“Permit me to thank you cordially for the service rendered by you to our cause, on Tuesday, at Worcester. Ideas must reinforce our arms, or we shall neither deserve nor win a victory.” Epes Sargent, journalist, another and early friend, wrote from Boston:-- “I do not think you can be more than two months in advance of the public sentiment of the North, in your speech. I read it with great satisfaction, and it was not till I got down town among the politicians that I realized what imprudent things you had been saying.” Hon. Daniel W. Alvord, who had coöperated with Mr. Sumner before, wrote from Greenfield, Massachusetts:-- “I thank you for the right word uttered at the right time in your Worcester speech. I should not deem it necessary to say this, as you could hardly fail to know that such a speech would meet my hearty approbation, but for the attacks made upon you by the _Springfield Republican_. Be assured that the _Republican_ by no means reflects the feelings or the opinions of the people of the western counties. The thorough, hearty Republicans, who in the northwest, if not in the southwest, constitute a great majority, cordially indorse the reasoning and positions of the speech.” Hon. John D. Baldwin, journalist, afterwards Representative in Congress, and author of the work entitled “Pre-Historic Nations,” wrote from Worcester:-- “What a wave of Hunkerism has flooded Massachusetts since the State Convention, reaching up to the ceiling of nearly every editorial sanctum! But the ebb-tide must come.” Hon. James H. Morton, the magistrate, wrote from Springfield, Massachusetts:-- “I cannot refrain from expressing the satisfaction and pleasure I derived from the perusal of your Worcester speech. In my opinion it expressed the sentiment of a very large majority of the citizens of Massachusetts, and though in advance of the sentiment of the whole country, still, if I can read the signs of the times, our Government, if it has not already reached, is fast approaching, the doctrines there enunciated by you. It seems to me they must be adopted in their length and breadth.” A writer, admired as “Gail Hamilton,” wrote from Hamilton, Massachusetts:-- “I glory in that speech. It is logic, and sagacity, and morality. Let them maul it. To that complexion must they come at last, and perhaps before. Strange that people will have so much faith in shilly-shally! Strange they will not see that honesty is the best policy, as well as the best religion! But never mind. Do you lead the van.” Rev. John Weiss, the eloquent preacher, and biographer of Theodore Parker, wrote from Milton:--