From this time on, until in those years of blood the shackles were struck from the slaves of America, Phillips was a man of one work. He lived for the cause of abolition. His motto might have been: “One thing I do.” By the side of Garrison he stood, in full sympathy with his ideas. His name has long been the synonym of extreme radicalism. He held, with Garrison, that the constitution was “a league with hell,” and would not vote, or take an oath to support the iniquitous document. In the years before the war of the rebellion, he freely advocated a dissolution of the Union; but when the war came, he was found a stanch defender of the Union cause. In that band of once execrated, but now honored abolitionists, who “prepared the way of the Lord,” there may have been others who did as effective work as Wendell Phillips; but he was the incomparable orator, gifted with eloquent speech to a degree unapproachable. Stories of his power over an audience will long be told. Delightedly the people have listened to his silver tongue and chaste diction when he spoke upon purely literary themes; the lyceum in our land had no more popular lecturer. But he will live in our history as the matchless abolitionist orator. Since the death of slavery he has been a prominent worker in different reform movements, and the advocate—as it seems to us—of certain vagaries, but his fame is inseparably connected with the colored race, of whose rights he was the devoted, unselfish, and fearless champion. His private life was singularly simple, sweet and beautiful. His wife, an invalid of many years, his devotion to whom was beautiful indeed, survives him; and an adopted daughter, Mrs. Smalley, wife of the well known newspaper correspondent, is also left to mourn his loss. FLOODS. In this country and in England the ravages of high waters have become a matter of much seriousness and alarm. Nor have we failed to observe that in recent years the floods have been far greater and more numerous than they were a generation ago. This is due, we are told, to the clearing away of the forests, allowing the water to rush, unhindered by the undergrowth and fallen leafage, into the rivers, thus causing their sudden swell and overflow.