strenuously asserted and maintained that the subjects of the slave trade were only such unfortunates as had become prisoners of war, and who, if not carried out of the country in this manner, would be exposed to death or some more dreadful doom in their own country. This was one of those stories which nobody believed, and yet was particularly useful in the hands of the opposition, because it was difficult legally to disprove it. It was perfectly well known that in very many cases slave traders made direct incursions into the country, kidnapped and carried off the inhabitants of whole villages; but the question was, how to establish it. A gentleman whom Clarkson accidentally met on one of his journeys informed him that he had been in company, about a year before, with a sailor, a very respectable-looking young man, who had actually been engaged in one of these expeditions; he had spent half an hour with him at an inn; he described his person, but knew nothing of his name or the place of his abode; all he knew was, that he belonged to a ship of war in ordinary, but knew nothing of the port. Clarkson determined that this man should be produced as a witness, and knew no better way than to go personally to all the ships in ordinary, until the individual was found. He actually visited every seaport town, and boarded every ship, till in the very last port, and on the very last ship, which remained, the individual was found, and found to be possessed of just the facts and information which were necessary. By the labors of Clarkson and his contemporaries an incredible excitement was produced throughout all England. The pictures and models of slave ships, accounts of the cruelties practised in the trade, were circulated with an industry which left not a man, woman, or child in England uninstructed. In disseminating information, and in awakening

feeling and conscience, the women of England were particularly earnest, and labored with that whole-hearted devotion which characterizes the sex.

It seems that after the committee had published the facts, and sent them to every town in England, Clarkson followed them up by journeying to all the places, to see that they were read and attended to. Of the state of feeling at this time Clarkson gives the following account:—

"And first I may observe, that there was no town through which I passed in which there was not some one individual who had left off the use of sugar. In the smaller towns there were from ten to fifty, by estimation, and in the larger from two to five hundred, who made this sacrifice to virtue. These were of all ranks and parties. Rich and poor, churchmen and dissenters, had adopted the measure. Even grocers had left off trading in the article in some places. In gentlemen's families, where the master had set the example, the servants had often voluntarily followed it; and even children, who were capable of understanding the history of the sufferings of the Africans, excluded, with the most virtuous resolution, the sweets, to which they had been accustomed, from their lips. By the best computation I was able to make, from notes taken down in my journey, no fewer than three hundred thousand persons had abandoned the use of sugar." It was the reality, depth, and earnestness of the public feeling, thus aroused, which pressed with resistless force upon the government; for the government of England yields to popular demands quite as readily as that of America.

After years of protracted struggle, the victory was at last

won.

The slave trade was finally abolished through all the British empire; and not only so, but the English nation com

mitted, with the whole force of its national influence, to seck the abolition of the slave trade in all the nations of the earth. But the wave of feeling did not rest there; the investigations had brought before the English conscience the horrors and abominations of slavery itself, and the agitation never ceased till slavery was finally abolished through all the British provinces. At this time the religious mind and conscience of England gained, through this very struggle, a power which it never has lost. The principle adopted by them was the same so sublimely adopted by the church in America in reference to the foreign missionary cause: "The field is the world." They saw and felt that, as the example and practice of England had been powerful in giving sanction to this evil, and particularly in introducing it into. America, there was the greatest reason why she should never intermit her efforts till the wrong was righted throughout the earth.

Clarkson, to his last day, never ceased to be interested in the subject, and took the warmest interest in all movements for the abolition of slavery in America.

At the Ipswich depot we were met by a venerable lady, the daughter of Clarkson's associate, William Dillwyn. She seemed overjoyed to meet us, and took us at once into her carriage, and entertained us all our way to the hall by anecdotes and incidents of Clarkson and his times. She read me a manuscript letter from him, written at a very advanced age, in which he speaks with the utmost ardor and enthusiasm of the first antislavery movements of Cassius M. Clay in Kentucky. She described him to me as a cheerful, companionable being, frank and simple-hearted, and with a good deal of quiet humor.

It is remarkable of him that, with such intense feeling for

human suffering as he had, and worn down and exhausted as he was by the dreadful miseries and sorrows with which he was constantly obliged to be familiar, he never yielded to a spirit of bitterness or denunciation.

The narrative which he gives is as calm and unimpassioned, and as free from any trait of this kind, as the narratives of the evangelists. Thus riding and talking, we at last arrived at the hall.

The old stone house, the moat, the draw bridge, all spoke of days of violence long gone by, when no man was safe except within fortified walls, and every man's house literally had to be his castle.

To me it was interesting as the dwelling of a conqueror, as one who had not wrestled with flesh and blood merely, but with principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, and who had overcome, as his great Master did before him, by faith, and prayer, and labor.

We were received with much cordiality by the widow of Clarkson, now in her eighty-fourth year. She has been a woman of great energy and vigor, and an efficient co-laborer in his plans of benevolence.

She is now quite feeble. I was placed under the care of a respectable female servant, who forthwith installed me in a large chamber overlooking the court yard, which had been Clarkson's own room; the room where, for years, many of his most important labors had been conducted, and from whence. his soul had ascended to the reward of the just.

The servant who attended me seemed to be quite a superior woman, like many of the servants in respectable English families. She had grown up in the family, and was identified with it; its ruling aims and purposes had become hers. She

had been the personal attendant of Clarkson, and his nurse during his last sickness; she had evidently understood, and been interested in his plans; and the veneration with which she therefore spoke of him had the sanction of intelligent appreciation.

A daughter of Clarkson, who was married to a neighboring clergyman, with her husband, was also present on this day.

After dinner we rode out to see the old church, in whose enclosure the remains of Clarkson repose. It was just such a still, quiet, mossy old church as you have read of in story books, with the graveyard spread all around it, like a thoughtful mother, who watches the resting of her children.

The grass in the yard was long and green, and the daisy, which, in other places, lies like a little button on the ground, here had a richer fringe of crimson, and a stalk about six inches high. It is, I well know, the vital influence from the slumbering dust beneath which gives the richness to this grass and these flowers; but let not that be a painful thought; let it rather cheer us, that beauty should spring from ashes, and life smile brighter from the near presence of death.. The grave of Clarkson is near the church, enclosed by a railing, and marked by a simple white marble slab; it is carefully tended, and planted with flowers. In the church was an old book of records, and among other curious inscriptions was one recording how a pious committee of old Noll's army had been there, knocking off saints' noses, and otherwise purging the church from the relics of idolatry.

Near by the church was the parsonage, the home of my friends, a neat, pleasant, sequestered dwelling, of about the style of a New England country parsonage.

The effect of the whole together was inexpressibly beautiful