Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1854-07-01
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS.

FUN ElGN
ANBLEslDE, Eng, June 10th, 1854.
My DEAR FRIEND MARius: How long it is since
anything from my pen has touched the columns of
the Bugle! And how many sad events to you and
me, have marked the period! Scarcely u year has
passed since my first acquaintance with the west
ern abolitionists, that has not consigned some of
them to d too early graye-too early, / mean, for
us who survive them. And this year has begun
more mourhfully than any preceding one. Scarce
ly had my ears Recovered from the stunning shock
caused by the announcement of the death of Mer-
cy Lloyd Holmes and Asa Davis, when tidings
came that James W. Walker had followed them.
1t seems almost a dismal dream. And yet my own
near approach to the grave meantime; and my
present weak state of health, give assurance that
death was to them reality, and might have beeh SO
to me. And still it is not death. The good never
die, only to those who are dead while they seem
to live. 1t is often true, lat least true to lne,) that
those We call dead, are more alive than are they
who follow them to the tomb. And the sphere of
useful, active labor to which those three dear de-
parted ones have been 50 sadly and suddenly call
ed, is ! doubt not, as real as the one they have
left, or far more exalted and glorious.
But still, the removal of such seems to heighten
the responsibility, and increase the work of those
of us who survive. The value of health, and the
Importance of caring for it, by a strict observance
of its laws, is Il lesson which has been taught me
the past winter, more forcibly than ever before.
No other obligation is of any more sacred import.
In no other way, can we fulfil our mission, and
perform the labor assigned us. No post is more
dangerous than that of the Lecturing Agents
The temptation to overdo, is always great. A
fearful work is to be done. The en%treaties of the
more private friends of the cause, and the cries Of
the millions of despairing ones in bondage, all
urge them on to exertions often too great for human
endurance. And the constant exposure to storms,
to extremes of heat and cold, to continual change
of diet and mode of life, added to the intensely
exciting nature of the subject of their mission, all
these together can account for their early depart
ure, or broken and ruined constitutions.
am glad it is proposed to show our gratitude to
our deceased friend Walker, and our sympathy for
his bercaved family, by a little testimonial in the
way of a shelter and home for the latter, which it
seems they so much need. / hope to be able to
add the mite of an old fellow soldier, in the good
undertaking, And | an sure my family would
rejoice in the offering, and would only wish we
could make it greater.
have watched carefully for tidings of the sue
cess Of the anti-slavery enterprise in your part of
the vineyard. 1t seems to me a grand work must
have been done in Michigan. And that is a most
hopeful field for effort. How we'll | remember the
friendly sympathy and Jealous cooperation of the
Battle Greek and Adrian abolitionisls, as well as
those of Ann Arbor, and still farther North. 1t
was to me q paradise of pleasure, to labor by their
side. Most devoutly do my desires and hopes as
cend, that the bliss may again be mino.
The proceedings of the Cincinnati Convention
seemed to me open to criticism. The resolutions
did not quite 60 to what appears to me the root of
the evil. Only one touched the church at all, and
that in a most delicate manner. Nor did it seem
to me any cause of exultation, that "fou,ieen Meth
odiSt Ministers ,cere present" when SO many, if not
every one of them, were connected with the Gene
raj Conference.
Nor was | quite able to see the p~ropriety Of q
resolution of special regret at the absence of Rev.
Samuel Lewis. His position as a politician, an
office seeker, and above all as an adhering member
and minister in the Methodist General Conference,
certainly one of the most corrupt bodies in the
world, renders his anti-slavery character, to say
the least, doubtful in the extreme. When any
church makes terms of communion, that exclude
such as the Editor of the Bugle and his wife, or
the like of Barclay and Mary Gilbert, while it
bids and welcomes all sorts of slave breeders, man
stealers and kidnappcrs, / can have no respect for
that church whatever; but above all, for its minis
tiers. And it gives me no regret to see them absent
from our conventions. Of course, | am but giving
an individual opinion.
So too, as respects the speeches made in Con-
gress by Free Soil men. We are inclined to attach
great importanc to them, But really to me, the
best of them are not worth a place in the columns
of the Bugle. We have seen the result Of Free
Soil Party efforts. You know many have disdained
to be known as abolitionists, who still were willing
to DO called anti ertenSionists of Slavery. And the
whole party as such, have always said to the south
eve will not war upon the system where il is, pro-
vided you will not seek to extend il tchere IL is not"
But now it is extended rs far as the sternest tyrant
can desire. The Nebraska bill is passed-and the
Free Soil men have told Us timea enough, what
must follow, Their anti ~rrtsnsor theory has found