Friend Hopper cherished some hope that this preaching and praying slaveholder would eventually manumit his bondmen; but I had listened to his conversation, and I thought otherwise. His conscience seemed to me to be asleep under a seven-fold shield of self-satisfied piety; and I have observed that such consciences rarely waken.
At the time of the Christians riots, in 1851, when the slave-power seemed to overshadow everything, and none but the boldest ventured to speak against it, Friend Hopper wrote an article for the Tribune, and signed it with his name, in which he maintained that the colored people, "who defended themselves and their firesides against the lawless assaults of an armed party of negro-hunters from Maryland," ought not to be regarded as traitors or murderers "by men who set a just value on liberty, and who had no conscientious scruples with regard to war."
The first runaway, who was endangered by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, happened to be placed under his protection. A very good-looking colored man, who escaped from bondage, resided some years in Worcester, Massachusetts, and acquired several thousand dollars by hair-dressing. He went to New-York to be married, and it chanced that his master arrived in Worcester in search of him, the very day that he started for that city. Some person friendly to the colored man sent information to New-York by telegraph; but the gentleman to whom it was addressed was out of the city. One of the operators at the telegraph office said, "Isaac T. Hopper ought to know of this message;" and he carried it himself. Friend Hopper was then eighty years old, but he sprang out of bed at midnight, and went off with all speed to hunt up the fugitive. He found him, warned him of his danger, and offered to secrete him. The colored man hesitated. He feared it might be a trick to decoy him into his master's power. But the young wife gazed very earnestly at Friend Hopper, and said, "I would trust the countenance of that Quaker gentleman anywhere. Let us go with him." They spent the remainder of the night at his house, and after being concealed elsewhere for a few days, they went to Canada. This slave was the son of his master, who estimated his market-value at two thousand five hundred dollars. Six months imprisonment, and a fine of one thousand dollars was the legal penalty for aiding him. But Friend Hopper always said, "I have never sought to make any slave discontented with his situation, because I do not consider it either wise or kind to do so; but so long as my life is spared, I will always assist any one, who is trying to escape from slavery, be the laws what they may."
A black man, who had fled from bondage, married a mulatto woman in Philadelphia, and became the father of six children. He owned a small house in the neighborhood of that city, and had lived there comfortably several years, when that abominable law was passed, by which the Northern States rendered their free soil a great hunting-ground for the rich and powerful to run down the poor and weak. In rushed the slaveholders from all quarters, to seize their helpless prey! At dead of night, the black man, sleeping quietly in the humble home he had earned by unremitting industry, was roused up to receive information that his master was in pursuit of him. His eldest daughter was out at service in the neighborhood, and there was no time to give her notice. They hastily packed such articles as they could take, caught the little ones from their beds, and escaped before the morning dawned. A gentleman, who saw them next day on board a steamboat, observed their uneasiness, and suspected they were "fugitives from injustice." When he remarked this to a companion, he replied, "They have too much luggage to be slaves." Nevertheless, he thought it could do no harm to inform them that Isaac T. Hopper of New-York was the best adviser of fugitives. Accordingly, a few hours afterward, the whole colored colony was established in his house; where the genteel-looking mother, and her bright, pretty little children excited a very lively interest in all hearts. They made their way to Canada as soon as possible, and the daughter who was left in Philadelphia, was soon after sent to them.
Friend Hopper's resolute resistance to oppression, in every form, never produced any harshness in his manners, or diminished his love of quiet domestic life. He habitually surrendered himself to pleasant influences, even from events that troubled him at the time, he generally extracted some agreeable incident and soon forgot those of opposite character. It was quite observable how little he thought of the instances of ingratitude he had met with. He seldom, if ever, alluded to them, unless reminded by some direct question; but the unfortunate beings who had persevered in reformation, and manifested gratitude, were always uppermost in his thoughts.
Though always pleased to hear that his children were free from pecuniary anxiety, he never desired wealth for them. The idea of money never seemed to occur to him in connection with their marriages. It was a cherished wish of his heart to have them united to members of the Society of Friends; yet he easily yielded, even on that point, as soon as he saw their happiness was at stake. When one of his sons married into a family educated under influences totally foreign to Quaker principles, he was somewhat disturbed. But he at once adopted the bride as a beloved daughter of his heart; and she ever after proved a lovely and thornless Rose in the pathway of his life. Great was his satisfaction when he discovered that she was grandchild of Dr. William Rogers, Professor of English and Oratory in the University of Pennsylvania, who, sixty years before, had preached the first sermon to inmates of the State Prison, in Philadelphia. That good and gifted clergyman was associated with his earliest recollections; for when he was on one of his pleasant visits to his uncle Tatem, at six years old, he went to meeting with him for the first time, and was seated on a stool between his knees. The proceedings were a great novelty to him; for Dr. Rogers was the first minister he ever saw in a pulpit. He never forgot the text of that sermon. I often heard him repeat it, during the last years of his life. The remembrance of these incidents, and the great respect he had for the character of the prison missionary, at once established in his mind a claim of old relationship between him and the new inmate of his household.
He had the custom of sitting with his wife on the front-door-step during the summer twilight, to catch the breeze, that always refreshes the city of New-York, after a sultry day. On such occasions, the children of the neighborhood soon began to gather round him. One of the most intelligent and interesting pupils of the Deaf and Dumb Institution had married Mr. Gallaudet, Professor in that Institution, and resided in the next house. She had a bright lively little daughter, who very early learned to imitate her rapid and graceful way of conversing by signs. This child was greatly attracted toward Friend Hopper. The moment she saw him, she would clap her tiny hands with delight, and toddle toward him, exclaiming, "Opper! Opper!" When he talked to her, she would make her little fingers fly, in the prettiest fashion, interpreting by signs to her mute mother all that "Opper" had been saying. Her quick intelligence and animated gestures were a perpetual source of amusement to him. When he went down to his office in the morning, all the nurses in the neighborhood were accustomed to stop in his path, that he might have some playful conversation with the little ones in their charge. He had a pleasant nick-name for them all; such as "Blue-bird," or "Yellow-bird," according to their dress. They would run up to him as he approached home, calling out, "Here's your little Blue-bird!"
His garden was another source of great satisfaction to him. It was not bigger than a very small bed-room, and only half of it received the sunshine. But he called the minnikin grass-plot his meadow, and talked very largely about mowing his hay. He covered the walls and fences with flowering vines, and suspended them between the pillars of his little piazza. Even in this employment he revealed the tendencies of his character. One day, when I was helping him train a woodbine, he said, "Fasten it in that direction, Maria; for I want it to go over into our neighbor's yard, that it may make their wall look pleasant."
In the summer of 1848, when I was staying in the country, not far from New-York, I received the following letter from him: "Dear Friend, the days have not yet come, in which I can say I have no pleasure in them. Notwithstanding the stubs against which I hit my toes, the briars and thorns that sometimes annoy me, and the muddy sloughs I am sometimes obliged to wade through, yet, after all, the days have not come in which I have no enjoyment. In the course of my journey, I find here and there a green spot, by which I can sit down and rest, and pleasant streams, where I sometimes drink, mostly in secret, and am refreshed. I often remember the saying of a beloved friend, long since translated from this scene of mutation to a state of eternal beatitude: 'I wear my sackcloth on my loins; I don't wish to afflict others by carrying a sorrowful countenance.' A wise conclusion. I love to diffuse happiness over all with whom I come in contact. But all this is a kind of accident. I took up my pen to tell thee about our garden. I never saw it half so handsome as it is now. Morning Glories are on both sides of the yard, extending nearly to the second story windows; and they exhibit their glories every morning, in beautiful style. There are Cypress vines, twelve feet high, running up on the pillar before the kitchen window, and spreading out each way. They blossom most profusely. The wooden wall is entirely covered with Madeira vines, and the stone wall with Woodbine. The grass-plot is very thrifty, and our borders are beautified with a variety of flowers. How thou wouldst like to look at them!"
I replied as follows: "My dear and honored friend: Your kind, cheerful epistle came into my room as pleasantly as would the vines and flowers you describe. I am very glad the spirit moved you to write; for, to use the words of the apostle, I thank my God for every remembrance of you.' I do not make many professions of friendship, because neither you nor I are much given to professions; but there is no one in the world for whom I have a higher respect than yourself, and very few for whom I cherish a more cordial affection. You say the time has not yet come when you have no pleasure. I think, my friend, that it will never come. To an evergreen heart, like yours, so full of kindly sympathies, the little children will always prattle, the birds will always sing, and the flowers will always offer incense. This reward of the honest and kindly heart is one of those, which 'the world can neither give nor take away.'