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

[445] to have their feelings touched by some scene of distress, seemed to think they had fulfilled their whole duty by sending the sufferer to Isaac T. Hopper. Few can imagine what an arduous task it is to be such a thorough philanthropist as he was. Whoever wishes for a crown like his, must earn it by carrying the martyr's cross through life. They must make up their minds to relinquish their whole time to such pursuits; they must be prepared to encounter envy and dislike; to be misrepresented and blamed, where their intentions have been most praiseworthy; to be often disheartened by the delinquences, or ingratitude, of those they have expended their time and strength to serve; above all, they must be willing to live and die poor.

Though attention to prisoners was the mission to which Friend Hopper peculiarly devoted the last years of his life, his sympathy for the slaves never abated. And though his own early efforts had been made in co-operation with the gradual Emancipation Society, established by Franklin, Rush, and others, he rejoiced in the bolder movement, known as modern anti-slavery. Of course, he did not endorse everything that was said and done by all sorts of temperaments engaged in that cause, or in any other cause. But no man understood better than he did the fallacy of the argument that modern abolitionists had put back the cause of emancipation in the South. He