It so happened that the 17th of April, 1840, was Good Friday,--a most appropriate day on which to mourn the death and commemorate the glorious life of one who had been so true a disciple of Him, who was crucified on Calvary for his fidelity to God and to the redemption of man. The assemblage was large, estimated by some at two thousand. A prayer was offered by Rev. Henry Ware, Jr.,--such a prayer as we expected would rise from the large, liberal, loving, devout heart of that excellent man. A most appropriate hymn, written by himself, was then read by Rev. John Pierpont. After my discourse was delivered another touching hymn from the pen, or rather the heart, of Mrs. Maria W. Chapman was read by Rev. Dr. Channing, and sung very impressively by the congregation, after which the services were closed by a benediction from Rev. J. V. Himes, a zealous antislavery brother of the Christian denomination. JOHN G. WHITTIER AND THE ANTISLAVERY POETS. All great reformations have had their bards. The Hebrew prophets were poets. They clothed their terrible denunciations of national iniquities and their confident predictions of the ultimate triumph of truth and righteousness in imagery so vivid that it will never fade. Mr. Garrison was bathed in their spirit when a child by his pious mother. He is a poet and an ardent lover of poetry. The columns of _The Liberator_, from the beginning, were every week enriched by gems in verse, not unfrequently the product of his own rapt soul. No sentiment inspires men to such exalted strains as the love of liberty. Many of the early Abolitionists uttered themselves in fervid lines of poetry,--Mrs. M. W. Chapman, Mrs. E. L. Follen, Miss E. M. Chandler, Miss A. G. Chapman, Misses C. and A. E. Weston, Mrs. L. M. Child, Mrs. Maria Lowell, Miss Mary Ann Collier, and others, male and female. In 1836--the time that tried men’s souls--Mrs. Chapman gathered into a volume the effusions of the above-named, together with those of kindred spirits in other lands and other times. The volume was entitled, “Songs of the Free and Hymns of Christian Freedom.” Many of these songs and hymns will live so long as oppression of every kind is abhorred, and men aspire after true liberty. This book was a powerful weapon in our moral welfare. My memory glows with the recollections of the fervor, and often obvious effect, with which we used to sing in true accord the 13th hymn, by _Miss E. M. Chandler_:-- “Think of our country’s glory All dimmed with Afric’s tears! Her broad flag stained and gory With the hoarded guilt of years!” Or the 15th, by _Mr. Garrison_:-- “The hour of freedom! come it must. O, hasten it in mercy, Heaven! When all who grovel in the dust Shall stand erect, their fetters riven.” Or the 7th, by _Mrs. Follen_:-- “‘What mean ye, that ye bruise and bind My people,’ saith the Lord; ‘And starve your craving brother’s mind, That asks to hear my word?’”