Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/206

194 of himself. They were parishioners of mine. Mr Craft was a tall, brave man; his countrymen, not nobler than he, were once bishops of Hippo and of Carthage. He armed himself, pretty well too. I inspected his weapons: it was rather new business for me; New England ministers have not done much in that line since the Revolution. His powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of excellent proof, the barrels true and clean; the trigger went easy; the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poniard; the blade had a good temper, stiff enough, yet springy withal; the point was sharp. There was no law for him but the law of nature; he was armed and equipped "as that law directs." He walked the streets boldly; but the kidnappers did not dare touch him. Some persons offered to help Mr Craft to purchase himself. He said, "I will not give the man two cents for his ’right' to me. I will buy myself, not with gold, but iron!" That looked like "levying war," not like conquering his prejudices for liberty! William Craft did not obey with "alacrity." He stood his ground till the kidnappers had fled; then he also must flee. Boston was no home for him. One of her most eminent ministers had said, if a fugitive came to him, "I would drive him away from my own door."

William and Ellen Craft were at the "World's Fair," specimens of American manufactures, the working-tools of the South; a proof of the democracy of the American State; part of the "outward evidences" of the Christianity of the American church. "It is a great country," whence a Boston clergyman would drive William Craft from his door! America did not compete very well with the European States in articles sent to the Fair. A "reaping machine" was the most quotable thing; then a "Greek slave" in marble; next an American slave in flesh and blood. America was the only contributor of slaves; she had the monopoly of the article; it is the great export of Virginia,—it was right to exhibit a specimen at the World's Fair. Visitors went to Westminster Abbey, and saw the monument of marble which Massachusetts erected to Lord George Howe, and thence to the Crystal Palace to see the man and woman whom Massachusetts would not keep from being kidnapped in her capital.