would not satisfy the law, he came out boldly, with helm and spear, against two of the worst forms of human slavery,—­the slavery of the body and the slavery of the soul, the slavery of the wine-cup, and the slavery of bondage to a master.  Whether his beloved people would hear or whether they would forbear, being all the more beloved because of their danger, he must preach what he believed to be the truth, and the whole truth.  It was like a fire shut up in his bones.  He persisted, and they remonstrated, or rather a part of them did so; and the result was a speedy and hopeless alienation, followed by years of strife and bitter controversy at law, and a final separation; though by far the larger part of the church and congregation, if I do not mistake, upheld him to the last, and adhered to him through good report and through evil report,—­Deacon Samuel May, a host in himself, being of their number.

During this protracted and sorrowful controversy, he became a phrenologist,—­a believer in phrenology,—­at any rate, following the lead of Spurzheim; and after many years, a Spiritualist,—­in which faith he died,—­one of his last, if not the very last, of his appearances before the public being as President of a convention held by the leading Spiritualists of the land at Philadelphia.

He could not be a materialist; and having faith in the evidence of his own senses, and being as truly conscientious a man as ever breathed, and accustomed to the closest reasoning, what was he to do?  There were the facts.  They were not to be controverted; they could not be explained; they could not be reconciled to any hypothesis in physics.  If he was given over to delusion, to be buffeted by Satan, whose fault was it?  That he was by nature somewhat credulous, and, though patient enough in his investigations, rather too fond of the marvellous, may be acknowledged; but what then?  His conclusions might be wrong, his inferences faulty, though honest; but how were they to be counteracted?  That he sometimes took too much for granted, I believe, nay, more, I know; because I myself have seen him grossly imposed on by a woman he took me to see, whose impersonations were thought most wonderful.  But then he was a devout man, a close observer, an admirable logician, accustomed to the “competition of opposite analogies” and to weighing evidence; and if he misunderstood the facts, or misinterpreted them, or inferred the supernatural from false premises, why then let us grieve for his delusion, and wait patiently for the phenomena which led him astray to be explained.