d to do so.

The speakers were all students, young men remarkable for their
sincerity and their energy, and several of them excelling as orators.
Among the latter were Henry B. Stanton and Theodore D. Weld, both
possessing great powers of reasoning and natural gifts of eloquence. Of
Theodore D. Weld it was said, that when he lectured on temperance, so
powerfully did he affect his audiences, that many a liquor dealer went
home and emptied out the contents of his barrels. Those who remember
him in his best days can well believe this, while others who have had
the privilege of hearing him only in his "parlor talks" can have no
difficulty in understanding the impression he must have made on mixed
audiences in those times when his great heart, filled from boyhood with
sorrow for the oppressed, found such food for its sympathies.[2]

[2] An incident of the childhood of this zealous champion of human
rights, related in a letter I have, shows how early he took his
stand by the side of the weak and defenceless. When he was about six
years old, and going to school in Connecticut, a little colored boy
was admitted as a pupil. Weld had never seen a black person before,
and was grieved to find that the color of his skin caused him to be
despised by the other boys, and put off on a seat by himself. The
teacher heard him his lessons separately, and generally sent him
back to his lonely seat with a cuff or a jeer. After witnessing this
injustice for a day or two, little Weld went to the teacher and
asked to have his own seat changed. "Why, where do you want to sit?"
asked the teacher. "By Jerry," replied Weld. The master burst out
laughing, and exclaimed: "Why, are you a nigger too?" and, "Theodore
Weld is a nigger!" resounded through the school. "I never shall
forget," says Mr. Weld, "the tumult in my little bosom that day. I
went, however, and sat with Jerry, and played with Jerry, and we
were great friends; and in a week I had permission to say my lessons
with Jerry, and I have been an abolitionist ever since, and never
had any prejudices to overcome."

It is no disparagement to the many able and eloquent advocates of the
anti-slavery cause, between 1833 and 1836, to say that public opinion
placed Weld at the head of them all. In him were combined reason and
imagination, wide and accurate knowledge, manly courage, a tender and
sympathetic nature, a remarkable faculty of expression, and a ferve