,
a most efficient aid was found in Mr. Zachary Macaulay. The father of
the celebrated historian was most unrelaxing in his zeal for Abolition,
and, possessing a memory of singular tenacity, he came to be
regarded, in this peculiar department of knowledge, as a very perfect
encyclopedia. Nor, in mentioning the advocates of the suppression of the
monster evil, should we ever forget one who to an overflowing goodness
of heart added an inimitable richness and delicacy of humor,--James
Stephen. His influence in Parliament was always given in favor of
Abolition, and he was also the author of several able pamphlets on the
subject. He had been at one period of his life a resident in the West
India Colonies, and the hatred of the slave-system which he there
imbibed remained unchanged through life.

While, as has been seen, these labors were becoming complicated and
arduous, the opposition was growing not only strong, but violent.
Anti-slavery petitions, intended for presentation in Parliament, must be
sent in strong boxes, addressed, not to the leaders of the cause, but
to private persons, lest they should be opened and their contents
destroyed. Mr. Wilberforce is requested, when writing to a friend
in Liverpool, not to frank his own letter, lest it should never be
received. Correspondence on this subject must be carried on anonymously,
and addressed to persons not known to be interested. This was not the
worst. To random words of defiant opposition were added threats
of personal violence. For a space of two years the friends of Mr.
Wilberforce were annoyed by a desperate man who had declared that he
would take the life of the Yorkshire member. But, to do justice to the
advocates of the trade, there was one form of violence which they appear
never to have contemplated:--secession. The injured slave-merchants of
that time never thought of conspiring against the government under which
they lived. That was reserved for a later day.

Yet, while appearances were so dark, the cause was actually gaining
ground. The moral sense of the nation was becoming aroused. The
scattered sympathies of the religious classes were concentrating.
Already public sentiment in certain quarters was outgrowing the
movements of Parliament, and the impatient friends of the negro declared
that the leaders of the cause had given up!

In rebutting this charge, Mr. Wilberforce took high ground. He declared
that for himself his aim in this thing was the servi