STEPHEN SYMONDS FOSTER. 375
actually zaas boii7id with thcfn, and for their sake ; and verily, he had in it great reward.
Whoever attended his meetings always had the largest liberty of speech, no matter how widely they differed from him. He asked only two things of an opponent ; first, that good temper and spirit be kept, and second, that both parties keep strictly to the question in hand. And sometimes he would hold his audiences till midnight.
Probably he encountered more mob opposition and violence than any other agent ever in the anti-slavery lecturing field, and almost always he would in some way obtain control of his opponents. But there were exceptions. Once he had four meetings broken up in a single week. Once, in Portland, he suf- fered more by violent hands than in the South church at Concord. He was finally rescued and borne off in triumph by a band of no'jle and heroic women. Not, however, till he had suffered much bodily h irm and loss of his hat and other parts of his clothing. His traveling companion was worse handled than he. He was carried to his home at the hospitable house of an anti-slavery familv, and confined to his chamber for a number of weeks. There was suffer- ing as well as heroism, in those days.
On the peaceful island of Nantucket mob violence became such that a course of lectures he had commenced was cut short, and he was advised to leave the place by his friends, which he did, though before he left they desired him to write a letter at his earliest convenience, explanatory of his course, and in further illustration and proof of some of his positions. His answer to that reasonable request was, The Brotherhood of Thieves: or, a True Picture of the Anerican Church and Clergy; in some respects the most remarkable pam- phlet of seventy-two closely printed pages that the anti-slavery, or any other enterprise of reform has ever produced. It was published in 1843. It defied contradiction, both as to doctrine and declaration. It passed through many editions, and went every where, east and west. And no matter who, or what power and influence abolished slavery, that work stands unrefuted and unrefut- able ; and shall stand a monument to the moral and miterial heroism, ability, fidelity, and disinterestedness of its author, till time shall be no more.
Distinguished abolitionists were often called men of one idea. Anti-slavery, in its immeasurable importance to all the interests of the country, material, mental, moral, and social, as well as religious, and political, was one idea far too great for ordinary minds, even without any other. But the sturdy symmetry and consistency of Mr. Foster's character were as wonderful as were his vigor and power in any one direction. Earliest and bravest among the temperance reformers, when even that cause was almost as odious as anti-slavery became afterward ; a radical advocate of peace from the standpoint of the Sermon on the Mount, "Resist not Evil," seconded by the apostolic injunction, "Avenge not yourselves ;" a champion in the woman suffrage enterprise from its incep- tion ; an intelligent, earnest advocate of the rights of labor, and deeply inter- ested in all the educational and moral, social and philanthropic associations for the advancement and improvement of the city and neighborhood where he lived, he left behind him a record and a memory to grow brighter as the years sweep on, and his virtue becoming more and more luminous, shall be the better appreciated by multitudes who learn to profit by them.
The beauty and harmony of his home were unsurpassed. It was sacred to peace and love. Its unostentatious but elegant and generous hospitality was the admiration of all who ever enjoyed it, by day or night. At almost seventy- two, he quietly passed away on the 8th of September, 1881, deeply lamented by a v/ife and daughter whose love and devotion were beautiful and tender as the virtues and graces which won them and will cherish them forever.
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