The leader of
the young roisterers listened with a ludicrous mock gravity, thanked him
for his exhortation, and, expressing fears that the extraordinary effort
had exhausted his strength, invited him to take a drink with him. Father
Thurston buried his grieved face in his cloak-collar, and wisely left the
young reprobates to their own devices.
On reaching Philadelphia, we at once betook, ourselves to the humble
dwelling on Fifth Street occupied by Evan Lewis, a plain, earnest man and
lifelong abolitionist, who had been largely interested in preparing the
way for the Convention. In one respect the time of our assembling seemed
unfavorable. The Society of Friends, upon whose cooperation we had
counted, had but recently been rent asunder by one of those unhappy
controversies which so often mark the decline of practical righteousness.
The martyr-age of the society had passed, wealth and luxury had taken the
place of the old simplicity, there was a growing conformity to the maxims
of the world in trade and fashion, and with it a corresponding
unwillingness to hazard respectability by the advocacy of unpopular
reforms.
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