Acts of the Anti Slavery Apostles (Paperback)

1883. Some books, judged by their titles, are more remarkable for what they do not contain, than for what they do. This work is only Acts, not the Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles. It is only a small portion of a very small part of those apostles. There were many in the great west, as well as not a few in the east, whose labors, sacrifices and sufferings entitle them to volumes of well-written biography, who can scarcely be mentioned here, even by name. At this time of my life of nearly three score and fourteen years, more than forty of which have been spent in the field of moral, peaceful and religious agitation for the rights of humanity, it seemed presumption in me to attempt a labor of even this magnitude. And it was only earnest, continued importunity on the part of my very few surviving associates in the conflict, and their friends, that finally determined my course. Truth only has been sought. Not the whole truth; for that were impossible. But strict truth and exact justice, to the full extent of my time and space. The present generation knows little of the terrible mysteries and meanings of slavery or anti-slavery; the outrages and horrors of the former, or the desperate and deadly encounters with the monster by the latter, long before the cannonade of Fort Sumpter, or the dreadful war chorus of the subsequent rebellion. And all which is now attempted is some disclosure of those mysteries. By anti-slavery apostles are meant those only whose work was in the lecturing field; who literally went everywhere preaching the word; often as with their lives in their hands. Nor will only few of them, however worthy and deserving, be mentioned even by name. This work will be rather pictures and sketches than history. It will hardly enter more than two states, New Hampshire and Massachusetts; never go beyond New England. But in New England every type and phase of anti-slavery experience, doing, suffering and triumphing was represented to the fullest possible extent. What was true there was true everywhere in the country.