In a letter addressed to one of the sons, William Lloyd Garrison pays
the following beautiful and just tribute to his faithfulness in the
cause of freedom.
BOSTON, January 25th, 1871.
MY DEAR FRIEND:--I have received the intelligence of the death
of your honored and revered father, with profound emotions. If
it were not for the inclemency of the weather, and the delicate
state of my health, I would hasten to be at the funeral, long as
the distance is; not indeed as a mourner, for, in view of his
ripe old age, and singularly beneficent life, there is no cause
for sorrow, but to express the estimation in which I held him,
as one of the best men who ever walked the earth, and one of the
most beloved among my numerous friends and co-workers in the
cause of an oppressed and down-trodden race, now happily
rejoicing in their heavenly-wrought deliverance. For to no one
was the language of Job more strictly applicable than to
himself:--"When the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when
the eye saw me, it gave witness to me; because I delivered the
poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to
help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon
me; and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on
righteousness, and it clothed me; my judgment was as a robe and
a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I
was a father to the poor; and the cause which I knew not I
searched out. And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked
the spoil out of his teeth." This is an exact portraiture of
your father, a most comprehensive delineation of his character
as a philanthropist and reformer. It was his meat and drink.
"The poor to feed, the lost to seek,
To proffer life to death,
Hope to the erring, to the weak
The strength of his own faith.
"To plead the captive's right; remove
The sting of hate from law;
And soften in the fire of love
The hardened steel of war.
"He walked the dark world in the mild,
Still guidance of the light;
In tearful tenderness a child,
A strong man in the right."
Did there ever live one who had less of that "fear of man which
bringeth a snare," than himself? Or who combined more moral
courage with exceeding tenderness of spirit? Or who adhered more
heroically to his convictions of duty in the face of deadly
peril and certain suffering? Or who gave himself more
unreservedly, or with greater disinterestedness, to the service
of bleeding humanity? Or who took more joyfully the spoiling of
his goods as the penalty of his sympathy for the hunted
fugitive? Or who more untiringly kept pace with all the
progressive movements of the age, as though in the very
freshness of adult life, while venerable with years? Or who, as
a husband, father, friend, citizen, or neighbor, more nobly
performed all the duties, or more generally distributed all the
charities of life? He will leave a great void in the community.
Such a stalwart soul appears only at rare intervals. Delaware,
enslaved, treated him like a felon; Delaware, redeemed, will be
proud of his memory.
"Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."
His rightful place is conspicuously among the benefactors,
saviours, martyrs of the human race.
His career was full of dramatic interest from beginning to end,
and crowded with the experiences and vicissitudes of a most
eventful nature. What he promised he fulfilled; what he
attempted, he seldom, or never failed to accomplish; what he
believed, he dared to proclaim upon the housetop; what he
ardently desired, and incessantly labored for, was the reign of
universal freedom, peace, and righteousness. He was among the
manliest of men, and the gentlest of spirits. There was no form
of human suffering that did not touch his heart; but his
abounding sympathy was especially drawn out towards the poor,
imbruted slaves of the plantation, and such of their number as
sought their freedom by flight. The thousands that passed safely
through his hands, on their way to Canada and the North, will
never forget his fatherly solicitude for their welfare, or the
dangers he unflinchingly encountered in their behalf. Stripped
of all his property under the Fugitive Slave law, for giving
them food, shelter, and assistance to continue their flight, he
knew not what it was to be intimidated or disheartened, but gave
himself to the same blessed work as though conscious of no loss.
Great-hearted philanthropist, what heroism could exceed thy own?
"For, while the jurist sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung,
From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of slavery wrung,
And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God-deserted shrine,
Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the bondman's blood
for wine--
While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviour knelt,
And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt;
Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prison shadow dim,
And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him!"
I trust some one, well qualified to execute the pleasing task,
will write his biography for the grand lessons his life
inculcated. Yours, in full sympathy and trust,