“Your poetry,” he says, “is a harbinger of better hours, but not for this century, as I fear we have missed the great idea of our existence and a new cycle of time must pass its round, and a new, a lovelier race of beings must settle on this earth ere man shall truly appreciate the divine doctrine you enunciate in the last line of your verses.” Lowell had now become clearly identified with the anti-slavery cause and did not shrink from using the phrase “we abolitionists.” His reputation as a poet had steadily risen. He was contemplating a second series of his “Conversations,” and though he rarely used the instrument of poetry in direct attack, much of his verse sounded those notes of freedom and truth which were, even when abstractly used, rightly regarded as dominant notes in the songs of the times. The leaders of the anti-slavery cause welcomed him as an important coadjutor. At this time the _National Anti-Slavery Standard_ was passing through one of the several changes sure to overtake the management of a journal which was the organ of such a bundle of individualities as would make up a reform party. The _Standard_ was the official paper of the American Anti-Slavery Society, as the _Liberator_ was the individual mouthpiece of Mr. Garrison. The _Standard_ had been conducted successively by Mrs. Lydia Maria Child and her husband, David Lee Child. The former, who had marked literary ability and a fondness for the art of literature, had directed the paper in such a way as to win the attention of other than pronounced abolitionists; the latter had a stronger interest in legal and constitutional questions, and his disquisitions, which were inordinately long, must have wearied the readers whom it was desirable to gain over. Those who merely wished to hear their beliefs sounded may have had no fault to find, but these did not need conversion. The paper, therefore, passed in 1844 into the hands of Mrs. Chapman, Edmund Quincy,[56] and Sydney Howard Gay, who augmented the energy and diversity of the journal, but did not succeed in arresting the decline of its subscription list. In the spring of 1846 the paper had only about 1400 paying subscribers.