles with themselves. As a
general fact, the pious men of Great Britain acted harmoniously in this
great effort.

Let us now look at the leaders of the Abolition movement in America. The
man who first took the lead was William L. Garrison, who, though he
professes a belief in the Christian religion, is an avowed opponent of
most of its institutions. The character and spirit of this man have for
years been exhibited in "the Liberator," of which he is the editor. That
there is to be found in that paper, or in any thing else, any evidence
of his possessing the peculiar traits of Wilberforce, not even his
warmest admirers will maintain. How many of the opposite traits can be
found, those can best judge who have read his paper. Gradually others
joined themselves in the effort commenced by Garrison; but for a long
time they consisted chiefly of men who would fall into one of these
three classes; either good men who were so excited by a knowledge of the
enormous evils of slavery, that _any thing_ was considered better than
entire inactivity, or else men accustomed to a contracted field of
observation, and more qualified to judge of immediate results than of
general tendencies, or else men of ardent and impulsive temperament,
whose feelings are likely to take the lead, rather than their judgment.

There are no men who act more efficiently as the leaders of an
enterprise than the editors of the periodicals that advocate and defend
it. The editors of the Emancipator, the Friend of Man, the New York
Evangelist, and the other abolition periodicals, may therefore be
considered as among the chief leaders of the enterprise, and their
papers are the mirror from which their spirit and character are
reflected.

I wish the friends of these editors would cull from their papers all the
indications they can find of the peculiarities that distinguished
Wilberforce and his associates; all the evidence of "a modest and lowly
spirit,"--all the exhibitions of "charity in judging