Third, that we affectionately and urgently call on every minister and all laymen and women in our denomination--our old, our young, our rich, our poor, our leaders, and our humblest--to take this stand of total abstinence, remembering those that are in bonds as bound with them, and throw the solid influence of our church against the influence of the saloon. [Sidenote: Anti-slavery.] In proportion to its numbers no religious body in the country did so much to promote the anti-slavery reform as the Unitarian. No Unitarian defended slavery from the pulpit or by means of the press, and no one was its apologist.[25] Many, however, did not approve of the methods of the abolitionists, and some strongly opposed the extreme measures of a part of that body of reformers. The desire of Unitarians to be just, rational, and open-minded, exposed many of them to the criticism of being neither for nor against slavery. But it is certain that they were not indifferent to its evils nor recreant to their humanitarian principles. The period of the anti-slavery agitation was truly one that tried the souls of men; and those who were equally conscientious, desirous of serving the cause of justice and humanity, and solicitous for the welfare of the slave, widely differed from one another as to what was the wise method of action. Among those severely condemned by the anti-slavery party were several Unitarian ministers of great force of character and of a genuinely humanitarian spirit. Three of them may be selected as representative. Dr. Orville Dewey had seen something of slavery, and was strongly opposed to it. He thought the system hateful in itself and productive of nearly unmingled evil, and yet he was not in favor of immediate emancipation. His frequent indictments of slavery in his sermons and lectures were severe in the extreme; but his demand for wise and patient counsel, and for a rational method of gradual emancipation, subjected him to severe condemnation. "And nothing else brings out the nobleness of Dr. Dewey into such bold relief as the fact," says Rev. John W. Chadwick, "that the immeasurable torrent of abuse that greeted his expressed opinion did not in any least degree avail to make him one of the pro-slavery faction. He differed from the most earnest of the anti-slavery men only as to the best method of getting rid of the curse of human bondage."[26]