Produced by Tor Martin Kristiansen, Carol Brown, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER His Life, Genius, and Writings BY W. SLOANE KENNEDY Author of a "Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," Etc. REVISED AND ENLARGED _INTRODUCTION BY REV. S. F. SMITH, D.D._ Author of Hymn "America" Such music as the woods and streams Sang in his ear, he sang aloud _The Tent on the Beach_ For all his quiet life flowed on, As meadow streamlets flow, Where fresher green reveals alo The noiseless ways they go _The Friend's Burial_ CHICAGO NEW YORK THE WERNER COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1892 BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1895 BY THE WERNER COMPANY John Greenleaf Whittier INTRODUCTION. Who does not admire and love John Greenleaf Whittier? And who does not delight to do him honor? He was a man raised up by Providence to meet an exigency in human history, and an exigency in the experiences of the United States. And he met the exigency with distinguished success. He was a true exponent of New England life and the New England spirit. He drew his inspiration from the soil where he was born, from the necessities of the times, from the demands of human rights, from the love of God and of man. He was a unique man. We knew not his like before him. We shall see no other like him after him. He was the product of his age; and the age in which he lived belonged to him, and he to and in it. He was a unique literary man. He was so meek and retiring; he was so keenly sensitive to the wrongs done by man to man; he was so devoid of self-seeking; so pure and exalted in motive, and so sturdy a defender of the rights of the oppressed; he was so full of trust in God that we seem never to have seen his equal among men. His beautiful gentleness of character and his inflexible and fearless advocacy of the cause of righteousness--even when such advocacy involved persecution and personal harm and loss, a rare combination of qualities--remind us of the sentiment of Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The gentle are the strong."