It is no disparagement to the many able and eloquent advocates of the anti-slavery cause, between 1833 and 1836, to say that public opinion placed Weld at the head of them all.  In him were combined reason and imagination, wide and accurate knowledge, manly courage, a tender and sympathetic nature, a remarkable faculty of expression, and a fervent enthusiasm which made him the best platform orator of his time.  As a lecturer on education, temperance, and abolition, he drew crowded houses and made many converts.  The late Secretary Stanton was one of these, and often mentioned Mr. Weld as the most eloquent speaker he had ever heard; and Wendell Phillips, in a recent letter, says of him:  “In the first years of the anti-slavery cause, he was our foremost advocate.”

Of Henry B. Stanton, a newspaper reporter once said in excuse for not reporting one of his great anti-slavery speeches, that he could not attempt to report a whirlwind or a thunderstorm.

With such leaders, and with followers no less earnest if less brilliant, it is not surprising that the Lane Seminary debate arrested such general attention, and afterwards assumed so much importance in the anti-slavery struggle.  The trustees, fearing its effect upon their Southern patrons, ordered that both societies should be dissolved, and no more meetings held.  The anti-slavery students replied to this order by withdrawing in a body from the institution.  Some went over to Oberlin; others,—­and among them the two I have named—­entered the field as lecturers and workers in the cause they had so ardently espoused.

In September, 1834, Sarah and Angelina were gratified by a visit from their brother Thomas, who was on his way to Cincinnati, to deliver an address on Education before the College of Professional Teachers, and also to visit his brother Frederic, residing in Columbus, whom he had not seen for sixteen years.  As Angelina had not seen him since her departure from Charleston in 1829, the few days of his society she now enjoyed were very precious, and made peculiarly so by after-events.  The cholera was then for the second time epidemic in the West, but those who knew enough about it to be prudent felt no fear, and the sisters bade farewell to their brother, cheered by his promise to see them again on his way home.  He delivered his address in Cincinnati, started for Columbus, arrived within twelve miles of it, when, at a wayside tavern, he was seized with cholera.  His brother, then holding a term of the Supreme Court, was sent for.  He at once adjourned court and hastened to Thomas with a physician.  He was already speechless, but was able to turn upon Frederic a look of recognition, then pressed his hand, and died.

Angelina, writing of her brother’s death, says:  “The world has lost an eminent reformer in the cause of Christian education, an eloquent advocate of peace, and one who was remarkably ready for every good work.  I never saw a man who combined such brilliant talents, such diversity and profundity of knowledge, with such humility of heart and such simplicity and gentleness of manner.  He was a great and good man, a pillar of the church and state, and his memory is blessed.”