h as it marks one stage of the disease of which the
crisis was passed at Gettysburg. It is one, too, for which we ought not
to be dependent on tradition; and, all things considered, no one was so
well qualified as Mr. Still to reproduce that phase of it with which he
was so intimately concerned, as chairman of the Acting Committee of the
Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia.

Of all the Border States, Pennsylvania was the most accessible to
fugitives from slavery; and as the organization just named was probably
the most perfect and efficient of its kind, and served as a distributor
to the branches in other States, its record doubtless covers the larger
part of the field of operations of the Underground Railroad; or, in
other words, of the systematic but secret efforts to promote the escape
of slaves.

* * * * *

_FROM THE CHRISTIAN UNION, N.Y._

"The narratives themselves, told with the simplicity and directness of
obvious truth, are full of terror, of pathos, the shame of human
baseness and the glory of human virtue; and though the time is not yet
sufficiently distant from the date of their occurrence to give to this
record the universal acceptance it deserves, there are few, we think,
even now, who can read it without amazement that such things could be in
our very day, and be regarded with such general apathy. When the
question, still so momentous and exciting, of the relations of the two
races in this country, shall have passed from the vortex of political
strife and social prejudice, and taken its place among the ethical
axioms of a Christian civilization, then this faithful account of some
of the darkest and some of the brightest incidents in our history--this
cyclopaedia of all the virtues and all the vices of humanity--will be
accepted as a most valuable contribution to the annals of one of the
important eras of the world."

* * * * *

_FROM THE "LUTHERAN OBSERVER," PHILADELPHIA._

"It is a remarkable book in many respects. Like the 'Key to Uncle Tom's
Cabin,' by Mrs. Stowe, it reveals many of the most thrilling personal
dramas and tragedies in the entire history of slavery. That 'truth is
stranger than fiction' has hundreds of striking illustrations in this
volume, which is a narrative of facts, the records of which were kept by
Mr. Still, and are the only records in existence of the famous
organization known as the Underground Railroa