s hazarding all these terrible evils; but all
are light and trivial, compared with the conviction I feel that in such
a warfare it is not possible to ask nor can we expect the countenance of
Heaven."

While events tended to bring the whole system of Slavery into odium, the
leaders of the Abolition party were themselves changing their ground.
They had begun with the hope of mitigating the hardships of the slave's
lot,--to place him upon the line of progression, and so ultimately to
fit him for freedom. But they had found themselves occupying a false
position. Slowly they came to the conclusion that for the slave little
could be accomplished in the way of improvement, so long as he remained
a slave. The complete extinction of the system was now the object aimed
at. At a crowded Anti-Slavery meeting held in May, 1830, Mr. Wilberforce
presided. The first resolution, moved by Mr. Buxton, was this,--"That no
proper or practicable means be left unattempted for effecting, at the
earliest period, the entire abolition of Slavery throughout the British
dominions." At a meeting held in Edinburgh similar language was used by
Lord Jeffrey. Said Dr. Andrew Thomson, one of the most influential of
the Scottish clergy,--"We ought to tell the legislature, plainly and
strongly, that no man has a right to property in man,--that there
are eight hundred thousand individuals sighing in bondage, under the
intolerable evils of West Indian Slavery, who have as good a right to be
free as we ourselves have,--that they ought to be free, and that they
_must_ be made free!"

Another element at this time wrought in favor of the Abolitionists. Of
the missionaries who had suffered persecution in the Colonies, numbers
had returned to England. These religious teachers, while plying their
vocation in the West Indies, had acted in obedience to the instructions
received from the societies which employed them. Necessarily, while in a
slave country, they had been silent upon the subject of Slavery. But in
truth they liked the institution as little as Mr. Buxton himself. Once
in England, the seal of silence melted from their lips. Everywhere
in public and in private they made known the evils and cruelties of
Slavery. Some of these persons had been examined by Parliamentary
committees, and being acquitted of every suspicion of mis-statement,
their testimony received this additional sanction. The tale of wrong
which they revealed was not told in vain. Each return