Elias Nason, The Life and Times of Charles Sumner: His Boyhood, Education and Public Career.

[88] from the earliest times until its final extinction by Lord Exmouth, under the direction of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent of England, in 1816. In this discourse he adroitly aims a blow at slavery at home. The theme was new, the speaker's heart in sympathy with it: his researches were exhaustive; and he so graphically portrays the horrors of the slave system, and so breathes the spirit of humanity and Christian love into his lecture, as to render it a study worthy of the enlightened philanthropist and historian.

As gleams of golden light upon the thunder-cloud, so Mr. Sumner's tender sympathies relieved the gloomy scenes which he presents. Thus glowingly, in a charming passage, his kind regard for the unfortunate breaks forth: “Endeavors for freedom are animating; nor can any honest nature hear of them without a throb of sympathy. As we dwell on the painful narrative of the unequal contest between tyrannical power and the crushed captive or slave, we resolutely enter the lists on the side of freedom; and as we behold the contest waged by a few individuals, or perhaps by one alone, our sympathy is given to his weakness as well as to his cause. To him we send the unfaltering succor of our good wishes. For him we invoke vigor of arm to defend, and fleetness of foot to escape. The enactments of ”