-i^^mi--::\ 
 
JOHN F. W. WARE, 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS WORK FOR THE FREEDMEN. 
 
 AN ADDRESS IN THE AFRICAN METHODIST CHURCH, 
 Charles Street, Boston, April ii, i8Si. 
 
 1 
 
 WILLIAM E. MATTHEWS, 
 
 OF BALTIMORE. 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY HON. JOHN D. LONG. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 Press of Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street. 
 
JOHN F. W. WARE, 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS WORK FOR THE FREEDMEN. 
 
 AN ADDRESS IN THE AFRICAN METHODIST CHURCH, 
 Charles Street, Boston, April ii, i88i. 
 
 WILLIAM E. MATTHEWS, 
 
 OF BALTIMORE. 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY HON. JOHN D. LONG. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 Press of Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street. 
 1881. 
 
 r 
 

 Ar the request of tlie officers nncl members of the Afric.i'i 
 Metluxlist Ejiiscopnl Chureh in Boston, ^Nfr. William E. Mat- 
 thews, of Washington, delivcreil an address in that ehunh on 
 the evening of Monday, the 11th of Apiil, <in the life and char- 
 acter of the late Mr. Ware. 
 
REMARKS OF HON. JOHN D. LONG.* 
 
 To those, and they are the city-full, who remember the 
 noble figure and the still nobler heart of John Ware, this 
 should be a very tender occasion, as it certainly is to us who 
 are here. His, too, was a noble ministry. Its early days 
 were spent among the sweet serenities and shades of Cam- 
 bridge, and its last amid the sweeping activities of this 
 great metropolis. But perhaps he looked back with most 
 satisfaction upon the work he did in Baltimore. There, in 
 the closing years of the war, he put out his whole heart and 
 strength in behalf of the integrity of the Union and the 
 education of the colored race, — chivalrous to strike from 
 their minds the shackles of ignorance as from their feet the 
 shackles of bondage. And could his wishes be now uttered 
 in our ears, I am sure he would choose for the occasion and 
 surrounding, under which his eulogy should be pronounced, 
 this quiet and unimposing gathering of friends, who knew 
 him and his worth, and this humble church in which are 
 wont to worship the representatives of that race to whom 
 he devoted his bravest years ; and for the orator, one of their 
 
 »At the request of the pastor of the church, His Excellency John D. Long, 
 Governor of the Commonwealth, took the chair. 
 
Rh:M.\J:KS OF J/O.Y. JOU.\ 1). LOXn. 
 
 color who was a co-worker witli him in Maryland in the 
 cause of education and liberty, and who is prepared to tell 
 the story of his service there by reason of having seen and 
 shared it. Such a one I have now the honor to introduce in 
 Mr. William E. Matthews, who comes hither from one of 
 the executive departments at Washington, and to whom you 
 will listen with the same sincere pleasure with which I at 
 once greet him .to a Massachusetts platform and present him 
 to a Massachusetts audience. 
 
ADDRESS BY MR. MATTHEWS. 
 
 Mr. President, — I come with glad feet, but a saddened 
 heart, from my home on the border, not for the purpose of 
 pronouncing a eulogy, or to give a cold, critical analysis of 
 the powers of head and heart of the good man gone, whose 
 loss we so much deplore, but rather to bring the sobs and 
 lamentations of a race he loved so well and served so faith- 
 fully, and to demonstrate that, however destitute we may 
 be of the higher possessions of intellectual gifts, we are not 
 poor in that loftiest and finest attribute of the heart, — 
 gratitude. And so, with fond and grateful recollections of 
 the good, grand man, who came to us in our hours of weak- 
 ness and need, I come to bring the tribute of a thousand 
 ransomed hearts. 
 
 And I am gladdened in the task I am about to assume by 
 a sort of consciousness that, shrinking from all parade and 
 love of praise as he did, this tribute from the poor and 
 humble, whose mental night he illumined by the radiance 
 of his helpful sympathy and earnest leadership and co-oper- 
 ation in all efforts for their amelioration, would not be en- 
 tirely unacceptable to him. But, before entering upon our 
 outline of the work of Mr. Ware in Baltimore, it would be 
 well for us, if we could, to catch the spirit of the times in 
 and around Maryland which preceded his coming. The 
 red glare of cruel strife had cast its baleful light all over 
 our land. The slave power had made one encroachment 
 
(j ./0//.V F. \V. \V.\i:i:, wo lUS \l'n/;K Fun the FnKF.hSfFS. 
 
 after anotlier on the liberties of the people, which had at 
 last culminated in the firing on Fort Sumter. Tlie miser- 
 able months preceding this act had been wasted in parley 
 and efforts at conciliation ; and even the North, instead of 
 a just and indjoiiant effort to meet the great issues in a 
 manly manner, had demoralized its people to a very great 
 extent by a weak and vacillating policy, so that, on Decem- 
 ber 10, 1860, the mayor of the great city of Philadelphia, 
 Alexander Henry, in the hope of winning back the seceded 
 States, and of retaining the trade, custom, and profits which 
 that city had hitherto derived from the slave-holders, for- 
 bade, in his official capacity, the lecture of Geoige Will- 
 iam Curtis, announced to take place that night. 
 
 Baltimore had been disgraced by the IS^h of April riots, 
 when 3our own Sixth Regiment was attacked b}- a mob as 
 they passed through our city, en route for Washington. 
 
 New York had its draft riots, when the Orphan Asylum 
 was pillaged and burned, and colored children brained 
 against the curb, and colored men hung to tiie lamp-posts. 
 Carnage and bloodshed at the South, and a seeming Reign 
 of Terror at the North. The city of Baltimore contained 
 a colored population of sixty thousand, one half of whom 
 were free. Freedom in any other country under the sun 
 meant something, but in Maryland it was the synonyme for 
 despotism and tyranny. For instance, it was a penal of- 
 fence for any one to teach a colored person to read or write, 
 so of course there were no schools. It was a penal offence 
 for any aspiring colored man to subscribe to any of the 
 great Northern })apers, such as the Trihune, for instance. 
 A free colored man could not walk the street after ten 
 o'clock at night, even in a case of mercy or dire necessity, 
 without a jHMinit from the mayor. But, as most of the 
 
ADDRESS B Y MR. MA TTUE WS. 
 
 policemen, or watchmen, as they were called, could neither 
 read nor write, I remember, with a malicious delight, how 
 those of us who could read, got around them by either writ- 
 ing our own passes, or showing them, on demand, scraps of 
 letters or receipts or any odd bits of paper we happened to 
 have, which the Hibernian guardian of the peace and dignity 
 of the State would take, — and us with it, — to the nearest 
 lamp-post, hold it, in many cases, upside down, and, after 
 duly inspecting it, tell us in the most authoritative and 
 official tone, " All right, pass on." What quiet chuckles we 
 would have ! And then, if one desired to have a few friends 
 spend an evening, or attend a wedding or what not, it could 
 only be done by a permit from the mayor, coupled with the 
 obligation of feeding as many " watchmen " as chose to come 
 upon us. The}^ held that any number over three, besides 
 a man's household, was an " unlawful assembly." While 
 charged first-class fare, we were not permitted to ride in 
 first-class cars ; but the most cultured gentlemen and refined 
 ladies were compelled to ride in the smoking-car. In travel- 
 ling from Baltimore to Harrisburg, the Hon. Ed. W. Bly- 
 den, now Secretary of State for Liberia, and recently Minis- 
 ter Extraordinary to the Court of St, James, was compelled 
 by the besotted brakeman of the train to leave the passen- 
 ger-car and take his place in the baggage-car, and find a 
 seat as best he could, on box, bag, or trunk. But I think 
 the most pitiable feature of this sad picture is, that these 
 minions of the law never felt humiliated in the mean work 
 they were called upon to perform, but rather gloried in it, 
 and prided themselves on the number of insults they could 
 heap on a defenceless people. 
 
 The colored people of the city and State, as well as 
 the white Unionists, were in a sad plight. The outlook was 
 
g JOIIS F. \V. WAllE, AND UIS WORK FOR THE FREKVMEX. 
 
 cloudy and cheerless, and the leaders seemed to be paralyzed 
 by a condition of affairs they could neither comprehend nor 
 defeat. It was, indeed, our night of utter darkness, with- 
 out a star in the sky uj)on which to fix a hope ; when the 
 black laws brutalized our manhood, when the teachincr of 
 the Bible was enacted into a crime, when humanity was 
 determined not l»y largeness of heart or greatness of man- 
 hood, but by the poor and pitiable standard of color, when 
 God's image was exposed in the public marts, when beauty 
 was hawked amid shameful jests for unholy puiposes, and 
 when we seemed bereft of God and all good influences, and 
 plunged into a 
 
 " Hopeless, helpless broken ness of heart." 
 
 Tempest and passion ruled the hour. Secession and State 
 rights were the false gods the people worshipped. ( )ne 
 after another had the great States of the South trampled 
 on their Constitutional obligations, and seceded from the 
 Union. South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, and our 
 near neighbor, Virginia, all had gone ; and a great and des- 
 perate effort was being made, not only by the rebels in 
 these States, but by the rebels in our own State, to win 
 Maryland from her allegiance to the Union. And it cannot 
 be denied that tliere was a large majority of her people 
 favoral)le to the South, who would have liked to join their 
 destinies with her, when uprose one of the bravest and 
 most resolute set of men that the country or the ages have 
 ever produced. Dauntless, enthusiastic, and courageous 
 was this handful of loyalists that held Maryland true to 
 the Union, when the mad waves of sectional strife would 
 have washed her into the vortex of secession. It was a case 
 
ADDRESS BY Ml!. MATTJIEWS. 
 
 9 
 
 of life or death. No half-way measures were to be tolerated. 
 Heroic treatment was the only treatment ; and these men 
 were brave enough to follow out the logic of their con- 
 clusions by the great act of State emancipation, which pre- 
 ceded general emancipation by some months. And thus 
 was Maryland taken out of reach of the South, and placed 
 unalterably on the side of the free States, and all this for 
 freedom's sake. 
 
 " For what avail the plough or sail, 
 Or land or life, if Freedom fail V " 
 
 This movement was led and guided by one of the bravest 
 leaders, grandest hearts, and finest intellects that our country 
 has known, who died while the warm dew of early manhood 
 was yet on his fair brow, — Henry Winter Davis ; while 
 the rank and file was made up of a peerless band of men, 
 who, undaunted by threats and una wed by numbers, dared 
 to defend the right as God gave it to them to see the 
 right, — John A. J. Cresswell, William J. Albert, Hugh L. 
 Bond, Archibald Sterling, A. W. Biadford, C. C. Fulton, 
 R. Stocker Matthews, John C. Turner, Henry Stockbridge, 
 John P. Kennedy, Charles Cochran, Jr., John L. Thomas, 
 and the great-hearted Sebastian F. Streeter, who literally 
 gave his life to the cause of the Union. 
 
 You will be glad to know, my fellow-citizens, that the 
 loyal citizens of Baltimore, not forgetting the prominent part 
 played by Mr. Streeter in upholding the Union cause and 
 giving sympathy and help to the soldiers of the Union as 
 they passed through our city on their way to the war, have 
 erected, in our beautiful " Greenmount," a fine monument 
 to his memory. 
 
 These formed the nucleus of that little band whose influ- 
 
IQ JOIIX F. \V. WAlilCASD IllS WOItK FOR TUE FREEUMES. 
 
 ence swept the State, and by its act so amended the Con- 
 stitution as to proliibit tlie holding of slaves, and thus 
 emancipated the people by its own free will, — the only case 
 of the kind, I think, during the struggle in the South. This 
 was the condition of affairs which awaited the coming of 
 John F. W. Ware. And at once did he throw his great 
 energy into the cause of the Union, the cause of Freedom 
 and Education. 
 
 Into this desolation of heart, this hopeless strife, and the 
 tightening bands of inevitable conditions, came this great- 
 hearted man. Like John the Baptist crying in the wilder- 
 ness, but preaching a doctrine of life and hope and joy, and 
 proclaiming from pulpit and platfoini that humanity was 
 everywhere substantially one, — one in nature and one in 
 wants ; and that, however different we may seem to be, — 
 different iu aspect, culture, aspirations, thought, and work, — 
 we are, nevertheless, one in the final analysis of our being, 
 one in the facts and principles that lift us from the animal 
 and make us human ; and that, in studying the facts outside 
 of ourselves, the facts of law, of nature, and of morality, 
 we find them uniform and everywhere the same ; and that, 
 therefore, the same gospel and the s'ame plane of thought 
 that was good for tlie highest was also good for the hiwest, 
 if there be any lowest among God's children. And, when 
 his preparations had been completed on this basis, he de- 
 voted himself to it as the object of his life ; and, once in hot 
 pursuit of his end, there was no withholding of his resources. 
 With his great heart open to the wants and needs of the 
 people, he poured out all the energies and talents and high 
 qualities he possessed, determined to go forwartkwith un- 
 shrinking persistence till the last unsolved problem had 
 yielded its secret; while his clear aim, securely grafted iu 
 
ADDRESS BY Mn. MATTHEWS. 
 
 11 
 
 his will, gathered all his powers, and with Titanic zeal con- 
 quered every obstacle. And neither could anxieties, uncer- 
 tainties, nor the most powerful opposition of j)uhlic opinion 
 swerve him from the fixedness of his purpose. 
 
 Of his life in Boston and hereabouts, of the prominent 
 places he filled, not alone in the pulpit, but in the charities 
 and all movements for the public weal, you well know. I 
 come to speak of a phase of his life and labors of which 
 I fear you of Boston know too little. 
 
 You know of his grand patriotic work for the soldiers in 
 tent, field, and hospital ; of his sermons in summer at our 
 beautiful Druid Hill Park, where thousands of all climes, 
 tongues, colors, and conditions, would hang on his words 
 as Jie outlined some grand thought in a way which was as 
 charrming and captivating to the simple as to the educated, 
 on ,'noble living, high thinking, or passionate devotion to 
 one's country ; of his theatre-preaching in the winter nights, 
 when he would for week after week hold his audiences of 
 two thousand spcllbouiul, from the newsboys and shoe-blacks 
 who sat in the "gallery of the gods " to the solid merchant 
 or eminent judge who sat in the orchestra chairs. 
 
 All this you know. But I am not so certain that you 
 know that to the colored people of the city and State he 
 was our William Lloyd Garrison, because he was an eman- 
 cipator, our Horace Mann, because he was an educator, our 
 Dr. Howe, because a philanthropist, our Father Taylor, be- 
 cause a simple preacher of righteousness, and our John A. 
 Andrew, because an inflexible patriot. All this he was; 
 and I might also add a Charles Sumner, for statesman he 
 was also, greater and braver than many who hold seats in 
 the great hall at Washington. 
 
 In the shots fired on Sumter, he foresaw a tragedy which 
 
■^2 yc//y.V /■. ir. ir.l/i-A', A.\U HIS work for the fUEtlUMES. 
 
 was not only to end in tlie breaking of chains, but which 
 was to throw upon the country four millions of people who 
 were to be educated and niouMed into tlie form and fashion 
 of American citizens. 
 
 And of all the great names of the Unitarian body, so rich 
 in the record of those who have been a blessing and a light 
 to m}' race, I know of none who has so intimately and \w\- 
 sonally identified himself with the race, and whose presence 
 was such a joy and benediction as Mr. Ware. In their sim- 
 plicity, the colored people learned to love this lai'ge-brained, 
 large-hearted man, who, under a seemingly blunt exterior, 
 possessed a heart so loving and tender, so sensitive to all 
 forms of want and woe, so true to its own ideal of duty, and 
 so loyal and faithful to the manifold duties and opportuni- 
 ties which pressed him on all sides during his sta}' in Bal- 
 timore. And in saying this I am not unmindful of the 
 magnificent service of Dr. Channing, of the sturdy work of 
 Samuel J. May, Dr. Furness, Theodore Parker, and other 
 warm and tender names which are enshrined in our mem- 
 ory. Mr. Ware would come to our churches, preach in our 
 pulpits, speak in our schools, visit our houses, bury our 
 dead, perform the maniage ceremony, when asked, and all 
 with such a manly grace and teiuUr interest that we began 
 to know and love him as tenderly as we did our own Bishop 
 Payne; and he did all this with no air of condescension or 
 patronage, but with the same manly earnestness which would 
 have characterized his movements in his own great church 
 at Charles and Franklin Streets. He never came down to 
 the people, but seemed to have the power to bring the 
 people up to the serene and elevated level on which he 
 stood. He neither leaned toward their prejudices, on the 
 one hand, or for a moment humored their superstitions, on 
 
ADDRESS BY MR. MATTHEWS. 
 
 13 
 
 the other; and it is a marvel how easily he succeeded in 
 getting his lofty thoughts down into the hearts and con- 
 sciences of the most humble. I am not wise enough to give 
 you tlie secret of his power, but think that it must have 
 been in his great simplicity of style, in his downright ear- 
 nestness, and, above all, in his great heart, which ran out 
 with an untiring sympathy to help and uplift the people. I 
 think he was possessed by that grand utterance of Paul, as 
 proclaimed on Mars Hill, that God of a truth " has made of 
 one blood all the nations of men, to dwell on all the face 
 of the earth." 
 
 But I think the crowning glory of his life in Baltimore, 
 and one in which he took, I think, the most pride, was his 
 connection with the "• Baltimore Association for the Moral 
 and Intellectual Improvement of the Colored People," 
 which he himself justly describes as one of the "romances 
 of the war." He was not only one of the organizers of this 
 brave band of men, but its chieT light and benefactor ; and, 
 next to the score or so of men who held Maryland true to the 
 Union in the dark and tempestuous days of the war, there 
 is, perhaps, no brighter galaxy of names in the annals of that 
 haughty State than the little band who planted the first 
 seeds of thought and culture in the heads and hearts of the 
 one hundred and eighty thousand colored people of that 
 State. And may I not be permitted to pay a sort of " march- 
 ing salute," as I proceed, to these men, or, if not to them, to 
 their memories, for not a few of them have passed to the 
 other shore, from labor to reward? First must come at the 
 head of the column the name of John F. W. Ware, then 
 Judge Bond, William Needles, Francis T. King, Galloway 
 Cheston, Dr. James Gary Thomas, Richard M. Janney, John 
 T. Graham, George A. Pope, George B. Cole, Rev. Fielder 
 
14 
 
 .tons /•'. ir. WARE, ASD HIS work for the freedmes. 
 
 Israel, David Creamer, Rev. Mr. Bruce, and a Jewish rabbi 
 whose name 1 have forgotten, with others. 
 
 The work seemed to employ his every leisure thought ; 
 and his cheerful face and encouraging voice were greeted 
 with love and gladness in the schools of his dusky friends, 
 as he visited them from day to da}-. On went the noble 
 work, and he with it, until, after a year or two, we find Mr. 
 Ware assisting in the opening of the colored Normal School. 
 But it would be best to give you his estimate of this work 
 from his own i)en, which I find in your own Boston Tran- 
 script of June, 1873 : — 
 
 Immediately after going to Baltimore, I was asked to join a little band 
 of Maryland born and bred gentlemen, who had associated themselves in 
 a " society for the moral and educational elevation of the colored people." 
 I have always looked upon tliat little organization as one of the romances 
 of the war, and wish that some worthy historian would make its record 
 public. Without a dollar or any known friend, iu a hostile community, 
 these gentlemen resolved to do something for a people emancipated by 
 State edict prior to the great war measure of Abraham Lincoln. They 
 had lived with and understood " the colored people" ; and all their plan 
 and policy were different from, and better than, what first obtained in 
 the other States where the work was done from without. 
 
 With the minimum of help from the citizens, against social, political, 
 church opposition, the first schools were started in the city ; and with the 
 aid, mainly, of the Xew Kngland Freednian's Association, the " Friends" 
 of England an<l Ireland, and such help as some of us were able to bring 
 from the Xorlh, the work went on until there were nearly two hundred 
 schools in both city and State, outranking white schools of the same grade. 
 The city schools, specially, were in charge of the best teachers that could 
 be obtained from the Xorth, and were carried on upon the most advanced 
 Northern plan. It seems like a dream,— the bitter prejudice and opposi- 
 tion we encountered, the more than indifference of Northern men and 
 women, the timidity of the clergy, the hostility of the churches. We 
 only got notice of our doings into the leading paper of the city, at last, 
 
ADDRESS BY MR. MATTHEWS. 
 
 15 
 
 by paying advertising rates. That paper has since claimed to be the 
 pioneer in advocating the cause of colored education ! Driven in part 
 by the condition of our finances, after a year or two, we petitioned the 
 city council for help, attending their sessions by committee and in a 
 body, and finally obtained for two consecutive years, I think, a grant of 
 $10,000 per annum, for the use of the city schools, upon the distinct 
 ground, taken and allowed, that this was but a partial refunding of a tax 
 levied upon the colored people and paid by them for Ihe support of the 
 public schools for many years, from which their own children were ex- 
 cluded. The city of Baltimore has its separate public-school system, in 
 no way related to that of the State. Of the State, we received nothing. 
 
 Having gained so much, the next step was to get the city to take the 
 schools themselves under their own charge, and place them on the same 
 footing with white schools of similar grades. Eventually, this was done. 
 We ceased from our labors, and surrendered everything to the city ; and 
 since then it has maintained these schools and opened others, but, as T 
 have always heard, not at that point of excellence they had attained 
 under our oversight, and not carrying out the understood arrangement as 
 to grade. I am away from papers and from friends to assist or correct 
 my memory ; but my impression is that the present movement with regard 
 to the colored schools, of which I have seen brief mention, relates to the 
 establishment not of i^ublic schools, but to grading the schools estab- 
 lished. They are now hardly more than primary. 
 
 I felt during and after the war how much injustice was done and how 
 much prejudice was kept alive by mistakes of fact to the disadvantage of 
 one or the other section, which obtained circulation and credence through 
 the press. Therefore have I spoken. There was never a more gallant 
 or hopeless struggle than that initiated by that little knot of Maryland 
 radicals, and few victories have been more decided or valuable than that 
 they obtained. They lifted the manhood of the negro as well as en- 
 lightened his mind ; they went into his home; they cared for his morals 
 and his family. They would not work for him, but wherever he would 
 w^ork for himself they helped him. No school was opened, except the 
 people asking, through their own. organization auxiliary, contributed 
 something toward its maintenance ; and there were no men so much sur- 
 prised and gratified at results obtained as those who had grown with an 
 enslaved race, and had first given the hand of fellowship and the sympa- 
 
Jg JOHN F. W. WAHE, ASU llln WORK FOR THE FKEEUMEN. 
 
 thy of honest good-will. It is, I think, the only instance in which the 
 work was begun and managed by those " to the manor born." 
 
 SwAMPSCOTT, June 20, 1873. .i. f. \v. w. 
 
 Few i)eople can now or could then, in tlie North, realize 
 the difficulties and discouragements surrounding this work 
 in a hostile community, where only a few years before it 
 was a penitentiary offence to teach a negro. 
 
 Of this hostility to the woik, I had myself an experience 
 in which, had the design culminated in success, I should not 
 now have t^e honor of standing in your presence. Happen- 
 ing to have business in the lower part of the State, I was 
 requested by Mr. Ware to stop at Denton, Caroline County, 
 and see what could be done to plant a school. I arrived on 
 Saturday, and at the church service the next morning it was 
 announced that I would speak in the evening. A large au- 
 dience was present, including not a few whites, the sheriff 
 and an influential Quaker being of the numl)er. I spoke at 
 length on the changed condition of affairs, tlie duty of the 
 newly emancipated class to fit themselves for their new 
 duties and responsibilities, and how by industry, frugality, 
 and education they might hope to succeed. The people 
 came forward promptly, and gave of their means for the 
 support of the teacher. At the close of tlie meeting, sev- 
 eral of the more influential whites came forward and spoke 
 to me most cordially, thought that my advice to the col- 
 ored people had been most wholesome, and invited me to 
 repeat my talk the next evening, when they would have a 
 larger number of their own class present, who they thought 
 needed to know of their duties in the new condition of af- 
 fairs also. 
 
 On the appointed evening, while sitting in my room pre- 
 
ADDRESS BY MR. MATTHEWS. 
 
 17 
 
 paring my notes for the contemplated talk, my host rushed 
 in, armed with a gun in one hand and an axe in the other, 
 saying in the most alarmed manner, " O Mr. Matthews, you 
 must not go out of the house to-night. The poor whites 
 of the town have heard that you are here to establish a 
 nigger school, and they say they will kill you. I have just 
 been to the church, and they have already begun to assem- 
 ble with shot-guns and clubs. I put them off the track by 
 telling them that you had gone to Darlington, but they may 
 find you are here. They will have to come up these stairs 
 single file ; and, if we are to be killed, we will sell our lives 
 dearly. Here, which will you take, the axe or the gun ? " 
 I was not prepared for any such emergency ; and, night hav- 
 ing closed in, I thought I would go out and make a survey 
 from behind the bushes, and there I saw a dozen or more of 
 rowdies, marching the street and cursing the man who had 
 come to plant such dangerous seed. The steamboat " Cham- 
 pion " left the dock for Baltimore at five in the morning, 
 while they were sleeping off the stupor of their night's 
 debauch. It is needless to say that the second address was 
 not made. A week later, I received a letter from my Quaker 
 friend, congratulating me on my escape, and telling me that 
 there was no doubt that, had I been apprehended, I should 
 have been massacred. Such was the condition of the aver- 
 age sentiment in the State concerning emancipation and 
 education. 
 
 So bitter was the prejudice that even in Mr. Ware's own 
 church objections were raised to his urging the work. For 
 a long time, not a Methodist minister in that city had pluck 
 enough to come forward and give a helping hand to the 
 cause. 
 
 A circular was addressed to the ministers of every denom- 
 
18 
 
 Joiiy F. ir. \y.\i:i:, axo iiih wohk rrm riii: fiu:i:i)Mkx. 
 
 ination in the cit}', asking them to take up contributions on 
 Sunday in their churches for the cause. How many re- 
 sponded to this appeal, think you ? Outside of the two or 
 tliree already mentioned, if I remember rightly, only one, 
 and ho a Jewish rabbi. Would you believe that so afraid 
 were the ministers that it was found difficult to secure one 
 to preside at the first anniversary of this society, held at 
 the Rev. Fielder Israel's Independent Presbyterian church ? 
 The house was crowded with the people, but there was a 
 marked absence of the "cloth." 
 
 But Mr. Ware went on working at home, and enlighten- 
 ing his friends North as to the work. Schools were opened 
 by the society, by means of its collections at home and dona- 
 tions from Boston and other places, headed by Mrs. Ste- 
 venson and Mrs. Cheney, and through (Quakers and others 
 in England and Ireland. Many thousand dollars were col- 
 lected by his efforts ; and the work went nobly on, he visit- 
 ing almost daily some school, to examine and encourage 
 teacher and pupils. 
 
 Mr. Ware, in his ministry in Baltimore, labored under 
 many disadvantages. Unitarians are there looked upon as 
 infidels, mockingly called by the people " onbelievers." 
 His old church was cold and cheerless, a bad place for such 
 a spirit as bis; and he chafed under the restraint of the old 
 r6gime^ that seemed to govern it. But, when he beeaine 
 unfettered, and was left to do liis Master's will in such a 
 manner as was to him wisest, then came forth the hidden 
 force that was in him. In the hall of the Masonic Temple, 
 he preached many of his best practical sermons, filled with 
 love, charity, and sympathy with bis fellows, to crowded 
 houses of all nationalities and religions. There were black 
 and white, Jew and (xentile. There he opened up to liis 
 
ADDRESS BY MR. MA TTIIE WS. -[ Q 
 
 hearers their every-day life, filled with sympathy for their 
 trials. He seemed to be able to go down into the very 
 depths of their previous week's life as no other man could. 
 
 There was nothing of the beautiful oratory of the man 
 that usually draws the crowds. His sermons were matter of 
 fact, every-day existence, but delivered in peculiarly persua- 
 sive words and tones that made you feel a friend was talk- 
 ing to you. The magnetism was so great in him that soon 
 the hall, though a large one, had to be superseded by the 
 large building known as Ford's Opera House. 
 
 Here flocked to hear his persuasive but manly voice im- 
 mense crowds. One instance of many, about his preaching, 
 I remember to have heard. It was that of a Jew, a con- 
 stant attendant at his church, who one day stopped on the 
 street Mr. Jno. T. Graham, an active and warm friend and 
 a parishioner of Mr. Ware, whom he recognized as an offi- 
 cial in the church, and said, "Sir, will j^ou tell me how 
 Mr. Ware's church is supported '? " and, when informed that 
 it was by voluntary subscription, answered, " Well, sir, 
 here are <|50 toward it, and when 5'OU want more come to 
 me." And he added, "Did you ever hear such preaching? 
 What is it that draws one there ? Do you know, it is the 
 hardest preaching to live up to I ever heard, but one can't 
 help trying. I manage to live up to it until Wednes- 
 day night, but Thursday morning the Jew. will crop out." 
 " Then Mr. Ware ought to have two Sundays in a week," 
 suggested Mr. Graham. 
 
 Mr. Ware preached right at you, in such a brotherly way, 
 not scolding and menacing and fault-finding, as is the custom 
 in many of our pulpits. He preached also in our parks, 
 and held little meetings in halls, where he got near the 
 people, and made them feel good toward their Go'^ and 
 fellow-man. 
 
20 ^OnS F. W. WARE, AXD HIS WORK FOR THE FREEDMEX. 
 
 But his preaching was only one good part of him. His 
 work told, for he was always finding poor, weary souls, who 
 needed him : the}' not only got the kind and cheering word, 
 but, when satisfied of their honesty, he was ready to give 
 substantial help. Some men, I am told, called him cold 
 and unsympathetic. They knew him not. The people of 
 Baltimore who were not afraid of Unitarianism being 
 dragged down to a common humanity level, who did not 
 think it was a religion only for the rich, knew him as a 
 genial, open-hearted, generous, but straight up and down 
 friend. Any who think him cold and unsympathetic or 
 unyielding should go to the people who knew him, where 
 he was free to work as his Maker directed. Go to the one 
 rich man of his little church, now passed beyond his four- 
 score years, ask him of Mr. Ware's character, and he will 
 tell 3^ou, — A firm and ready friend. Go to the poor, infirm, 
 and crippled, who hobbled every Sunday to drink in his 
 words, go to those who worked with him, and they will tell 
 you that, after his embarrassment of first acquaintance wore 
 off, no more genial companion could be found. 
 
 Mr. Ware was as sensitive and as appreciative as a child 
 to any consideration offered him, for 
 
 ^ " Tlio bravpst are the teiiderest, 
 
 The loving aio the daring." 
 
 One of the most helpful and important labors was his 
 connection with the missionary and educational work of 
 the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Seeing for himself 
 the noble work tliis oruanization was doing in the religious 
 and educational advancement of its two hundred and fifty 
 thousand members in the South, he became interested in 
 their work, and through his interest secured the influence 
 
ADDRESS BY MR. MATTHEWS. 
 
 21 
 
 of Rev. Edward E. Hale, Rev. Dr. Bellows, the late Rev. 
 Charles Lowe, and others. So it is that for quite fifteen 
 years the Unitarians have been helping to spread the gospel 
 of right living and education through the channels of this 
 church by gifts of books to its ministers and educational 
 institutions, by money to aid in the support of preachers 
 and teachers in places where the people are too poor to sus- 
 tain such influences, and in the support of a regular course 
 of scientific lectures to the students at Wilberforce, by the 
 professors of Antioch College. Mr. Ware was on the most 
 cordial terms with Bishops Payne and Brown of this 
 church ; and, in a note recently received, Bishop Brown thus 
 speaks : — 
 
 The death of Mr. Ware is a great loss to me and our cause. I ma'de 
 his acquaintance in 1867. From that time, he has been our ardent friend. 
 He often visited our churches and conferences, and did much to bring 
 our work before the American Unitarian Association and denomination, 
 which brought thousands of dollars to our work in aiding the freedmen 
 in pious habits and education. In company with Rev. Dr. George E. 
 Ellis, he visited our conference at Washington, in ]May, 1868, and, at a 
 similar conference of his church, held at the Church of the Messiah, New 
 York, in the fall of 1868, it was mainly through the efforts of Mr. Ware 
 that a committee was formed who organized a number of libraries. Mr. 
 Ware and myself were appointed to see to the distribution of these books, 
 and to do other joint work in the South. No one can tell the good this 
 reading matter has done. Many of our best ministers of to-day were 
 quickened to higher ideals and manlier work. He wer exhibited the 
 most intense interest in our efforts at doing good. He largely aided the 
 Museum of Natural History at Wilberforce, which bears his name. 
 
 This church is to be congratulated on the spirit which 
 prompts this memorial meeting, holding, as it does most thor- 
 oughly, to its own peculiar views and tenets, but yet broad 
 enough to acknowledge the Christ spirit in a man who 
 
22 JOUX F. »'. WAliE, AAO HIS WORK fOU TJIE FPkEEDMEX. 
 
 worked on anotlier line, but leading, let us trust, to the 
 same great end, — the upbuilding of man and the glory of 
 God. 
 
 The aspiring nature of the soul, the continued longing 
 and seeking after truth which will not put up with anything 
 short of conviction, is one of the most hopeful signs of the 
 vitality and faithfulness of the religious sentiment in man. 
 And so the conviction is at last borne in on the mind that 
 religion is greater than any particular form of it, and does 
 not depend for its existence upon our conceptions, but our 
 deep and eternal need of it. 
 
 And, surely, if religion be what we think it is, the greatest 
 fact in the universe, there should be weapons enough in the 
 arsenal of the gospel to put to flight its strongest foes, and 
 to estaljlish deep and broad its reign in our hearts and in 
 the world. 
 
 But I hasten to a close. And how shall I close, — with 
 vain regrets at the loss of a life so useful and exalted, or 
 ratiier by thanking God for the example of such a life ? 
 
 A noble life ended, a noble work performed ! His majes- 
 tic form we can no longer see, and his kindly voice we can 
 no longer hear ; but his memory is to those wlio knew him a 
 strength and inspiration which will impel us to the attain- 
 ment of that higher manhood, that wider usefulness, and 
 that broader charity, which he so nobly represented. 
 
 In the great cathedral of St. Paul in London may be seen 
 a tablet in honor of the architect and builder of that stu- 
 pendous structure, Sir Christopher Wren, upon which is the 
 inscription in Latin : — 
 
 Reader, dost thou seek his monument, look ap.out 
 
 YOU. 
 
ADDRESS BY MIt. MATTIIE WS. 
 
 23 
 
 And so, my fellow-citizens, if you would look upon the 
 monument to John F. W. Ware, come to Maryland and 
 "look about you," at the happy faces of the forty thousand 
 children, as they merrily wend their way in city and town to 
 the hundreds of schools which now dot the State ; at the 
 rapid advancement of an enlightened public sentiment; and 
 at the regard for law and order, the dignity and self-respect 
 with which these new citizens carry themselves. This bear- 
 ing recently evoked from His Honor Judge Pinckney this 
 most hearty and generous compliment, — that, while the col- 
 ored people of the State form one-fifth of the population, 
 their misdemeanors and crimes, as compared to the whites, 
 is less than one-sixth. Look at their progress in material 
 development and wealth, which amounts to over ten millions. 
 
 O good friend gone ! thy work and faith and love were 
 not in vain, but have brought forth a most rich and abundant 
 harvest in a race who have grandly learned the hard but 
 useful lessons in the alphabet of life — industry, energy, 
 honesty, promptness, frugality, patience — and in all the ele- 
 ments which lead to a well-ordered and dignified life. 
 
 Farewell, noble and great-hearted man ! When the histo- 
 rian of the future shall write broadly and candidly of the 
 times in which we live, and the struggles of a poor and ill- 
 used people upward from their house of bondage and out- 
 ward from their dark night of ignorance, side by side with 
 Channing and Parker and Garrison and May will "appear in 
 characters of living light the name of John Fothergill Wa- 
 terhouse Ware, the admiration of the American people, and 
 an inspiration for the cause he so earnestly espoused and so 
 magnificently served. 
 
/ 
 
 
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