Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/413

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advice generally, were reliable. He gave of his means liberally, and seconded every movement of his noble wife.

Thomas Garrett was an Abolitionist from his youth up; and though the grand old cause numbered among its supporters, poets, sages, and statesmen, it had no more faithful worker in its ranks than Thomas Garrett. The work of this good man lay in Delaware, one of the meanest states in the Union, and the services which he rendered the free colored people of that State in their efforts to rise above the prejudice exhibited against their race can never be estimated.

But it was as a friend of the bondman escaping from his oppressor that Mr. Garrett was most widely known. For more than forty years he devoted himself to aiding the runaway slave in getting his freedom.

We have written of the executive officers of the most radical wing of the Anti-slavery movement, yet there was still another band whose labors were, if possible, more arduous, and deserve as much praise as any of whom we have made mention.

These were the lecturing agents, the men and women who performed the field service, the most difficult part of all the work. They went from city to city, and from town to town, urging the claims of the slave to his freedom; uttering truths that the people were not prepared for, and receiving in return, rotten eggs, sticks, stones, and the condemnation of the public generally. Many of these laborers neither asked nor received any compensation; some gave their time and paid their own expenses, satisfied with having an opportunity to work for humanity.

In the front rank of this heroic and fearless band,