ruths which he preached. Almost
directly the proofs came to him that he was HEARD at the South and at
the North alike. Angry growls reached his ears in the first month of the
publication of the _Liberator_ from some heartless New England editors
in denunciation of his "violent and intemperate attacks on
slaveholders." The _Journal_, published at Louisville, Kentucky, and
edited by George D. Prentice, declared that, "some of his opinions with
regard to slavery in the United States are no better than lunacy." The
_American Spectator_ published at the seat of the National Government,
had hoped that the good sense of the "late talented and persecuted
junior editor" of the _Genius_, "would erelong withdraw him even from
the side of the Abolitionists." And from farther South the growl which
the reformer heard was unmistakably ferocious. It was from the State of
South Carolina and the Camden _Journal_, which pronounced the
_Liberator_ "a scandalous and incendiary budget of sedition." These were
the beginning of the chorus of curses, which soon were to sing their
serpent songs about his head. Profane and abusive letters from irate
slaveholders and their Northern sympathisers began to pour into the
sanctum of the editor. Within a few months after the first issue of the
_Liberator_ the whole aspect of the world without had changed toward
him. "Foes are on my right hand, and on my left," he reported to some
friends. "The tongue of detraction is busy against me. I have no
communion with the world--the world none with me. The timid, the
lukewarm, the base, affect to believe that my brains are disordered, and
my words the ravings of a maniac. Even many of my friends--they who have
grown up with me from my childhood--are transformed into scoffers and
enemies." The apathy of the press, and the apathy of the people were
putting forth signs that the long winter of the land was passing away.

To a colored man belongs the high honor of having been the _courier
avant_ of the slavery agitation. This man was David Walker, who lived in
Boston, and who published in 1829 a religio-political discussion of the
status of the negroes of the United States in four articles. The
wretchedness of the blacks in consequence of slavery he depicted in dark
and bitter language. Theodore Parker, many years afterward, said that
the negro was deficient in vengeance, the lowest form of justice.
"Walker's Appeal" evinced no deficiency in this respect in its author.