The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 7.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

my dear friend,—I have received thy kind letter, with the accompanying circular, inviting me to attend the commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society, at Philadelphia. It is with the deepest regret that I am compelled, by the feeble state of my health, to give up all hope of meeting thee and my other old and dear friends on an occasion of so much interest. How much it costs me to acquiesce in the hard necessity thy own feelings will tell thee better than any words of mine.

I look back over thirty years, and call to mind all the circumstances of my journey to Philadelphia, in company with thyself and the excellent Dr. Thurston of Maine, even then, as we thought, an old man, but still living, and true as ever to the good cause. I recall the early gray morning when, with Samuel J. May, our colleague on the committee to prepare a Declaration of Sentiments for the convention, I climbed to the small ‘upper chamber’ of a colored friend to hear thee read the first draft of a paper which will live as long as our national history. I see the members of the