he sent forth his glorious appeal :-"To my Fellow Citizens," in his paper for November 5th, 1835, from which we extract the following:-"I deem it, therefore, my duty to take my stand upon the Constitution. Here is firm ground--I feel it to be such. And I do most respectfully, yet decidedly declare to you my fixed determination to maintain this ground. We have slaves, it is true, but I am not one. I am a free citizen of these United States, a citizen of Missouri, freeborn; and, having never forfeited the inestimable privileges attached to such a condition, I cannot consent to surrender them. But while I maintain them, I hope to do it with all that meekness and humility which become a Christian, and especially a Christian minister. I am ready, not to fight, but to suffer, and if need be, to die for them. Kindred blood to that which flows in my veins flowed freely to water the tree of Christian liberty, planted on the rugged soil of New England. It flowed as freely on the plains of Lexington, the heights of Bunker's Hill, and fields of Sarratoga. And freely, too, shall mine flow, yea as freely as if it were so much water, ere I surrender my right to plead the cause of truth and righteousness, before my fellow citizens, and in the face of all their opposers." The proprietors yielded to the storm, and requested him to give up the editorship and materials-compel him they could not by their own bond. He acquiesced, but found in the owner of a note on the property an unexpected friend. As possessor of the type and property, he re-instated him in the editorial office. It was thought advisable to move it to Alton in Illinois. Here the press was no sooner landed from the steamboat than a plan was projected for its destruction. It was broken up by five ruffians on the morning of July 21, 1836. A second one is sent for to Cincinnati, and the Observer is once more disseminating broadcast its obnoxious truths. Public meetings for, and against him, are constantly being held, and one night he narrowly escaped being tarred and feathered as he is bringing medicine home to his sick wife. A second time the press and type are destroyed, and on being informed of it, and the loss of some of their furniture with it, his heroic wife said, "No matter what they have destroyed since they have not hurt you." A third press landed in September, is destroyed under the very eyes of the mayor, who declared "That he had never witnessed a more quiet and gentlemanly mob." They break into his house, beat him with their fists, and would have stabbed him but for his wife running and flinging herself between them. Several times they return the same night; the wife insensible, and raving, and the husband alarmed, and in agony, but still firm. But we must hurry on. It is Monday evening, the 7th of November, and a fourth press is expected. Its arrival is announced by the mob blowing horns throughout the city. A volunteer guard, headed by a constable, are in a large warehouse close by the river, and the mayor, this time doing his duty, goes out, giving orders for the thirty men, who were well armed, to fire on the mob if commanded by him, and the press is safely stowed in the building. Meanwhile, Lovejoy is guarded at home by a few friends. A second mob assembles round the store on the Tuesday night, intent on demolishing either the press, or building, or both. They demand the press, are refused, the guard intimating their authority from the mayor to defend it with their lives. They break all the windows, and fire several shots which are returned, and one of their number is wounded. Burn them out, burn them out," is the THE FIRST AMERICAN MARTYR. 258 cry raised upon every side. The alarm has reached the city, and the church bells are dancing wildly in the midnight air. Crowds of citizens collect and remain, shame to tell, inactive spectators of the scene. The suspense to those within the store is most agonizing. Lovejoy is there, firm and moveless in his moral heroism. The black crowds are now lit up with the light of torches, and surge to and fro ere they decide to do so terrible a deed. At last up go the ladders, and a fire soon crackles on the roof. Five of the guard rush out, fire upon the incendiary, and drive him away. The mob waver, and a demonstration on the part of the spectators might end the affair without bloodshed. The guard return, and re-load, and Lovejoy, surrounded by a few friends, looks out from the open door towards the infuriated masses. A few of the mob are ensconsced behind some lumber; they see him, and fire. Three balls enter his breast, he turns and runs into the counting house, and falls dead, exclaiming, "O God, I am shot, I am shot!" Horror-stricken and confused, the guard lay down their arms and retire. The fire is put out; the building entered; the press thrown out of the window, and broken into pieces, while the murdered victim of their fury, unmolested on his rude bed, smiles sweetly upon them. A number of the mob are apprehended, tried, and pronounced "Not guilty," but the curse cannot be removed from the city. Public meetings are held everywhere, and if one press is silent, many voices speak the praise of the dead and extol his cause. The newspaper press, in tones of thunder, denounces both murderer and mayor. All agree in their admiration of the first American martyr, and in branding the citizens of Alton-those who helped to destroy, and those who would not help to save with eternal shame and ignominy. It seemed as if the soul of Lovejoy had been shivered into a thousand pieces by his murder, and scattered everywhere, so universal was the enthusiasm. Alas! it subsided too soon to bring about what he lived, prayed, and wrote for-the emancipation of the negro. The sentiments of Lovejoy upon slavery were strong, his arguments sound, his illustrations apt and vigorous, He at first hesitated to decide in favour of abolition, and strove earnestly, while exposing the sin of slavery, to advocate a gradual emancipation. "Hayti and Southampton," he writes, "have written their lessons of warning in lines of blood." But he found the two impracticable in argument; his fervid nature was so impressed with the miseries and wrongs of the down-trodden African, and the necessity of strenuous efforts to mitigate and remove them, that, after much prayer and forethought, he stood forth for immediate abolition. Throughout the whole of his career, there is a boldness, honesty, and noble heroism that wins our reverence and love; and when we see him undaunted before his persecutors, we are reminded of a Paul before Festus, and a Luther at Worms. Duty was his watchword, and like our own Wellington, his whole life bears witness to its discharge. He was a true and manly Christian, and in this we find the secret of his martyr spirit. His firm religious faith triumphed over all his ardent natural affection, and his wife, "the one string" to use his own words-" tugging at his heart," he could have left behind without a murmur, rather than have sacrificed what he knew to be eternally right and just. Such was Lovejoy, a man nobly endowed and brave of heart, from whose history may be learned many a life-lesson, and whose memory it behoves the friends of justice, truth, and the liberty of the press to cherish. Anthony Benezet, in Pennsylvania; and Granville Sharpe, and Wilberforce, in England, had done wonders as philanthropists, in the cause of negro liberty, but Lovejoy has the distinguished honour of being the first uncoloured man who died upon its altar. It would be well if our transatlantic cousins generally, and the northern and southern editors in particular, would remember him, and shrink neither from following his example, nor doing their own duty. E. REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE. LOT had no business to be in Sodom. It was such a wicked city, that God burned it off his earth, and rolled the Dead Sea over its ruins. Lot himself narrowly escaped. The angels had enough to do to get him away in time. He was like a brand plucked out of the fire. As it was, he suffered a heavy loss. His married daughters would not leave the place. His wife turned back after she left, and was overwhelmed with the flood of destruction. The two daughters he brought away with him carried Sodom in their hearts. Our Lord tells us that Sodom was not so bad, in some respects, as Jerusalem. I fear neither of them were worse than our cities. There is enough of wickedness in this city to make it blaze like gunpowder, if the spark of God's judgment were thrown in. We are spared as a city, because God has some precious souls here, that are like salt, restraining the corruption from going to utter dissolution. But there are many Lots with their families, living amidst the wickedness of this city, without fleeing from the wrath to come ;-many Lots that were religiously brought up, who have once been much in Abraham's company; but since they have parted with God's people, far from ordinances, forgetful of God, of his day, of his word, listening unmoved to the filthy conversation of the wicked around them, they have sunk deep in the society of Sodom, and are like to perish with the wicked. The fire of hell is as sure to come as the fire of Sodom. Our Lord tells us to remember Lot's wife. She is among the few women that speak in the Church. She has but one warning word, but she is kept constantly repeating it: "Our God is a consuming fire." She is like the wreck that can still be seen above the waves-the wreck that burned and sunk. This is a word especially for wives and mothers who are living without God in the world. Perhaps, like Lot's wife, they still remember when they set out on the journey with Abraham to the promised land. Perhaps they look back sometimes with tears to the sad day they parted and turned away, and pitched their tent towards Sodom; when they began to love the world, forget their Bible, give up prayer, stay at home, or work or visit on the Sabbath, instead of going to the house of God. Their children have been brought up within sight of wickedness almost every day they have heard in the street, and at their father's door, the filthy talk of Sodom. I know they may have grieved over this; they may have tried to bring up their children decently; they may not themselves have taken part in all the wickedness around them;-but they have been friends with the wicked, and not friends with God; their children are companions with the children of Sodom, and will likely : REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE. 255 O mothers! how will ye marry among them, and share their doom. Remember, she was a religious professor. She was not a heathen. She was not a harlot. She was a decent woman, a dutiful wife, an affectionate mother, a kindly neighbour,-altogether, as we say, a most respectable woman. But she perished after all, with the very worst in Sodom. She did not flee when she was commanded; she did flee, but not far enough, not long enough,—she turned back unto perdition. Remember, she was brought up in a religious family, and had a pious husband. She had truly pious friends. She had a faithful God. Even when her husband was saved, and began to flee, she went a little way with him. Perhaps she went with her husband to warn her sons-in-law, and try to take them with her. O how many have I seen begin well, and end ill! How many have I seen zealous to save others with themselves, who have turned back and never been saved at all! Remember, she was graciously kept from much evil in Sodom. We are told that Lot's righteous soul was vexed in Sodom. Perhaps he would have left it long ago, if he had not become entangled with family ties. How little did the mother think, when she married her girls, that she was putting their hands into the hand of Death! After all, she could still be counted among those, that although in Sodom, were not altogether with Sodom. The misery was, she at last cast in her lot with them. Lot sinned, after all, as she never did; but Lot fled for refuge. What a difference between a lost sinner and a saved sinner! Remember, God sent deliverance, and she was ALMOST saved. The brand was plucked from the fire, but it burned notwithstanding, and was left to burn. "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian," is not nearly enough "I pray thee have me excused," is polite madness. Many get to the door of heaven, but not till it is shut. Remember, how she was lost. SHE TURNED BACK. What a conversion was that! Her face would not have turned to Sodom, if her heart was not there all the time. And yet how much could be said for her poor heart-yearning over her daughters and their husbands, and her little grandchildren, that she perhaps loved better than her own children! Yet the fire had no heart and no power to spare when it once reached her. Now in what direction are you turned? Where is your heart looking? Are you lingering on the way to heaven, and looking back? Remember Lot's wife. If she was not spared, why do you hope? There is no hope rightly held out till you are safe in the Refuge. Haste for your life; tarry not in all the plain. Escape to the mountain lest you be consumed. Remember, how desolate was her death. She was alone in her misery. Thousands perished in the same fire. Her children suffered the same death. But, O! each was alone. She could not run a step to them, nor they to her. Nothing was round her but the fire, boiling and hissing like a flood, and falling in thick, blinding showers like rain! And that judgment was eternal. No gospel has ever since been preached to her. Now this is a very solemn warning for you and me. We must not think that God forgets this city, or does not see the Sodom in it. The angels are now among us, gathering out every man, woman, and child that shall be saved. They are hurrying us to Christ—that eternal moun tain that looks down on Sodom with its safe refuge from all the fire. Will you run? Come with us. We will help you as we can. You are troubled, perhaps, with this word to-day; do not let it go. Do not get back into your old peace of mind, which is mere stupidity. Seek the Lord. Cry out for his salvation. "BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THOU SHALT be Saved, AND THY HOUSE.-Acts xvi. 31. QUOTATIONS FROM LIVING PREACHERS. . "IN HEAVINESS."-While the Christian is prospered outwardly, and contending with spiritual wickedness in high places, he comes suddenly, often, upon great and wounding disappointments, utter reverses, and turnings back of life. Sometimes it is in one's own person, in the form of sickness and pain; sometimes it is long uselessness, in which one is entirely dependent upon others. The natural man revolts at such a condition; but, regarded as the lot which Christ has chosen for him, how easy it becomes! Christ comes to the soul and says, "Wilt thou not take that lot and bear it for my sake, who gave it? Wilt thou not watch with me one hour? Wilt thou stand up in thy disappointments and exhibit my grace by thy contentment, until men shall say, Who hath given this man such power? Wilt thou, restless, zealous man, yield thy limbs to the crutch, or thy back to the pallet for months or years, and with such peacefulness, such gentleness, such patience, such heavenly conversation, such radiant hope, that men shall know of a surety that it is I that give thee such strange and blessed dispositions?" Sometimes Christ asks, "Lovest thou me more than these?" and if we answer, "Yea, Lord," he makes the heart rich by saying, "Feed my lambs! Keep them; fold them; feed them!" But again he comes and says, "Lovest thou me more than these?" Yea, Lord, thou knowest." Then he stretches forth his hand and takes away the lambs. Beware, O soul! thou art in perilous places! Now, with thy heart aching; now, with thy yearnings that burn like fires; now, with multitudes of memories coming back in suffocating crowds ;-now, what wilt thou say to thy Master? Now, when morning comes, but not the lark-like notes that used to waken thee; now, when every room raises remembrances, and fairy faces shine out from every corner and chair; now, when no hand any longer plucks the forbidden buds from the flowers, or carries tiny mischief to thy table or thy work; now, when every child's voice sounds in thine ear like a trumpet, and every little traveller in the street calls up a memory out of the grave; now, what wilt thou say to thy Master? Christ saith, "O my beloved one! dost thou not know me behind this affliction? Wilt thou not stand forth and let my grace so work upon thee that all men may see that I have delivered thee in this pass-that thy strength is not wilfulness nor sullen firmness, but that it is my hand beneath thee, my arm about thee, and my love within thee, that giveth thee this victory!" To whom the soul replies, "O Master, I can endure all things, if thou wilt go with me; but nothing, nothing can I bear, if thou leavest me!" * * * Or it may be that we have stored our life and garnered our heart in some companion. Out of loneliness we came into a harmony which made our daily life like a procession of music. Hours flew away, and days and years it may be, in a companionship which left nothing to be desired, and |