Gather in thine the outstretched hands that strive
To help thy pleading, agonized and dumb;
Bear up the hearts whose silent sorrows come
For utterance, to the voice that thou canst give.
In the same volume are verses entitled “Slave Eloquence” and “Slave Suicide.”
How did the children of the household feel during this period of “Sturm und Drang”? To the older ones, at least, it was a most exciting time. While we did not by any means know of all that was going on, we felt very strongly the electric current of indignation that thrilled through our home, as well as the stir of action. My father early taught us to love freedom and to hate slavery. He gave us, in brief, clear outline, the story of the aggressions of the slave power. We knew of the iniquity of the Dred Scott decision before we were in our teens. Child that I was, I was greatly moved when he repeated Lowell’s well-known lines:
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
My father had always something of the soldier about him—a quick, active step, gallant bearing, and a voice tender, yet strong, “A voice to lead a regiment.” This was the natural consequence of his early experiences in the Greek War of Independence, when he served some seven years as surgeon, soldier, and—most important of all—almoner of America’s bounty to the peaceful population. The latter would have perished of starvation save for the supplies sent out in response to Dr. Howe’s appeals to his countrymen. The greater part of his life was devoted to the healing arts of the good physician. Yet the portraits of him, taken during the tremendous struggle of the anti-slavery period, show a sternness not visible in his younger nor yet in his later days.