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I.
From the Proceedings of the
New England Antislavery Convention at the Melodeon,
Boston, May 31, 1860.
The following resolutions were offered by
Wendell Phillips:--
Resolved, That in the death of our beloved friend and fellow-laborer Theodore Parker, liberty, justice, and truth lose one of their ablest and foremost champions,--one whose tireless industry, whose learning, the broadest, most thorough, and profound New England knows, whose masterly intellect, melted into a brave and fervent heart, earned for him the widest and most abiding influence; in the service of truth and right, lavish of means, prodigal of labor, fearless of utterance; the most Christian minister at God's altar in all our Commonwealth; one of the few whose fidelity saves the name of the ministry from being justly a reproach and by-word with religious and. thinking men; a kind, true heart, full of womanly tenderness; the object of the most unscrupulous even of bigot and priestly hate, yet: on whose garments bitter and watchful malice found no stain; laying on the altar the fruits of the most unresting toil, yet ever ready — as the idlest to man any post of daily and humble duty at any moment.
In him we lose that strong sense, deep feeling, and love of right for whose eloquent voice millions waited in every hour of darkness and peril ; whose last word came, fitly, across the water a salutation and a blessing to the kindred martyrs of Harper's Ferry; a storehouse of the lore of every language and age; the armory of a score of weapons sacred to right; the leader whose voice was the bonds of a mighty host; the friend ever sincere, loyal, and vigilant; a man, whose fidelity was attested equally by the trust of those who loved him, and the hate of everything selfish, heartless, and base in the land.
In time to come the slave will miss keenly that voice always heard in his behalf, and which a nation was learning to heed; and
