They had no
necessary fellowship with the unfortunates. They were under no
especial obligation to them. They were not of the same family. It was
even doubted whether the races had a common origin. And yet, to the
end of securing release for these wretched victims of an intolerable
oppression, not a few of them dedicated all they possessed--life not
excepted.
True it is that they had no monopoly of benevolence. Many noble men
and women have gone as missionaries to the poor and benighted, and
have sought through numerous hardships and perils to raise up those
who have been trodden in the dust. But, as a rule, their services have
been rendered pursuant to a secular employment that carried financial
compensation, and behind their devotion to the poor and oppressed has
been the expectation of personal reward in another world, if not in
this. But such motives barely, if at all, influenced the
Abolitionists. No element of professionalism entered into their work.
They were not particularly religious. They neither very greatly
reverenced nor feared the Church, whose leaders they often accused of
a hankering for the "flesh-pots" that induced them to lead their
followers into Egypt, rather than out of it.
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