Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1851-01-18
From Parker PlllSbury.
prNNrs. Muss.. Dec. 24th. 1880

DENNIS, Mass, Dec. oath, 1850.
DEAR FRIHSD JOHNSON My promise not to
write you so often, has perhaps hcen most too
faithfully observed. But my time has been
crowded with work to the full extent of my
strength, aud cvon beyond-for find myself
already overdonc.
Invited to the city of Portland to address
Lyccum, set myself to revise and re-writc a
Lecture prepared some two years since, as the
best arrangement my present pressing labors
would permit; and this has filed up all the
time l could sparc from tho moro important
duties of my Anti Slavery agency.
Indeed Lecture on the causes and character
of tho French Revolution Of 1903, is, or might
be, the most important kind of Anti Slavery
work. Such, have at least ondcavorcd to
make mine. The enemies Of innovation and
advancement arc still harping on their old cry
Of French Rcvolutionlm, and the horrors OF
French Jacobini-m-- as if that event were not
more honorable to humanity, and ten thousand
times more necessary, than the American Rcyo-
luton. or the late Revolutionary movements
in France which filled our rotten hcar.cd re-
publicanism with so much JOY and rejoicing.
The condition of the French people, Il mean
of the masses,) under the reign of Louis the
18th aud under his predecessors the 10th and
10th, was as widely different almost as heaven
and he'll; and yet the late attempted overthrow
of royalty there was hailed in this country
with every wild, as well as worthy dcmonstra-
ton of Joy; while at the same time, VIC arc
still taught to regard the former Revolution, as
Il direst storm Of calamity that ever fell upon
the Earth and almost the universal world has
screamed itself hoarsc in cursingit.
Never has greater mistake been committed,
than that on the causes which led to the over
throw of the French government and Louis the
10th. Never before in the long annals of the
civilized world, has nation been crushed SO
low by dcspotic power, piled as mountain on
mountain upon it. Between the civil aud &C.
clcsinstcal rule, as an upper and neither mill
stone, the muses. of the people were ground to
! powder.
/ The Revolution came mono too soon. Nor
did il como unbidden by voice beyond all hu-
mar'couyrul 1t came for tho reason that tho
Rcrac tornado SWEEP the occau--ro,hcr Cor tho
reason that oil ocean hcavcs is palpitating bo-
som, when the fierce siorm-g god drives over it,
| in lis whirlwnd harncsscd chariot.
Cause and effect are not moro surely linked TO.
! ccthcr in the natural than in the moral world
! How we have blamed and even cxccratcd the
actors in the dread scenes of that Revolu-
ton. And yet as justly might VIC blame the
foundations of our dwelling for giving way,
when the ratiling Earthquake commanded
them. As well llanc burning Etna, when it.
sickcned stomach vomits up its blazing bile
and pours It's streams Of dcvouring fire down
cliff and fertile valley, and o'cr the village scat.
tered plain, writing their own cpitaphs ere they
arc oxtinguishcd, in hycrosiyphics Of dcsola.
ton, all along their pathway.
To find out the secret OF that mightcst phe.
nomcnon of many ages is the object of my
Lecture on the French Revolution. on the ono
hand; and to silence the scnsclcss yells of those
who arc frightening the world from Reform and
Progress, by throwing it Ia terroyem across OUT
pathway, on the other When l shall succeed
at all, or to what extent, remains to be seen.
Yours in wcnrncss End haste,
PARKER PILI.SBURY.