bless you for these labors of love! Truly
shall I thank you for the light you can so abundantly give, and which
will make the path of duty plain before me."

Incessant demands were made upon his time and attention. A great many
people, if they happened to have their feelings touched by some scene
of distress, seemed to think they had fulfilled their whole duty by
sending the sufferer to Isaac T. Hopper. Few can imagine what an arduous
task it is to be such a thorough philanthropist as he was. Whoever
wishes for a crown like his, must earn it by carrying the martyr's cross
through life. They must make up their minds to relinquish their whole
time to such pursuits; they must be prepared to encounter envy and
dislike; to be misrepresented and blamed, where their intentions have
been most praiseworthy; to be often disheartened by the delinquencies,
or ingratitude, of those they have expended their time and strength to
serve; above all, they must be willing to live and die poor.

Though attention to prisoners was the mission to which Friend Hopper
peculiarly devoted the last years of his life, his sympathy for the
slaves never abated. And though his own early efforts had been made in
co-operation with the gradual Emancipation Society, established by
Franklin, Rush, and others, he rejoiced in the bolder movement, known as
modern anti-slavery. Of course, he did not endorse everything that was
said and done by all sorts of temperaments engaged in that cause, or in
any other cause. But no man understood better than he did the fallacy of
the argument that modern abolitionists had put back the cause of
emancipation in the South. He often used to speak of the spirit
manifested toward William Savery, when he went to the South to preach,
as early as 1791. Writing from Augusta, Georgia, that tender-hearted
minister of Christ says: "They can scarcely tolerate us, on account of
our abhorrence of slavery. This was truly a trying place to lodge in
another night." At Savannah the landlord of a tavern where they lodged,
ordered a cruel flogging to be administered to one of his slaves, who
had fallen asleep through weariness, before his daily task was
accomplished. William Savery says: "When we went to supper, this
unfeeling wretch craved a blessing; which I considered equally abhorrent
to the Divine Being, as his curses." In the morning, when the humane
preacher heard sounds of the lash, accompanied by piteous cries for
mercy, he had the