as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this
subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation.
No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell
him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell
the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it
has fallen--but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the
present. I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I
will not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD." Martin Luther's
"Here I take my stand," was not braver or grander than the "I will be
heard," of the American reformer. It did not seem possible that a young
man, without influence, without money, standing almost alone, could ever
make good those courageous words. The country, in Church and State, had
decreed silence on the subject of slavery; the patriotism of the North,
its commerce, its piety, its labor and capital had all joined hands to
smother agitation, and stifle the discussion of a question that
imperilled the peace and durability of Webster's glorious Union. But one
man, tearing the gag from his lips, defying all these, cried, "Silence,
there shall not be!" and forthwith the whole land began to talk on the
forbidden theme:

"O small beginnings ye are great and strong,
Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain!
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong.
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain!"

CHAPTER VI.

THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED.

Archimedes with his lever desired a place to stand that he might move
the world of matter. Garrison with his paper, having found a place for
his feet, demonstrated speedily his ability to push from its solid base
the world of mind. His plan was very simple, viz., to reveal slavery as
it then existed in its naked enormity, to the conscience of the North,
to be "as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice." And so, week
after week, he packed in the columns of the _Liberator_ facts, the most
damning facts, against slaveholders, their cruelty and tyranny. He
painted the woes of the slaves as if he, too, had been a slave. For the
first time the masters found a man who rebuked them as not before had
they been rebuked. Others may have equivocated, but this man called
things by their proper names, a spade, a spade, and sin, sin. Others may
have contented themselves with denunciations of the sins and with
excuses for th