Wendell Phillips was the bluest of the blue blood of New England. His forefather came over in the _Arabella_, the vessel that followed the _Mayflower_, and there was a clergyman in every generation from the first immigrant to Phillips himself. They were always prominent people. Phillips studied for the law and there was a brilliant career open for him. When he was at college, he showed no sympathy with any radical movement. On the contrary, he was a member of an exclusive set known as The Gentlemen’s Club, and used to laugh at Sumner for taking Garrison’s _Liberator_. But he happened one day to attend a meeting in Faneuil Hall, and heard the Attorney General of the State vindicate the murderers of Lovejoy, in Illinois, and say that Lovejoy died as the fool dieth. Young Phillips sprang to his feet at once and delivered a short speech which placed him at the head of the orators of New England, a position he kept until he lay still in death. That incident made him an abolitionist for life. He abandoned all ideas of eminence in law or politics and determined to devote his whole life to the anti-slavery agitation. He was the most polished and graceful orator our country ever produced. He spoke as quietly as if he were talking in his own parlor, and almost entirely without gestures, yet he had as great a power over all kinds of audiences as any American of whom we have any record. Often called before howling mobs, who had come to the lecture-room to prevent him from being heard, and who would shout and sing to drown his voice, he never failed to subdue them in a short time. These were occasions when even such men as Garrison and Theodore Parker were as powerless as children and were forced to retire. One illustration of his power and tact occurred in Boston. The majority of the audience was hostile. They yelled and sang and completely drowned his voice. The reporters were seated in a row just under the platform, in the place where the orchestra play in an ordinary theatre. Phillips made no attempt to address the howling audience, but bent over and seemed to be speaking in a low tone to the reporters. By and by the curiosity of the howling audience was excited: they ceased to clamor and tried to hear what he was saying to the reporters. Phillips looked at them and said quietly: “Go on, gentlemen, go on. I do not need your ears. Through these pencils I speak to thirty millions of people.” Not a voice was raised again. The mob had found its master and stayed whipped until he sat down. He was open and sympathetic to all appeals and causes, and this made him accessible always to the poorest of men. I knew that in Boston among some of his most trusted intimates--men to whom he was always accessible--were workmen and laborers, who would hardly have been admitted at the kitchen doors of others of the “Brahmins” of that city. George Lowell Austin, in his “Life and Times of Wendell Phillips,” says: