"I pity the merchants who, for their trade, were glad to steal their countrymen; I wish them only good. Debate in yonder hall has shown how little of humanity there is in the trade of Boston. She looks on all the horrors which intemperance has wrought, and daily deals in every street; she scrutinizes the jails,--they are filled by rum; she looks into the alms-houses, crowded full by rum; she walks her streets, and sees the perishing classes fall, mowed down by rum; she enters the parlors of wealthy men, looks into the bridal chamber, and meets death: the ghosts of the slain are there,--men slain by rum. She knows it all, yet says, 'There is an interest at stake!'--the interest of rum; let man give way! Boston does this to-day. Last year she stole a man; her merchants stole a man! The sacrifice of man to money, when shall it have an end? I pity those merchants who honor money more than man. Their gold is cankered, and their soul is brass,--is rusted brass. They must come up before the posterity which they affect to scorn. What voice can plead for them before their own children? The eye that mocketh at the justice of its son, and scorneth to obey the mercy of its daughter, the ravens of posterity shall pick it out, and the young eagles eat it up! "But there is yet another tribunal: 'After the death the judgment!' When he maketh inquisition for the blood of the innocent, what shall the stealers of men reply? Boston merchants, where is your brother, Thomas Sims? Let Cain reply to Christ."[217] [Footnote 217: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 50, 70, 88, 89, 92, 93, 100, 101.] The Sunday after Mr. Webster's death, Oct. 31, 1852, I spoke of that powerful man; listen to this:--