There was one old man dressed in white, carrying a scythe, who imagined himself the personification of "Time," though called "Father Lampson." Occasionally he would bubble over with some prophetic vision, and, as he could not be silenced, he was carried out. He usually made himself as limp as possible, which added to the difficulty of his exit and the amusement of the audience. A ripple of merriment would unsettle, for a moment, even the dignity of the platform when Abigail Folsom, another crank, would shout from the gallery, "Stop not, my brother, on the order of your going, but go." The abolitionists were making the experiment, at this time, of a free platform, allowing everyone to speak as moved by the spirit, but they soon found that would not do, as those evidently moved by the spirit of mischief were quite as apt to air their vagaries as those moved by the spirit of truth.
However, the Garrisonian platform always maintained a certain degree of freedom outside its regular programme, and, although this involved extra duty in suppressing cranks, yet the meeting gained enthusiasm by some good spontaneous speaking on the floor as well as on the platform. A number of immense mass meetings were held in Faneuil Hall, a large, dreary place, with its bare walls and innumerable dingy windows. The only attempt at an ornament was the American eagle, with its wings spread and claws firmly set, in the middle of the gallery. The gilt was worn off its beak, giving it the appearance, as Edmund Quincy said, of having a bad cold in the head.
This old hall was sacred to so many memories connected with the early days of the Revolution that it was a kind of Mecca for the lovers of liberty visiting Boston. The anti-slavery meetings held there were often disturbed by mobs that would hold the most gifted orator at bay hour after hour, and would listen only to the songs of the Hutchinson family. Although these songs were a condensed extract of the whole anti-slavery constitution and by-laws, yet the mob was as peaceful under these paeans to liberty as a child under the influence of an anodyne. What a welcome and beautiful vision that was when the four brothers, in blue broadcloth and white collars, turned down à la Byron, and little sister Abby in silk, soft lace, and blue ribbon, appeared on the platform to sing their quaint ballads of freedom! Fresh from the hills of New Hampshire, they looked so sturdy, so vigorous, so pure, so true that they seemed fitting representatives of all the cardinal virtues, and even a howling mob could not resist their influence. Perhaps, after one of their ballads, the mob would listen five minutes to Wendell Phillips or Garrison until he gave them some home thrusts, when all was uproar again. The Northern merchants who made their fortunes out of Southern cotton, the politicians who wanted votes, and the ministers who wanted to keep peace in the churches, were all as much opposed to the anti-slavery agitation as were the slaveholders themselves. These were the classes the mob represented, though seemingly composed of gamblers, liquor dealers, and demagogues. For years the anti-slavery struggle at the North was carried on against statecraft, priestcraft, the cupidity of the moneyed classes, and the ignorance of the masses, but, in spite of all these forces of evil, it triumphed at last.
I was in Boston at the time that Lane and Wright, some metaphysical Englishmen, and our own Alcott held their famous philosophical conversations, in which Elizabeth Peabody took part. I went to them regularly. I was ambitious to absorb all the wisdom I could, but, really, I could not give an intelligent report of the points under discussion at any sitting. Oliver Johnson asked me, one day, if I enjoyed them. I thought, from a twinkle in his eye, that he thought I did not, so I told him I was ashamed to confess that I did not know what they were talking about. He said, "Neither do I,—very few of their hearers do,—so you need not be surprised that they are incomprehensible to you, nor think less of your own capacity."
I was indebted to Mr. Johnson for several of the greatest pleasures I enjoyed in Boston. He escorted me to an entire course of Theodore Parker's lectures, given in Marlborough Chapel. This was soon after the great preacher had given his famous sermon on "The Permanent and Transient in Religion," when he was ostracised, even by the Unitarians, for his radical utterances, and not permitted to preach in any of their pulpits. His lectures were deemed still more heterodox than that sermon. He shocked the orthodox churches of that day—more, even, than Ingersoll has in our times.
The lectures, however, were so soul-satisfying to me that I was surprised at the bitter criticisms I heard expressed. Though they were two hours long, I never grew weary, and, when the course ended, I said to Mr. Johnson:
"I wish I could hear them over again."
"Well, you can," said he, "Mr. Parker is to repeat them in Cambridgeport, beginning next week." Accordingly we went there and heard them again with equal satisfaction.
During the winter in Boston I attended all the lectures, churches, theaters, concerts, and temperance, peace, and prison-reform conventions within my reach. I had never lived in such an enthusiastically literary and reform latitude before, and my mental powers were kept at the highest tension. We went to Chelsea, for the summer, and boarded with the Baptist minister, the Rev. John Wesley Olmstead, afterward editor of The Watchman and Reflector. He had married my cousin, Mary Livingston, one of the most lovely, unselfish characters I ever knew. There I had the opportunity of meeting several of the leading Baptist ministers in New England, and, as I was thoroughly imbued with Parker's ideas, we had many heated discussions on theology. There, too, I met Orestes Bronson, a remarkably well-read man, who had gone through every phase of religious experience from blank atheism to the bosom of the Catholic Church, where I believe he found repose at the end of his days. He was so arbitrary and dogmatic that most people did not like him; but I appreciated his acquaintance, as he was a liberal thinker and had a world of information which he readily imparted to those of a teachable spirit. As I was then in a hungering, thirsting condition for truth on every subject, the friendship of such a man was, to me, an inestimable blessing. Reading Theodore Parker's lectures, years afterward, I was surprised to find how little there was in them to shock anybody—the majority of thinking people having grown up to them.
While living in Chelsea two years, I used to walk (there being no public conveyances running on Sunday) from the ferry to Marlborough Chapel to hear Mr. Parker preach. It was a long walk, over two miles, and I was so tired, on reaching the chapel, that I made it a point to sleep through all the preliminary service, so as to be fresh for the sermon, as the friend next whom I sat always wakened me in time. One Sunday, when my friend was absent, it being a very warm day and I unusually fatigued, I slept until the sexton informed me that he was about to close the doors! In an unwary moment I imparted this fact to my Baptist friends. They made all manner of fun ever afterward of the soothing nature of Mr. Parker's theology, and my long walk, every Sunday, to repose in the shadow of a heterodox altar. Still, the loss of the sermon was the only vexatious part of it, and I had the benefit of the walk and the refreshing slumber, to the music of Mr. Parker's melodious voice and the deep-toned organ.