Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/447

Rh American steamer, The Atlantic, which leaves New York for Liverpool on the 13th instant. The vessel and the captain, Mr. West, are both of the first class, and with him I shall be quite safe.

I return this afternoon to my friends at Rose Cottage, and in the morning I shall be joined there by Mr. Downing, who is on his way from Washington, and who will take me with him to his beautiful home on the Hudson. There will be my last visit in America, where also was my first. Some other visits I shall be unable to pay, however much I desire it. But this is required from me both by duty and by—love.

I spent last evening—my last evening at New York—with my amiable, kind hostess Mrs. G., at the house of her father, the celebrated old Isaac Hopper. This magnificent old man, now eighty-five, is still almost as vigorous and ardent as a youth. In his strongly marked, handsome countenance may be seen the fervour of the warlike spirit, combined with the stedfastness and wisdom of the peace-principle, relieved by a great deal of humour and shrewdness. His figure, in his Quaker costume, is not without a degree of chivalric stateliness. It is evident that Father Hopper, as he is commonly called, belongs to the church militant, and all his life has borne testimony to this. He has, during his active life in the service of the oppressed, been the means of delivering more than a thousand fugitive slaves out of the hands of their pursuers, and in so doing has perilled his own life; has been maltreated; has been hurled into the street, thrown out of windows, once out of the third story of a house—and always returned resolute, firm, cheerful, full of courage and resources to accomplish that which he had begun, with a good-humoured obstinacy which finally conquered the malevolence of his adversaries. At the request of his daughter and myself he related some of the occurrences of his life during his efforts to save fugitive slaves; I