Mr. May has told in his Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, how he and Whittier left their friend at ten o’clock in the evening, agreeing to call at eight the following morning and how on their return at the appointed hour they found Garrison with shutters closed and lamps burning, penning the last paragraph of the admirable document.  He has told how they three read it over together two or three times, making some slight alterations in it, and how at nine o’clock the draft was laid by them before the whole committee.  The author of the recollections has left a graphic account of its effect upon the convention.  “Never in my life,” he says, “have I seen a deeper impression made by words than was made by that admirable document upon all who were present.  After the voice of the reader had ceased there was silence for several minutes.  Our hearts were in perfect unison.  There was but one thought with us all.  Either of the members could have told what the whole convention felt.  We felt that the word had just been uttered which would be mighty, through God, to the pulling down of the strongholds of slavery.”  Such was the scene at the first reading of the Declaration of Sentiments, Dr. Atlee, the reader.  The effect at its final reading was, if possible, even more dramatic and eloquent.  Whittier has depicted this closing and thrilling scene.  He has described how Samuel J. May read the declaration for the last time.  “His sweet, persuasive voice faltered with the intensity of his emotions as he repeated the solemn pledges of the concluding paragraphs.  After a season of silence, David Thurston of Maine, rose as his name was called by one of the secretaries and affixed his name to the document.  One after another passed up to the platform, signed, and retired in silence.  All felt the deep responsibility of the occasion—­the shadow and forecast of a life-long struggle rested upon every countenance.”

The effects, so electrical and impressive, which followed the reading of the declaration were not disproportioned to its merits, for it was an instrument of singular power, wisdom, and eloquence.  Indeed, to this day, more than half a century after it was written it still has virtue to quicken the breath and stir the pulses of a sympathetic reader out of their normal time.  A great passion for freedom and righteousness irradiates like a central light the whole memorable document.  It begins by a happy reference to an earlier convention, held some fifty-seven years before in the same place, and which adopted a declaration holding “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness;” and how at the trumpet-call of its authors three millions of people rushed to arms “deeming it more glorious to die instantly as free men, than desirable to live one hour as slaves”; and how, though few in number and poor in resources