Colonel Higginson looks back on the anti-slavery period as on something quite unusual in human experience. He believes there has been no other movement of the moral consciousness in man since the period of the Puritan upheaval which has given such mental quickening and force to those taking part in it. He sees in it the better part of his training as an author; and it has guided him in his relations to the social and intellectual agitations of his time. His training as a reformer he cannot forget; and he still remains first of all the friend of human progress. In 1850, he lost his pulpit in Newburyport because of his zealous advocacy of the anti-slavery cause, in season and out of season. At the same time, he was the Freesoil candidate for Congress in the northeastern district of Massachusetts. He became the pastor of a Free Church in Worcester, not connected with any sect, and organized quite as much in behalf of freedom in politics as for the sake of freedom in religion. He was connected with all the most stirring anti-slavery scenes in Boston, and he eagerly favored physical resistance to the encroachments of the pro-slavery party. He joined in the Anthony Burns riot, in which he was wounded, and which failed only through a misunderstanding. He was a leader in organizing Freesoil parties for Kansas, and spent six weeks in the Territory in that behalf. He was one of those who planned a party for the rescuing of John Brown after his sentence at Harper’s Ferry; and he early offered his services to the Governor of Massachusetts on the breaking out of the Civil War. His zeal for the blacks was so well known, that it inspired the following lines of some anonymous poetizer: There was a young curate of Worcester Who could have a command if he’d choose ter; But he said each recruit Must be blacker than soot Or else he’d go preach where he used ter! In fact, he recruited two companies in the vicinity of Worcester, and was given a captain’s commission. While yet in camp he received the appointment to the colonelcy of the First South Carolina Volunteers--“the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the late Civil War,”--nearly six months previous to Colonel Shaw’s famous regiment, the 54th Mass. Volunteers.