As editor of the ``Yale Literary Magazine,'' through my senior year, I could publish nothing in behalf of my cherished anti-slavery ideas, since a decided majority of my fellow-editors would have certainly refused admission to any obnoxious article, and I therefore confined myself, in my editorial capacity, to literary and abstract matters; but with my college exercises it was different. Professor Larned, who was charged with the criticism of our essays and speeches, though a very quiet man, was at heart deeply anti-slavery, and therefore it was that in sundry class-room essays, as well as in speeches at the junior exhibition and at commencement, I was able to pour forth my ideas against what was stigmatized as the ``sum of human villainies.'' I was not free from temptation to an opposite course. My experience at the college election had more than once suggested to my mind the idea that possibly I might be wrong, after all; that perhaps the voice of the people was really the voice of God; that if one wishes to accomplish anything he must work in harmony with the popular will; and that perhaps the best way would be to conform to the general opinion. To do so seemed, certainly, the only road to preferment of any kind. Such were the temptations which, in those days, beset every young man who dreamed of accomplishing something in life, and they beset me in my turn; but there came a day when I dealt with them decisively. I had come up across New Haven Green thinking them over, and perhaps paltering rather contemptibly with my conscience; but arriving at the door of North College, I stopped a moment, ran through the whole subject in an instant, and then and there, on the stairway leading to my room, silently vowed that, come what might, I would never be an apologist for slavery or for its extension, and that what little I could do against both should be done. I may add that my conscience was somewhat aided by a piece of casuistry from the most brilliant scholar in the Yale faculty of that time, Professor James Hadley. I had been brought up with a strong conviction of the necessity of obedience to law as the first requirement in any State, and especially in a Republic; but here was the fugitive slave law. What was our duty regarding it? This question having come up in one of our division- room debates, Professor Hadley, presiding, gave a decision to the following effect: ``On the statute books of all countries are many laws, obsolete and obsolescent; to disobey an obsolete law is frequently a necessity and never a crime. As to disobedience to an obsolescent law, the question in every man's mind must be as to the degree of its obsolescence. Laws are made obsolescent by change of circumstances, by the growth of convictions which render their execution impossible, and the like. Every man, therefore, must solemnly decide for himself at what period a law is virtually obsolete.''