Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/292

288 but they were fill greatly outstripped by Jeffries." Such is his history.

Come, shade of a judicial butcher! Two hundred years thy name has been pilloried in face of the world, and thy Memory gibbeted before mankind! Lot us .see how thou wilt compare with those who kidnap men in Boston! Go seek companionship with them! Go claim thy kindred, if such they be! Go tell them that the memory of the wicked shall rot,—that there is a God; an eternity; ay, and a judgment too! where the slave may appeal against him that made him a slave, to Him that made him a mail.

What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back? These not thy kindred! Why dost thou turn pale, as when the crowd clutched at thy life in London Street? It is true, George Jeffries, and these are not thy kin. Forgive me that I should send thee on such an errand, or bid thee seek companionship with such—with Boston hunters of the slave! Thou wert not base enough! It was a great bribe that tempted thee? Again I say, pardon me for sending thee to keep company with such men! Thou only struckst at men accused of crime; not at men accused only of their birth! Thou wouldst not send a man into bondage for two pounds! I will not rank thee with men who, in Boston, for ten dollars, would enslave a negro now! Rest still, Herod! Be quiet, Nero! Sleep, St. Dominic, and sleep, O Torquemada ! in your fiery gaol ! Sleep, Jeffries, underneath "the altar oi the church," which seeks, with Christian charity, to hide your hated bones.

"But," asks a looker on, "what is all this for?" Oh! to save the Union. "A precious Union which needs a saving such as this! And who are to rend the Union asunder ?" Why, men that hate Slavery, and love freedom for all mankind. "Is this the way to make them love the Union and Slavery, and hate freedom for all mankind?" We know none better. "What sort of a measure is this Fugitive Slave Law?" Oh! it is a "peace measure." Don't you see how well it works P how quiet the city, in the country not a mouse stirring? There will not be a word against the peace measure in all New England on this Fast Day. Blessed are the peacemakers, saith the Lord! "But you have great warrant for such