ACTS

OF THE

ANTI-SLAVERY APOSTLES.

BY

PARKER PILLSBURY.

"AND THEY WENT EVERYWHERE PREACHING THE

WORD."-Acts, viii: 4.

CONCORD, N. H.

1883

CLAGUE, WEGMAN, SCHLICHT, & Co.,

Printers,

ROCHESTER, N. Y.

ANDOVER THEOL. SEMPHARY

MAN 5 1907

LIBRARY.

58757

INTRODUCTION.

Some books, judged by their titles, are more remarkable for what they do not contain, than for what they do. This work is only Acts, not the Acts of the AntiSlavery Apostles. It is only a small portion of a very small part of those apostles.

There were many in the great west, as well as not a few in the east, whose labors, sacrifices and sufferings entitle them to volumes of well-written biography, who can scarcely be mentioned here, even by name.

At this time of my life of nearly three score and fourteen years, more than forty of which have been spent in the field of moral, peaceful and religious agitation for the rights of humanity, it seemed presumption in me to attempt a labor of even this magnitude. And it was only earnest, continued importunity on the part of my very few surviving associates in the conflict, and their friends, that finally determined my course. Truth only has been sought. Not the whole truth; for that were impossible. But strict truth and exact justice, to the full extent of my time and space.

The present generation knows little of the terrible mysteries and meanings of slavery or anti-slavery; the outrages and horrors of the former, or the desperate and deadly encounters with the monster by the latter, long before the cannonade of Fort Sumpter, or the dreadful war chorus of the subsequent rebellion. And all which is now attempted is some disclosure of those mysteries.

By anti-slavery apostles are meant those only whose work was in the lecturing field; who literally "went everywhere preaching the word;" often as with their