Such was the state of things in 1831. Anti-slavery had "an obscure hole" for its head-quarters; the one agitator, who had filled the two doughty Governors of Virginia and Georgia with uncomfortable forebodings, had a "negro boy" "for his only visible auxiliary," and none of the respectable men of Boston had heard of the hole, of the agitator, of the negro boy, or even of the agitation. One thing must be true: either the man and the boy were pretty vigorous, or else there was a great truth in that obscure hole; for, in spite of the governors and the mayors, spite of the many able men in the South and the North, spite, also, of the wealth and respectability of the whole land, it is a plain case that the abolitionists have shaken the nation, and their idea is the idea of the time; and the party which shall warmly welcome that is destined before long to override all the other parties. One thing must be said of the leaders of the anti-slavery movement. They asked for nothing but justice; not justice for themselves--they were not Socratic enough to ask that,--but only justice for the slave; and to obtain that, they forsook all that human hearts most love. It is rather a cheap courage that fought at Monterey and Palo Alto, a bravery that can be bought for eight dollars a month; the patriotism which hurras for "our side," which makes speeches at Faneuil Hall, nay, which carries torch-lights in a procession, is not the very loftiest kind of patriotism; even the man who stands up at the stake, and in one brief hour of agony anticipates the long torment of disease, does not endure the hardest, but only the most obvious kind of martyrdom. But when a man, for conscience' sake, leaves a calling that would insure him bread and respectability; when he abjures the opinions which give him the esteem of honorable men; when, for the sake of truth and justice, he devotes himself to liberating the most abused and despised class of men, solely because they are men and brothers; when he thus steps forth in front of the world, and encounters poverty and neglect, the scorn, the loathing, and the contempt of mankind--why, there is something not very common in that. There was once a Man who had not where to lay his head, who was born in "an obscure hole," and had not even a negro boy for his "auxiliary;" who all his life lived with most obscure persons--eating and drinking with publicans and sinners; who found no favor with mayors or governors, and yet has had some influence on the history of the world. When intelligent men mock at small beginnings, it is surprising they cannot remember that the greatest institutions have had their times which tried men's souls, and that they who have done all the noblest and best work of mankind, sometimes forgot self-interest in looking at a great truth; and though they had not always even a negro boy to help them, or an obscure hole to lay their heads in, yet found the might of