nt
enthusiasm which made him the best platform orator of his time. As a
lecturer on education, temperance, and abolition, he drew crowded
houses and made many converts. The late Secretary Stanton was one of
these, and often mentioned Mr. Weld as the most eloquent speaker he had
ever heard; and Wendell Phillips, in a recent letter, says of him: "In
the first years of the anti-slavery cause, he was our foremost
advocate."

Of Henry B. Stanton, a newspaper reporter once said in excuse for not
reporting one of his great anti-slavery speeches, that he could not
attempt to report a whirlwind or a thunderstorm.

With such leaders, and with followers no less earnest if less
brilliant, it is not surprising that the Lane Seminary debate arrested
such general attention, and afterwards assumed so much importance in
the anti-slavery struggle. The trustees, fearing its effect upon their
Southern patrons, ordered that both societies should be dissolved, and
no more meetings held. The anti-slavery students replied to this order
by withdrawing in a body from the institution. Some went over to
Oberlin; others,--and among them the two I have named--entered the
field as lecturers and workers in the cause they had so ardently
espoused.

In September, 1834, Sarah and Angelina were gratified by a visit from
their brother Thomas, who was on his way to Cincinnati, to deliver an
address on Education before the College of Professional Teachers, and
also to visit his brother Frederic, residing in Columbus, whom he had
not seen for sixteen years. As Angelina had not seen him since her
departure from Charleston in 1829, the few days of his society she now
enjoyed were very precious, and made peculiarly so by after-events. The
cholera was then for the second time epidemic in the West, but those
who knew enough about it to be prudent felt no fear, and the sisters
bade farewell to their brother, cheered by his promise to see them
again on his way home. He delivered his address in Cincinnati, started
for Columbus, arrived within twelve miles of it, when, at a wayside
tavern, he was seized with cholera. His brother, then holding a term of
the Supreme Court, was sent for. He at once adjourned court and
hastened to Thomas with a physician. He was already speechless, but was
able to turn upon Frederic a look of recognition, then pressed his
hand, and died.

Angelina, writing of her brother's death, says: "The world has lost an
eminent reformer in the