on, he had himself owned a slave, whom he had sold
on leaving the place, without compunction or suspicion in regard to the
rightfulness of the transaction. He now saw the origin of the system in
its true light; he heard the seamen engaged in the African trade tell of
the horrible scenes of fire and blood which they had witnessed, and in
which they had been actors; he saw the half-suffocated wretches brought
up from their noisome and narrow prison, their squalid countenances and
skeleton forms bearing fearful evidence of the suffering attendant upon
the transportation from their native homes. The demoralizing effects of
slaveholding everywhere forced themselves upon his attention, for the
evil had struck its roots deeply in the community, and there were few
families into which it had not penetrated. The right to deal in slaves,
and use them as articles of property, was questioned by no one; men of
all professions, clergymen and church-members, consulted only their
interest and convenience as to their purchase or sale. The magnitude of
the evil at first appalled him; he felt it to be his duty to condemn it,
but for a time even his strong spirit faltered and turned pale in
contemplation of the consequences to be apprehended from an attack upon
it. Slavery and slave-trading were at that time the principal source of
wealth to the island; his own church and congregation were personally
interested in the traffic; all were implicated in its guilt. He stood
alone, as it were, in its condemnation; with here and there an exception,
all Christendom maintained the rightfulness of slavery. No movement had
yet been made in England against the slave-trade; the decision of
Granville Sharp's Somerset case had not yet taken place. The Quakers,
even, had not at that time redeemed themselves from the opprobrium.
Under these circumstances, after a thorough examination of the subject,
he resolved, in the strength of the Lord, to take his stand openly and
decidedly on the side of humanity. He prepared a sermon for the purpose,
and for the first time from a pulpit of New England was heard an emphatic
testimony against the sin of slavery. In contrast with the unselfish and
disinterested benevolence which formed in his mind the essential element
of Christian holiness, he held up the act of reducing human beings to the
condition of brutes, to minister to the convenience, the luxury, and
lusts of the owner. He had expected bitter complaint