Notwithstanding the caution I have given my readers in the Preface
and elsewhere, not to expect in this volume anything like a complete
history of our antislavery conflict, many may be disappointed in not
finding any acknowledgment of the services of some whom they have
known as efficient, brave, self-sacrificing laborers in our cause. I
was reproached, accused of ingratitude and injustice, because I did
not give in my articles in _The Christian Register_ any account of
the labors of certain persons, whose names stand high on the roll of
antislavery philanthropists. The following is a copy of a part of one
of the letters that I received:--
BOSTON, April, 1868.
DEAR SIR,--The writer of this is a subscriber to _The Christian
Register_, and has there read your “Reminiscences of the
Antislavery Reformers.” The numbers thus far (including the
thirty-eighth) contain no notice of, or allusion to, our late
lamented friend, Nathaniel P. Rogers, editor of _The Herald of
Freedom_. His numerous friends in New England have been waiting and
wondering that his name did not appear in your papers. Mr. Rogers
gave up a lucrative profession, in which he had attained a high
rank, and devoted himself _soul, body, and estate_, to the service
of the antislavery cause, in which he labored conscientiously
during the rest of his life, and left his family impoverished in
consequence. That Mr. Rogers was one of the few most talented
Abolitionists no one will deny who knew them; and that he was the
intimate friend and fellow-laborer of Mr. Garrison was equally
well known. He went to Europe with Mr. Garrison, and together
they visited the most distinguished Abolitionists in England and
Scotland; and, after his return, George Thompson, on his first
visit to this country, was received by him in his family, and
passed several days with him.
You have mentioned many names in your papers quite obscure, and of
very little account in this movement, and why you have thus far
omitted one of such prominence has puzzled many of your readers.
Notwithstanding, the writer will not allow himself to doubt that it
is your intention in the end to do to all equal and exact