All that was before the bill passed, but how easy it would be for Judge Jeffreys or Judge Curtis, Judge Sprague or Judge Scroggs, to construct it into a "misdemeanor," "resisting an officer!" After the fugitive slave bill passed, on the 22d of September, 1850, not forty-eight hours after the Judge's friends had fired their jubilant cannon at the prospect of kidnapping the men who wait upon their tables, I preached a "Sermon of the Function and Place of Conscience in relation to the Laws of Man, a sermon for the times." I said this:-- "If a man falls into the water and is in danger of drowning, it is the natural duty of the bystanders to aid in pulling him out, even at the risk of wetting their garments. We should think a man a coward who could swim, and would not save a drowning girl for fear of spoiling his coat. He would be indictable at common law. If a troop of wolves or tigers were about to seize a man, and devour him, and you and I could help him, it would be our duty to do so, even to peril our own limbs and life for that purpose. If a man undertakes to murder or steal a man, it is the duty of the bystanders to help their brother, who is in peril, against wrong from the two-legged man, as much as against the four-legged beast. But suppose the invader who seizes the man is an officer of the United States, has a commission in his pocket, a warrant for his deed in his hand, and seizes as a slave a man who has done nothing to alienate his natural rights--does that give him any more natural right to enslave a man than he had before? Can any piece of parchment make right wrong, and wrong right?