A Universalist in his religious faith, Horace Greeley believed that right was stronger than wrong, good more powerful than evil, and that there will be in eternal ages no endless perdition for the evil ones of earth, but that God and all the resources of His power and love will here or there compel every knee to bow and every will surrender to the will divine. He earned the right to say at the end of his noble career, "I have been spared to see the end of giant wrongs that I once deemed invincible in this country, and to note the silent upspringing and growth of principles and influences which I hail as destined to root out some of the most flagrant and pervading influences that remain. So, looking calmly, yet humbly, for that close of my mortal career which cannot be far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings vouchsafed me in the past; and with an awe that is not fear, and a consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, await the opening before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World." VI HARRIET BEECHER STOWE; JOHN BROWN: THE CONFLICT PRECIPITATED About 1850, as the result of the long agitation of the editors and orators, preachers and poets, the people of this country entered upon a heated mood, when excitement dwelt like fire in the intellect and conscience. For thinking men, it was becoming clear that civil war was inevitable, and that commercial relations between North and South would soon be broken off. But the North had goods to sell, and the South had money with which to buy; so the word was passed that every one must keep silence about slavery, lest discussion bring on a financial panic. It was the era of imprisoned moral sense. In the ocean, some waves are tidal waves, and on land sometimes the soil is heaved by an earthquake; at this time God began to heave the conscience of the people as the full moon heaves the sea. And although we now see that God was behind the movement, foolish men then tried to stay these moral forces. Northern merchants and politicians cried, "Peace!" and the Southern successors of Calhoun lifted the old club, the threat of secession; but the agitation went on all over the North. Toombs, the Southern senator, tried sheer bombast, and said he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill monument. Timid men in the North began to cry: "Conciliate, conciliate!" But there can be warfare, and only warfare between darkness and light, between sickness and health, between wrong and right. At length Phillips and Greeley took up the cry: "Let the South go!" But the answer was: "Shall a strong man who has hold of a mad dog let the beast go into a crowd of little children?" Compromise did something for a time, as a safety valve, relieving men's pent-up feelings. But God had His own counsels. Plainly, "every drop of blood shed by the lash was to be paid for by blood shed by the sword," for "the judgments of God are true and righteous altogether."