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he had. The call did not obtain the signature of the editor of the Liberator. At first, he was apprehensive that it was somewhat premature.
But the result of it, said he, ‘led me to give thanks to God, and greatly to1 rejoice in spirit, because I believed that the truth as it is in Jesus' was signally promoted by it.’
Immediately upon the close of the Non-Resistance anniversary, on the evening of September 24, 1840, a meeting of the friends of Universal Reform was held at2 Chardon-Street Chapel.
Its object was to consider the expediency of calling a ‘convention to examine the validity of the views which generally prevail in this country as to the divine appointment of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, and to inquire into the origin, nature, and authority of the institutions of the Ministry and the Church, as now existing.’
Edmund Quincy was made chairman of this conference, and Mrs. M. W. Chapman secretary; and they, together with A. B. Alcott, Mrs. Thankful Southwick, and John A. Collins, were constituted a committee to summon the proposed convention.
The call appeared in (among other journals) the Liberator for October 16, with the signatures of the3 above-named and of the Rev. Wm. H. Channing (a nephew of Dr. Channing), the Rev. Theodore Parker, the Rev. Robert F. Wallcut,4 Henry C. Wright, Abby Kelley, William Bassett, Thomas Davis, Oliver Johnson, and many others; thus representing the Groton Convention, the Non-Resistant Convention, the old anti-slavery
4 A graduate of Harvard College in the class—the famous abolition class, it might be termed—of 1817 (ante, 1: 213). Mr. Wallcut became a Unitarian clergyman at North Dennis, on Cape Cod. He early took an interest in the anti-slavery cause. Mrs. Chapman tells (Ms. Mar. 9, 1884) of her happening to be with his wife's friends when he came to call upon them in town. ‘We were talking of the ministers driven from their parishes for admitting anti-slavery lecturers to the rural districts, reading notices and praying for the slaves. He could hardly credit it. How could it be? “ As it might be in your parish,” I said, “where doubtless the wealthy deacons' fishing-schooners carry salt fish to the plantations, and dread to lose the trade.” “ I'll try it!” he replied. “Then be prepared,” I answered, “to take the consequences that are showered down upon every anti-slavery minister.” He did try it and took the consequences.’
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
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