t was, in a great measure, an impersonal one,--hatred of slavery
and not of slave-masters.

"No common wrong provoked our zeal,
The silken gauntlet which is thrown
In such a quarrel rings like steel."

Even Thomas Jefferson, in his terrible denunciation of Slavery in the
Notes on Virginia, says "It is impossible to be temperate and pursue the
subject of Slavery." After the great contest was over, no class of the
American people were more ready, with kind words and deprecation of
harsh retaliation, to welcome back the revolted States than the
Abolitionists; and none have since more heartily rejoiced at the fast
increasing prosperity of the South.

Grateful for the measure of favor which has been accorded to my
writings, I leave this edition with the public. It contains all that I
care to re-publish, and some things which, had the matter of choice been
left solely to myself, I should have omitted.
J. G. W.

NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS

THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.

This poem was suggested by the account given of the manner which the
Waldenses disseminated their principles among the Catholic gentry. They
gained access to the house through their occupation as peddlers of
silks, jewels, and trinkets. "Having disposed of some of their goods,"
it is said by a writer who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, "they
cautiously intimated that they had commodities far more valuable than
these, inestimable jewels, which they would show if they could be
protected from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible
or Testament; and thereby many were deluded into heresy." The poem,
under the title Le Colporteur Vaudois, was translated into French by
Professor G. de Felice, of Montauban, and further naturalized by
Professor Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet, who quoted it in his lectures on
French literature, afterwards published. It became familiar in this form
to the Waldenses, who adopted it as a household poem. An American
clergyman, J. C. Fletcher, frequently heard it when he was a student,
about the year 1850, in the theological seminary at Geneva, Switzerland,
but the authorship of the poem was unknown to those who used it.
Twenty-five years later, Mr. Fletcher, learning the name of the author,
wrote to the moderator of the Waldensian synod at La Tour, giving the
information. At the banquet which closed the