Lydia Maria Child, Isaac T. Hopper: a true life

[288] house was a home for poor Quakers, and others, from far and near. He had much business to transact in the Society of Friends, of which he was then an influential and highly respected member. He was one of the founders and secretary of a society for the employment of the poor; overseer of the Benezet school for colored children; teacher, without recompense, in a free school for colored adults; inspector of the prison, without a salary; member of a fire-company; guardian of abused apprentices; the lawyer and protector of slaves and colored people, upon all occasions. When pestilence was raging, he was devoted to the sick. The poor were continually calling upon him to plead with importunate landlords and creditors. He was not unfrequently employed to settle estates involved in difficulties, which others were afraid to undertake. He had occasional applications to exert influence over the insane, for which he had peculiar tact. When he heard of a man beginning to form habits likely to prove injurious to himself or his family, he would go to him, whether his rank were high or low, and have private conversations with him. He would tell him some story, or suppose some case, and finally make him feel, ‘Thou art the man.’ He had a great gift in that way, and the exertion of it sometimes seasonably recalled those who were sliding into dangerous paths.