The story of how they had to find a president illustrates the contemporary distrust and antagonism, which the anti-slavery movement aroused among the men of standing and influence. Knowing in what bad odor they were held by the community, and anxious only to serve their cause in the most effective manner, the members of the convention hit upon the plan of asking some individual eminent for his respectability to preside over their deliberations, and thereby disarm the public suspicions and quiet the general apprehensions felt in respect of the incendiary character of their intention. So in pursuance of this plan six of their number were dispatched on the evening of December 3d to seek such a man. But the quest of the committee like that of Diogenes proved a failure. After two attempts and two repulses the committee were not disposed to invite the humiliation of a third refusal and must have listened with no little relief, to this blunt summary of the situation by Beriah Green, who was one of the six. "If there is not timber amongst ourselves," quoth Green, "big enough to make a president of, let us get along without one, or go home and stay there until we have grown up to be men." The next day Green was chosen, and established in a manner never to be forgotten by his associates that the convention did possess "timber big enough to make a president of." Narrow as were the circumstances of many of the members, the convention was by no means destitute of men of wealth and business prominence. Such were the Winslows, Isaac and Nathan, of Maine, Arnold Buffum, of Massachusetts, and John Rankin and Lewis Tappan, of New York. Scholarship, talents, and eloquence abounded among the delegates. Here there was no lack, no poverty, but extraordinary sufficiency, almost to redundancy. The presence of the gentler sex was not wanting to lend grace and picturesqueness to the occasion. The beautiful and benignant countenance of Lucretia Mott shed over the proceedings the soft radiance of a pure and regnant womanhood; while the handful of colored delegates with the elegant figure of Robert Purvis at their head, added pathos and picturesqueness to the _personnel_ of the convention. Neither was the element of danger wanting to complete the historic scene. Its presence was grimly manifest in the official intimation that evening meetings of the convention could not be protected, by the demonstrations of popular ill-will which the delegates encountered on the streets, by the detachment of constabulary guarding the entrance to Adelphi Hall, and by the thrillingly significant precaution observed by the delegates of sitting with locked doors. Over the assembly it impended cruel and menacing like fate. Once securely locked within the hall, the Abolitionists discreetly abstained from leaving it at noon for dinner, well knowing how small a spark it takes to kindle a great fire. It was foolhardy to show themselves unnecessarily to the excited crowds in the