The man who could not afford to let this heroic woman own her little ones, was very liberal in supporting the Gospel, and his wife was a member of the church.  Do you think that mother had a murderer’s heart?  Nay, verily.  Exceeding love for her children impelled her to the dreadful deed.  The murder was committed by those human hounds, who drove her to that fearful extremity, where she was compelled to choose between Slavery or Death for her innocent offspring.

Again I ask, what would be your judgment of this law, if your own daughter and infant grand-daughter had been its victims?  You know very well, that had it been your own case, such despotism, calling itself law, would be swept away in a whirlwind of indignation, and men who strove to enforce it would be obliged to flee the country.

                              ——­“They are slaves most base,
  Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all the race.”

I was lately talking with Friend Whittier, whose poetry so stirs the hearts of the people in favor of freedom and humanity.  He told me he thought the greatest pain he ever suffered was in witnessing the arrest of a fugitive slave in Philadelphia.  The man had lived there many years; he bore a good character, and was thriving by his industry.  He had married a Pennsylvania woman, and they had a fine family of children.  In the midst of his prosperity and happiness, the blood-hounds of the United States tracked him out.  He was seized and hurried into court.  Friend Whittier was present, and heard the agonized entreaties of his wife and children.  He saw them clinging to the half frantic husband and father, when the minions of a wicked law tore him away from them for ever.  That intelligent, worthy, industrious man was ruthlessly plunged into the deep, dark grave of slavery, where tens of thousands perish yearly, and leave no record of their wrongs.  “A German emigrant, who witnessed the scene, poured out such a tornado of curses as I never before heard,” said Whittier; “and I could not blame the man.  He came here supposing America to be a free country, and he was bitterly disappointed.  Pity for that poor slave and his bereaved family agonized my heart; and my cheeks burned with shame that my country deserved the red-hot curses of that honest German; but stronger than either of those feelings was overpowering indignation that people of the Free States were compelled by law to witness such barbarities.”

Many of you have heard of William and Ellen Crafts, a pious and intelligent couple, who escaped from bondage some years ago.  She disguised herself in male attire, and passed for a white gentleman, taking her darker colored husband with her as a servant.  When the Fugitive Slave Act went into operation, they received warning that the hounds were on their track.  They sought temporary refuge in the house of my noble-hearted friend, Ellis Gray Loring, who then resided in the