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Very, very highly do I prize this volume, not only because of the merit of its pages, but also because you have presented it to me. To be numbered by
William Lloyd Garrison among his friends is one of my highest gratifications and honors.
I went to
Syracuse to spend several hours with our friend May and other abolitionists in talking about the Jerry Indictments.
S. J. May. I take a deep interest in them; and I entertain a strong hope that no little gain to the cause of Liberty will come from them.
The volume of ‘Selections’ referred to by
Mr. Smith was a duodecimo of somewhat more than four hundred pages, consisting of extracts from the “Thoughts on
1 Colonization,” the antecedent Park-Street Church address,
2 and from addresses to the colored people; the
Liberator3 salutatory; the Declaration of Sentiments of the
4 American Anti-Slavery Society, and of the
American Peace5 Convention; a
Short catechism adapted to all parts of6 the United States;
7 and many editorial articles on Peace, the
Bible, the
Constitution, etc., from the
Liberator's twenty-one volumes, together with the best of
Mr. Garrison's verse.
The letter to
Peleg Sprague was not omitted,
8 and the Appendix contained a portion of
Sprague's Faneuil
9 Hall speech, the account of the
Boston mob of October 21,
10 1835, written by its victim,
Thompson's letter addressed to him on the day following, and sundry proofs of the
11 character of the Colonization Society.
The title-page bore these lines from
Coleridge's “Fears in Solitude” :
O my brethren!
I have told
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed;
For never can true courage dwell with them
Who, playing tricks with Conscience, dare not look
At their own vices.