Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/143

Rh long is it since men sent their servants to the "work-house" to he beaten "for disobedience," at the discretion of the master? It is not long since the gallows was a public spectacle here in the midst of us, and a hanging made a holiday for the rabble of this city and the neighbouring towns; even women came to see the death-struggle of a fellow-creature, and formed the larger part of the mob. Many of you remember the procession of the condemned man sitting on his coffin, a procession from the gaol to the gallows, from one end of the city to the other. I remember a public execution some fourteen or fifteen years ago, and some of the. students of theology at Cambridge, of undoubted soundness in the Unitarian faith, came here to see men kill a fellow-man!

Who can think of these things, and not see that a great progress has been made in no long time? But if these things foe not proof enough, then consider, what has been done here in this century for the reformation of juvenile offenders; for the discharged convict; for the blind, the deaf, and the dumb; for the insane,- and now even for the idiot. Think of the numerous societies for the widows and orphans; for the seamen; the Temperance Societies; the Peace Societies; the Prison Discipline Society; the mighty movement against slavery, which, beginning with a few heroic men who took the roaring lion of public opinion by the beard, fearless of his roar, has gone on now, till neither the hardest nor the softest courage in the State dares openly defend the unholy institution. A philanthropic female physician delivers gratuitous lectures on physiology to the poor of this city, to enable them to take better care of their houses and their bodies; an unpretending man, for years past, responsible to none but God, has devoted all his time and his toil to the most despised class of men, and has saved hundreds from the gaol, from crime, and. ruin at the last. Here are many men and women not known to the public, but known to the poor, who are daily ministering to the things, and who can doubt that a great moral progress has been made? It is not many years since we had white slaves, and a Scotch boy was invoiced at fourteen pounds lawful money, in the inventory of an estate in Boston. In 1630, Govenor Dudley complains that some of the founders