ery in the neighborhood of one of the great
battle-fields of the Rebellion, and there, while looking down the long
avenues lined with memorial stones that a grateful country has set up,
make inquiry as to the number of those that are there bivouacked "in
fame's eternal camping ground." Some idea--a faint one it is
true--will then be had of the multitudes that gave up all they
possessed that liberty might live and rule in this fair land of ours.
They were martyrs in the very highest sense to Freedom's immeasurable
cause. The war was the product of slavery. It was the natural outcome
of the great moral conflict that had so long raged in this country. It
was simply the development of an agitation that had begun on other
lines.

But there were martyrs to the cause of freedom before the war.
Everybody knows more or less of the story of John Brown, of
Ossawatomie, whose soul kept "marching on," although his body was
"a-mouldering in the grave."

There was another case involving the surrender of life to that cause,
which has always struck me as having stronger claims to our sympathies
than that of John Brown and his comrades in self-sacrifice.

I have already referred to Elijah P. Lovejoy who was a young
Congregational clergyman, who went from the State of Maine to St.
Louis, Missouri, in 1839. He became the editor of a religious journal
in which he expressed, in very moderate terms, an opinion that was not
favorable to slave-holding. The supporters of the institution were
aroused at once. They demanded a retraction. "I have sworn eternal
hostility to slavery, and by the blessing of God I will never go
back," was his reply. He also declared, "We have slaves here, but I am
not one of them."

It was deemed advisable by Mr. Lovejoy and his friends to move his
printing establishment to Alton, opposite Missouri, in the free State
of Illinois. There, however, a pro-slavery antagonism immediately
developed. His press was seized and thrown into the Mississippi River.
The same fate awaited two others that were procured. But, undismayed,
Mr. Lovejoy and his friends once more decided that their rights and
liberties should not be surrendered without a further effort. Another
press was sent for. But in the meanwhile a violent public agitation
had arisen. At the instance of certain pro-slavery leaders in the
community a public meeting had been called to denounce the
Abolitionists. Mr. Lovejoy was invited to attend it and declare what