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FAREWELL DINNER 
 
 FRANCIS ELLINGWOOD ABBOT, 
 
 ON RETIRING FROM THE 
 
 EDITORSHIP OF "THE INDEX," 
 
 AT 
 
 Y0UNG:S hotel, boston, JUNE 24, 1880. 
 
 FULL REPORT OF THE SPEECHES, TOGETHER WITH 
 
 NUMEROUS LETTERS FROM ABSENT FRIENDS 
 
 IN AMERICA AND ENGLAND. 
 
 J 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 PRESS OF GEO. H. ELLIS, loi MILK STREET. 
 
 1880. 
 

CONTENTS, 
 
 THE DINNER. 
 
 Page 
 
 Circular of Invitation e 
 
 Address of the Chairman, Rev. C. G. Ames 6 
 
 Response of Mr. Abbot lo 
 
 Speech of Rev. Rowland Connor . . ' 14 
 
 Speech.of Dr. P^dward Wig(;lks\vorth ...*..' 19 
 
 Speech of Rev. William J. Potter 21 
 
 Speech of Rev. George Batch elor 24 
 
 Speech of Dr. Carl H. Horsch 28 
 
 Speech of Mr. S. H. Morse 23 
 
 Speech of Uriel H. Crocker, Esq 31 
 
 Speech of Rev. W. H. Spencer 32 
 
 Closing Words of the Chairman 34 
 
 THE LETTERS. 
 
 From Rev. John C. Learned 3^ 
 
 From Rev. Edward C. Towne 36 
 
 From Mr. C. D. B. Mills ^j 
 
 From E. W. Meddaugh, Esq 39 
 
 From Rev. Charles Voysey 40 
 
 From Gen. Robert J. Turnbull 41 
 
 From Prof. Ezra Abbot 41 
 
 From ex-Judge E. P. Hurlbut 42 
 
 From Mr. George William Curtis 43 
 
 From Rev. Henry W. Bellows 43 
 
 From Prof. William T. Harris 43 
 
 From Rev. Moncure D. Conway 44 
 
 From Prof. Felix Adler 45 
 
 /"fd^ 
 
 1 
 
4 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 THE LETTERS.— (CoH^muecl) 
 
 From Rev. John W. Chadwick 46 
 
 From Hon. Frederick Douglass 47 
 
 From Mr. John L. Stoddard 47 
 
 From Rev. David A. Wasson 48 
 
 From Rev. Robert Collyer . 49 
 
 From Rev. MiNOT J. Savage ' 49 
 
 From Mr. Oliver Johnson 50 
 
 From Prof. Francis E. Nipher 51 
 
 From Rabbi Max Schlesinger 51 
 
 From Mr. B. F. Underwood 52 
 
 From Mr. Charles K. Whipple 53 
 
 From Prof. Adolph Werner • • • • 53 
 
 From Rev. Samuel Longfellow . 54 
 
 From Mr. George J. Holyoake 54 
 
 From Mr. Charles Watts 55 
 
 From Mr. Nathaniel R. Waters 55 
 
 From Mr. Lewis G. Janes 56 
 
 From Mr. Charles M. Cuyler 56 
 
 From Mr. E. B. Welch 57 
 
 From Mr. William Green 57 
 
 From Mr. R. W. Emerson, by his Daughter 58 
 
THE DINNER, 
 
 The origin of the flattering testimonial of regard which 
 was tendered to Mr. Abbot by his friends on quitting his 
 editorial post, and which took the form of a Complimentary 
 Dinner at Young's Hotel, Boston, on June 25, is sufficiently 
 explained by the following circular : — 
 
 Boston, Mass., May 17, 1880. 
 Dear Sir: — 
 
 With the last day of June next, the connection of Mr. Francis E. 
 Abbot as editor of The Index terminates. We who, like so many 
 others, have been interested in the success and influence of that 
 paper, who have observed how intimately blended with it have been 
 Mr. Abbot's life and efforts for the ten years of its existence, and who 
 have been warmly attached to him under the spell of his strong, manly, 
 yet beautiful character, desire now to give him the honor and his many 
 friends the pleasure of a social meeting and a dinner. The suggestion 
 is a purely friendly and voluntary one on our part, and Mr. Abbot is as 
 yet quite ignorant of the matter. 
 
 Rev. M. J. Savage has consented to preside at the dinner, and we 
 hope to make the occasion one of rare enjoyment. We sincerely trust 
 that you will find it convenient to attend, in anticipation of which we 
 request you to send a note of acceptance to Mr. J. A. J. Wilcox, 
 8 Pemberton Square, Boston, Mass., as soon as possible. 
 
 The meeting and dinner will be at Young's Hotel, Boston, on the 
 25th June, at 6 P.M. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 m. j. savage. 
 
 wm. j. potter. 
 
 f:. wigglesworth, m.d. 
 
 F. V. BALCH. 
 
 H. K. OLIVER, Jr., M.D. 
 
 CHAS. E. PRATT. 
 
 J. A. J. WILCOX. 
 
 In response to this invitation, about fifty gentlemen 
 assembled at Young's at the time named, and after about 
 an hour of agreeable social converse sat down to a banquet 
 
6 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 prepared with all the taste and elegance for which this 
 well-known hotel is noted. Among those present were 
 Rev. George A. Thayer, Alexander Foster, J. F. Barrett, 
 S. P. Lord of Lynn, Seth Hunt, J. L. Cutler, Dr. A. 
 Alexander of Dorchester, David H. Clark, John Curtis of 
 Grantville, James Dillaway of Somerville, S. D. Bardwell 
 of Shelburne Falls, N. T. Allen of West Newton, F. H. 
 Buchanan of Amesbury, Charles Ellis of Essex, H. P. 
 Hyde, S. S. Green of Worcester, George W. Park of Cam- 
 bridge, Frederick Beck, the Rev. S. H. Winkley, J. A. J. 
 Wilcox of Chelsea, H. W. Wellington and Cornelius Well- 
 ington of Lexington, Charles Nash of Worcester, George 
 H. Ellis, Dr. Aldrich of Fall River, John L. W^hiting, D. G. 
 Crandon of Chelsea, John C. Haynes, the Hon. S. E. 
 Sewall, William H. Hamlen, S. B. Weston of Leicester, 
 Mass., T. L. Savage, George R. Taber, Charles W. Storey, 
 Joseph H. Allen, Dr. Edward Wigglesworth, U. H. Crocker, 
 and others. 
 
 The Rev. Charles G. Ames, editor of the Boston Chris- 
 tian Register, presided. After the play of knife and fork 
 had about ceased, he rose, called the company to order, 
 and spoke as follows : — 
 
 ADDRESS OF THE CHAIRMAN. 
 
 There is a point beyond which eating ceases to be vir- 
 tuous ; yet our banquet is not at an end, — the best is to 
 come. We are to serve up a live man. We are all canni- 
 bals to-night. Confucius says, " All can eat and drink ; but 
 only a few can distinguish the flavor." Precisely because 
 we think we can distinguish the flavor, we are ready for the 
 next course of this entertainment, and every mouth waters 
 for Abbot. [Applause.] 
 
 As to the Chairman that has been put upon you for the 
 evening, the question has been raised whether he might not 
 be found in the position of the old German soldier in Penn- 
 sylvania, who fought in the American Revolution, and who, 
 after being warmed up a little more than I have been, was 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. / 
 
 brought forward on a Fourth of July to tell stories' of the 
 war. ''Did you ever see Washington ?" they asked. "Nein, 
 I never seen Vashington." ''Why, how was that.?" "Oh, 
 I vos on de oder side." But, without pretending to any 
 harmony of opinion which does not exist, I cannot admit 
 that, in all the recent controversies, I was "on the other 
 side." I hold it forever true that all honest men agree in a 
 sense ten thousand fold more serious than their differences, 
 and that, in standing for simple honesty, they are forever 
 under the same flag. And we are not here to-night to fight 
 over old battles, nor to rake open the embers of former con- 
 troversies. We are here to pay a tribute to personal worth, 
 because we believe in it and recognize it. Others will speak 
 of Mr. Abbot's work: let me speak of himself. I want to 
 use him as an argument for religious faith. Some of us, 
 who hold fast to the old-fashioned notion that there is a God 
 in Israel and in the universe, are very glad to find any sign 
 of His presence in the human race, any evidence that He 
 has been here; and what better proof can there be of the 
 higher wisdom and goodness than to find a sample of it, 
 some share of wisdom and goodness, in human form ? The 
 hardest point to get round in the theistic argument is to 
 explain why such a father as we take God to be should have 
 such a family as we find ourselves to be. We manage this 
 difficulty by taking it for granted that His children are not 
 brought up yet, that they are still in early infancy ; and so, 
 by following out the general conclusion to which evolution 
 points, our faith finds rest in joy and hope. And when we 
 light now and then on an honest and a faithful man, with 
 clear eyes in his head, we are ready to say, This is the kind 
 of crop God means to raise ; and it is well worth His while 
 to make a world and run it for a few millions of years for the 
 sake of such a harvest. 
 
 The test of virtue is in soldierly qualities, — in loyalty and 
 capacity for resistance. In Francis Abbot, we honor a 
 gallant soldier, — a man who has shown the courage of con- 
 viction and of fidelity under fire, the highest, finest form of 
 courage, tested by subtlest exposure. We honor, also, the 
 
8 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 poise and self-possession which help a man to keep his head 
 amid moral contradictions and confusions, and, like the old 
 classic heroes, "not to be frightened by the snorting of the 
 horses." [Applause.] We have seen this man in the excit- 
 ing conflict of opinions. When has he ever betrayed any 
 concern for himself which qualified his concern for the tri- 
 umph of truth ? Who ever knew him to deal a foul blow or 
 to use a poisoned weapon } The sword-cuts from an honest 
 soldier's blows bring their own balsam ; and who would not 
 rather bear the smart and stanch the Ijlood of fair and square 
 fighting than wipe away the beslavering of cowardly flattery 
 and pretended friendship ? 
 
 Our gathering is something more than a reunion of those 
 who have contended on the same side in recent controversies : 
 it is a recognition of qualities which are praiseworthy wher- 
 ever they appear, on every side of every question. The 
 exchange of civilities between those who agree costs little and 
 means nothing : the exchange of civilities between those who 
 differ is one of the finest influences of the world, and is a 
 power for uplifting society out of its debasing bigotries. 
 When rebel and Yankee pickets exchanged tobacco across 
 the lines, humanity spoke above the clangor of arms, and a 
 pledge was given of the ultimate restoration of the Union. 
 
 But this occasion represents something still better than an 
 exchange of signals between men who differ ; for we honor 
 to-night a soldier of universal principles, — a man who has 
 a right to look around on the world without confronting a 
 single enemy, for he has never given up to party what was 
 meant for mankind. He has never thought it necessary to 
 purchase peace, nor harmony, nor fellowship, at the cost of 
 liberty or truth, because he looked beyond conflict to the 
 time when the victories of righteousness would bring endur- 
 ing peace. 
 
 I see in Mr. Abbot a passionate lover of truth and a pas- 
 sionate hater of lies. John Stuart Mill once said of the 
 English, "They never feel safe, unless they are living under 
 the shadow of some conventional fiction, some agreement to 
 say one thing and mean another." Is not this insincerity the 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 9 
 
 disease of society and of Christendom ? But, if any institu- 
 tion wears a mask, it has never seemed possible for Mr. 
 Abbot to keep his hands off. He is a born moral detective. 
 Such service has its own peculiar peril, since a man runs the 
 risk of becoming suspicious. There are ugly faces, — some 
 of us come by them honestly; and I think he may sometimes 
 have gone for an ugly face, imagining it to be a mask. But 
 such a mistake is an indirect compliment to the Eternal 
 Beauty, which his faith affirms has a right to shine out 
 everywhere in God's universe. I think this instinct of the 
 moral detective by divine appointment goes far to explain 
 many points in his history. He is quite unable to look on 
 human affairs with indifference, and quite unwilling to look 
 off from such affairs. 
 
 Despite his professed renunciation of Christianity, I have 
 actually caught him conforming to that precept of Jesus, 
 "Call no man master, neither be called master"; for he is 
 as averse to wearing the title as he is to conceding it. And, 
 by warrant of another Christian principle, I feel authorized 
 to pronounce that he is entitled to the applause of mankind. 
 He is greatest who is servant of all; and, as Emerson says, 
 " He serves all who dares be true." 
 
 But it is not my wish to monopolize the evening or its 
 topics : there will be enough to say, and enough to say it. 
 It is not eas/ to predict just where the lightning will strike, 
 and I advise every one in the room to hold himself ready to 
 respond or to run. 
 
 This is my contribution. The enemy of frauds and shams 
 is every man's friend ; the champion of purity is the defender 
 of eyery household ; the student and teacher of universal 
 principles is the servant of all mankind ; and the man who 
 puts his life behind those principles is the "King of Hearts." 
 As such, we salute him, and crown him with our love. God 
 bless him ! [Applause.] 
 
10 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 RESPONSE BY MR. ABBOT. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, — It is hardly fair to make a man officiate 
 at his own funeral. I came here to be decently buried, and 
 it was my chief ambition to conduct myself like a well- 
 behaved corpse; and here you bring me up the first thing, 
 and inform me that I am to be barbecued alive, which is a 
 species of cannibalism not in order with corpses. [Laughter.] 
 It is not easy to try to joke, gentlemen ; I confess I feel very 
 much touched, at the exhibition of kind feeling which has 
 come to me just now, when I am making a very marked 
 change in my life, leaving an occupation to which I have 
 given a decade, and going into something new, I hardly 
 know what myself. You all step forward kindly, and with 
 warm hands and warmer hearts and friendly eyes shake my 
 hand, and bid me God-speed on my way. There is no doubt 
 that your kindness comes to me with peculiar power just at 
 this particular period in my life ; and I can but thank you in 
 all sincerity, with all the warmth of reciprocity, and assure 
 you that the friendship which you here show to-night goes 
 right straight home to my heart. At the same time, I find 
 something in me refusing to accept this banquet as a merely 
 personal act of kindness. We have all of us been drilled in 
 the idea of avoiding man-worship, and steering clear of 
 everything that looked like i' ; and it makes me feel so 
 strange to be here, receiving a complimentary dinner, that I 
 seek refuge from the very thought of it, and feel sure that 
 what has really brought you together, my friends, is some- 
 thing that is very much larger than F. E. Abbot. Many of 
 you I have never even met before to-night ; some of you, 
 perhaps, I have met but seldom ; others are old, long-tried, 
 and very dear friends. Now, it is very evident that there 
 must be something more than any mere personal qualities of 
 mine to bring persons here who never knew me, never 
 touched my hand nor looked in my eyes. There is some- 
 thing more in it than just myself. If there were not some- 
 thing more, I could not deem myself quite an honest man to 
 sit here, Mr. Chairman, and take what you have been saying 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. r ' J,> II 
 
 to me. I think that this demonstration is an expression of ; 
 moral support in the hard warfare that I have had to 'fight 
 for two or three years back to vindicate the existence and / , 
 reality in this world of an honorable liberalisni. [Applause.]. , ^ 
 If it is not that, if that is not the real meaning of this 
 gathering to-night, I shall go home, for one, sadly disap- 
 pointed. I do not pretend to be wholly without vanity, 
 but I have not got enough to accept this demonstration 
 with eyes entirely blinded. I know perfectly well it means 
 something more than any mere personal qualities can call 
 forth. I take it, therefore, as g.n expression of your support 
 in the very difficult task which has fallen to me in these 
 late years ; and I count it, therefore, as something more 
 than of value to me. It is of value to your cause, it is of 
 value to this community, that you here show that I have 
 not been utterly alone in the conflict I have had to wage. 
 To make this plain is of vastly more importance than to 
 pay compliments to any man's record. To show the world 
 that there is a strong longing among liberals themselves for 
 an honorable liberalism, just, upright, and pure, — that is a 
 public service which may well compensate you for the labor 
 and the trouble of preparing this sumptuous feast. I hope 
 that all who may hear or read of this gathering will so con- 
 strue it, and that they will say: "It is not true that Abbot 
 was alone. There were many friends who sympathized with 
 him, though they had no way of expressing it publicly or 
 collectively ; and it appears now that they did in their hearts 
 value the principles that Abbot stood for." [Applause.] If 
 that is the meaning of this gathering, I feel that it will ac- 
 complish a good purpose, and be of great moral benefit to 
 our common cause. 
 
 I do not think that anybody who has been in a situation 
 other than that of an editor, in these recent years, can ex- 
 actly or fully understand the overpowering necessity of this 
 seemingly personal contest. I think it is true that some of 
 my own friends have suspected me of having had after all, 
 ^at the bottom of it, nothing more than a personal feud. As 
 if it were anything to me what other papers said or what 
 
12 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 other editors did, — as if I cared the snap of my finger for 
 the merely personal record of men who have nothing in 
 common with me ! I think that even some of my own per- 
 sonal friends have supposed that I was personally mortified 
 and hurt at not being re-elected to the presidency of the 
 National Liberal League two years ago. I have no doubt 
 they did : that is the way men often judge each other. I 
 doubt if it is easy for Americans to understand how one can 
 go forward and say : '*! nominate myself for this office. I 
 offer myself as candidate, and solicit your votes, and ask to 
 be elected." I don't believe thdt many people can under- 
 stand how a man can do that, and yet not care at all, person- 
 ally, for the office he seeks. Yet that was done : that was 
 the truth of it. The cause of enlightened and pure-inten- 
 tioned liberalism demanded representatives at that time, and 
 it demands them still ; and I look abroad with anxiety to 
 find men willing to take up this work of defending a pure 
 and upright and enlightened liberalism against the perfect 
 avalanche of the sham. The world needs them to-day more 
 than ever; and, I assure you, I don't run out of this fight 
 voluntarily. If it were not a necessity thrust upon me, I 
 would stay in this fight till I dropped dead in my tracks 
 rather than abandon it; but there is no help for it. 
 
 Now I want to show you one little proof of this call to 
 defend liberalism that I have spoken of. I hold in my 
 hand a page torn out from the latest number of Scribner s 
 Monthly, for July ; and I want to read you one little sentence 
 from it, to show you the pressing public necessity of just 
 such work as The Index has been doing the past few years. 
 This is what Dr. Holland says : — 
 
 " The great majority of the infidels of this country are heart and soul 
 with Bennett." [By infidels, he means liberals.] "They have openly 
 and blatantly confessed themselves to be sympathetic with the free-love 
 doctrines of the man whom they have undertaken to make a hero and a 
 martyr of. The Index makes one mistake. Mr. Bennett has not trans- 
 formed his aiders and abettors in the infidel ranks into men and women 
 like himself. He has only furnished them an occasion for the expres- 
 sion of their opinions and sympathies. He is not a man of such intel- 
 lectual force and mao^netic influence that he has been able to draw the 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 13 
 
 great majority of infidels in the country after him, but he has been able 
 to show, or rather the country has been able, through him and the sym- 
 pathy manifested for him, to see, that the prevailing infidel sentiment of 
 this country is impure to the last degree, and is not to be trusted with 
 any social interest or with any political influence whatever. The safety 
 and purity of society rests, as it always has rested, with the believers in 
 and professors of Christianity. The purer influences among the ' Lib- 
 erals,' as they delight to call themselves, have been formally and effect- 
 ually voted down." 
 
 The Index did not make the mistake here attributed to it, 
 but I must sadly confess the substantial justice of Dr. Hol- 
 land's conclusions from his premises. That is the kind of 
 record which liberalism has been to all appearance making 
 for itself by the inaction, by the silence, of those who ought 
 to have rushed to my side and upheld with me the public 
 standard of a pure and sagacious liberalism. It has been a 
 very unfair representation of liberalism that has been given 
 to the world for the last two or three years, but I cannot 
 blame Dr. Holland at all for his scathing criticism. He has 
 drawn logically correct inferences from the only facts before 
 him ; for the convictions of pure liberalism have failed to 
 assert themselves publicly. Yet if it is true that the lower 
 type of liberalism has got enough energy and self-assertive- 
 ness to come forward and declare itself to the world emphat- 
 ically, squarely, strongly, while the better type of liberalism 
 is too feeble to make any such self-assertion, too :^eble or 
 too wanting in public spirit, I think that Dr. Holland is 
 substantially right, and that the liberalism of this country 
 will go down before the overwhelming condemnation of the 
 people. Let us try to rescue liberalism from such re- 
 proaches, really undeserved, yet justified by our own apathy, 
 as these of Dr. Holland. He is a fair man ; he does not 
 mean to misrepresent at all, or to pervert ; he has argued 
 honestly from the facts he has seen. And it behooves us 
 now to give public expression, in every possible way, to that 
 higher and nobler liberalism which has purity, honor, truth- 
 fulness, justice, and integrity at heart. [Applause.] 
 
 That is the reason, gentlemen, why I value this demon- 
 stration. It pleases me as a man : I tell you sincerely, it 
 
14 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 goes right home to my heart; but it pleases me more 
 that, as a representative of the liberalism you approve, you 
 should be moved to give me the right hand of fellowship on 
 quitting my post. I take it to be a certification to th^ world 
 that your sympathies have been with me in the work I have 
 been doing. I know we are here Unitarians and Non-Unita- 
 rians, and I rejoice to stand with Christians, with Catholic 
 and Protestant Christians alike, for justice and purity; and 
 I will always do so. These things are more precious than 
 our little differences of theological opinion. When it comes 
 to the salvation of that on which all society rests, the sanc- 
 tity and purity of our homes, then I say all good men must 
 join hand to hand and stand shoulder to shoulder, and make 
 common contest for the preservation of that which makes 
 life most worth living. [Applause.] And so I sit down as 
 I rose, thanking you much, as I must and do, for the kind- 
 ness of your expression to me, but a great deal more for the 
 expression you have here given of your sympathy with that 
 which is dearer to me than even myself. [Applause.] 
 
 The Chairman then read letters from Messrs. Samuel 
 Longfellow, Charles D. B. Mills, E. W. Meddaugh, and 
 others, printed below, and called upon Mr. Connor to speak. 
 
 • ADDRESS OF REV. ROWLAND CONNOR. 
 
 It seems to me that the phraseology with which our pre- 
 siding officer began this evening is somewhat unfortunate. 
 He spoke of a barbecue, which necessitated, of course, the 
 introduction of a corpse. Then Mr. Abbot went beyond 
 that, and proposed to have a flineral ; and, if we keep along 
 in the same direction, we must go beyond the funeral. The 
 only way in which I can do that is to follow the lesson which 
 the ancients gave in telling us that every feast needed its 
 skeleton. 
 
 Mr. Ames. — I thought you were coming to the resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. I 5 
 
 Mr. Connor. — No: the dry bones of the skeleton precede 
 the resurrection. The resurrection will keep for somebody 
 else. The skeleton I would introduce at this feast is this : 
 that I am not very hopeful with reference to the future of — 
 what shall I say here, with Free Religionists and Unitarians 
 and I know not what else around me.^ — I will say simply 
 with reference to the future of liberalism in theology. It is 
 easy enough to be hopeful in this presence, where the line 
 of thinking moves in one direction, — easy enough to be 
 somewhat buoyant in spirit, after listening to such words as 
 we have listened to, both in the speeches and in the letters 
 which have been read to us ; but, when we go away from 
 here, and, forgetting those whose faces we have seen and 
 words we have listened to, forgetting the letters that have 
 been read, look at the real facts of the world, I do not think 
 that any one can be very hopeful. The world is. not yet 
 ready for freedom in religion ; it is not yet ready for liber- 
 alism in theology ; it is not yet ready, I think, to take philos- 
 ophy as the guide of life, although our friend Abbot asks us 
 all to take it for a guide, — I mean the world as a whole. I 
 believe that the world is a rather discouraging place to live 
 in, unless we are willing to face the discouragements fairly 
 and squarely. In this way only can we afterward recognize 
 and ascribe due weight to what is encouraging. The world 
 will not rid itself of superstition for a long time to come. 
 All over Europe we can observe the influence of supersti- 
 tions from which we are glad to fancy we have freed our- 
 selves ; all over the Asiatic continent there are innumerable 
 superstitions of which we scarcely know the name, and 
 which certainly that portion of the world is not yet ready to 
 discard. Pass from Europe and Asia to Africa, — that really 
 new continent which has been recently introduced to us, 
 with its teeming millions and fertile lands, destined to pro- 
 duce more and more millions of inhabitants, — and ask the 
 question. What is to be the condition of the people of that 
 continent.^ We are told that the negroes there are being 
 converted to Mohammedanism with wonderful rapidity ; and 
 they are being converted to Roman Catholicism, to various 
 
l6 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 superstitious forms of Christianity; and these superstitions, 
 which are destined doubtless to assist in carrying them 
 a long step upward in progress, will require, nevertheless, 
 hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years before they can be 
 wholly thrown off. We know that the barbarians came 
 down from the North and overthrew the civilization of old 
 Rome. Who will dare to prophesy concerning the over- 
 turnings that may yet come to our modern civilization, to 
 our most advanced theological and philosophical ideas, from 
 the superstitions which are still in the world, and are appar- 
 ently all powerful in the world to-day? 
 
 This is my skeleton, Mr. Chairman ; and I believe in look- 
 ing at the skeleton, whether we admire the appearance of 
 the bones or not. Mr. Leslie Stephen, in a recent number 
 of the North American Review, in a very excellent article, 
 somewhat pretentiously entitled " The Religion of all Sensi- 
 ble Men," — an article somewhat cynically phrased, perhaps, 
 but a very readable article, nevertheless, — says, in substance, 
 that we cannot tell by what superstitions we may be yet en- 
 gulfed. Take any one of the old-time philosophers of two 
 thousand years ago or nearly that, and put him, as some of 
 them doubtless were put, face to face with the philosophy of 
 Marcus Aurelius, on the one hand, and the superstitions — I 
 think I may use this word to this company — of St. Paul, on 
 the other hand, and ask him which would triumph, and he 
 would sneer at the fancy that the theology of the fanatic 
 would win the day; and yet it did. And hardly after two 
 thousand years have we so rid ourselves of the superstitions 
 of the fanatic (I am not speaking of the true things he 
 taught, but of his dogmatism, his visions) that we can ap- 
 proach Marcus Aurelius with unprejudiced mind, — that we 
 can go back to the old-time philosophy, and recognize its 
 superiority to the theology which triumphed over it. The 
 lesson of two thousand years ago may again come true here 
 in our own country. We like to believe that we are very 
 clever fellows, that philosophy is running full sweep here in 
 America. And yet, even if it be so, some other things are 
 running full sweep also ; and some of these other things are 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 1/ 
 
 more powerful, practically considered, than philosophy. The 
 average intelligence of the American people is not greater 
 than the average intelligence of the Athenians two thousand 
 years ago, is not so great, I believe ; and yet they were 
 swept into nothingness. I do not believe that we are to be 
 swept into nothingness ; but I do believe, and my point is 
 simply this, that America to-day, intellectually, is not in a 
 condition to throw off old-time superstitions, is not ready to 
 make philosophy the guide of its life, is not yet ready for 
 the profoundest truths of liberalism in theology. 
 
 As an illustration of my meaning, consider for a moment 
 what the bulk of our people are going to do during the 
 coming four or five months. Two excellent men, Garfield 
 and Hancock, have just been nominated for the presidency 
 by their respective parties. xA.nd now we are going to lend 
 ourselves to a great hurrah and controversy, which will roll 
 from one end of this country to the other. We are going 
 to spend our strength in talking, talking, talking. We will 
 gather in political meetings. We will hire bands and listen 
 to their playing. We will march through the streets ; and 
 we will print buncombe speeches. And after it is all over, 
 after an immense expenditure of time and money and 
 strength, who will be one bit wiser than he is to-day re- 
 garding the respective merits of Garfield and Hancock.? 
 Nobody. Now, a people that can lend itself to anything so 
 puerile as that is not a remarkably intelligent people ; it is 
 not a people, I mean, ready to make philosophy the guide 
 of its life, not a people yet ready to rid itself altogether of 
 religious superstition. I believe that one chief reason of 
 the early growth of Christianity is the fact that it gathered 
 within its embrace the prevailing sentiment of the era in 
 which it was born : it took the good and the bad together, 
 and therefore was adapted to the men then living. And, 
 similarly, I believe that the religion which is most powerful 
 here in America to-day, or which will become most powerful 
 in the time just before us, is the religion which is most in 
 harmony with a certain amount of superstition, which is not 
 yet purified, and which will not be purified to-morrow or the 
 next day. 
 
lis FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 Now, I am done with the skeleton. Let us clothe it with 
 a little flesh and blood, and give it a more cheerful counte- 
 nance. I am not hopeless. I am not discouraged, notwith- 
 standing these facts which I desire to face. Although I be- 
 lieve that the problem with reference to the religion of the 
 future is simply insoluble to-day, because we have not data 
 enough to predict what it may be, nevertheless, there are 
 some things which we do know, — we wise men, I mean, 
 who set ourselves up a little bit above the rest of the world, 
 and think we have gone along so far that we have earned a 
 right to call back to others and tell them something of the 
 nature of the road they are to travel. There is one thing 
 which we all can unite in trying to do, and that is to remove 
 morality from its close clinging to the superstitions of the- 
 ology. In the minds of the greater number of the people of 
 America to-day, morality and a certain kind of childish super- 
 stition, in matters of religion, are joined together insepara- 
 bly. If the one falls, they believe that the other will fall 
 also. It is a part of our work to do away with this great 
 nonsense, and that for which I honor Mr. Abbot more than 
 I honor him for anything else, — and sometimes I have not 
 agreed with his methods, however hopeful he may have been 
 with reference to them, — that for which I honor him more 
 than for anything else is the fact that he has striven to di- 
 vorce morality from dogmatic superstition, and to teach the 
 people of America that the two things were not necessarily 
 connected ; that the old superstitions might die, but the 
 purest of all pure moralities still remain. That is a work for 
 us all to engage in, friends, whatever we may call ourselves. 
 Free Religionists or Unitarians, or whatever else, — to en- 
 deavor to purify moral principles, to separate morality from 
 its old associations, and, by keeping it apart from them, 
 strive to deliver Americans from the superstitious dread, 
 now so prevalent, lest the decay of the old faiths necessarily 
 involves any lessening of noble aspiration or any lowering of 
 the standard of righteous living. I am not discouraged at 
 believing that I am only a unit in an enormous mass, for the 
 mass is made up of units ; and, if each unit does its best, the 
 
FAREWELL DINNER, 
 
 19 
 
 whole mass will come out right, — at least, the unit will have 
 done all that it can be held justly responsible for. I cannot 
 penetrate the future, and I do not even pretend to guess in 
 what way the religious future is coming out ; but I know 
 that, if we do what we can to keep the future morally pure, 
 we may safely trust the dogmatism to take care of itself, as- 
 sured that it will then take the least injurious form that the 
 intelligence of the times will permit. 
 
 Dr. Edward Wigglesworth was introduced by the Chair- 
 man as one who knew Mr. Abbot in boyhood, and enjoyed 
 the "Franking privilege" ; and he was asked to tell the com- 
 pany what he knew about it. He said : — 
 
 ADDRESS OF DR. WIGGLESWORTH. 
 
 I feel rather like a minnow among Tritons, to get up here 
 to say anything after the speeches you have already heard ; 
 and my only claim upon your favor is that to which the 
 Chairman has alluded. I first made the acquaintance of Mr. 
 Abbot at the Boston Latin School, when we were boys to- 
 gether. At that time, he was a member of one of the upper 
 classes ; but I remember the respect with which he was re- 
 garded, not only by the older members, but by the boys of 
 the whole school. Whenever Mr. Gardner wished to take 
 a little relaxation from his labors and would let some of the 
 younger boys recite to the older ones, there was always a 
 rush among them to get a chance to recite to Mr. Abbot, — 
 not that he was easy in his discipline, but there was such a 
 clearness in his explanations of the lessons that he always 
 made them interesting and instructive. When Mr. Abbot 
 graduated, — I say Mr. Abbot, although I am happy to enjoy 
 the ''Franking" acquaintance to which the Chairman has al- 
 luded, — he entered a class at Harvard, characterized now by 
 very remarkable men. I need only allude to Colonel 
 Stickney as one of them ; and perhaps the typical man of 
 the class was Mr. Abbot. I was not in that class, but had a 
 
20 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 sort of enU'^e into it, through several of my relatives ; and I 
 know that, among the very best men in it, he was regarded 
 as one of the best morally, and the finest intellectually, in 
 the whole class. I lost sight of him then for a great while, 
 going away myself for many years, till 'about nine or ten 
 years ago I returned, and heard of him in Toledo, as engaged 
 in the work in which you all know him, he having pursued 
 it ever since, being connected with TJie Index and fighting 
 in every way for the progress of truth and freedom and lib- 
 eral principles. At that time, he had practically forgotten 
 my existence, or nearly so ; and I wrote, recalling myself 
 to his mind. And since then I have had the pleasure, at 
 longer intervals than I could have wished, of meeting with 
 him in a more or less familiar way. I can only say that I 
 have thoroughly enjoyed and profited by that compan- 
 ionship. 
 
 With regard to the sentiments which have been advanced 
 this evening, as I am not at all a speaker (hardly ever made 
 a speech in my life), I do not say, ''unaccustomed as I am," 
 and so forth ; but I feel a little as the man did who was 
 stumping the State for himself, and was unable to make a 
 good speech. A very fluent and eloquent gentleman was 
 stumping for the opposition, and they were to make speeches 
 together one evening. The eloquent gentleman had made 
 a most brilliant peroration, setting forth every thing that 
 would be done, if the candidate he represented was elected, 
 and showing in every way the advantages that would accrue 
 from voting his ticket ; and at the end the other gentleman 
 rose and said, " Gentlemen, what that gentleman has said I 
 think." I entirely agree with what was written by Mr. 
 Mills, and cannot entirely agree with the jeremiad of our 
 friend Mr. Connor, although he endeavored to correct it sub- 
 sequently. I think that we have hope for the future. I 
 think the country is not quite ready yet for the fate which he 
 has served up for it : it is much as if the servant said, ''The 
 master is not ready for the dinner." Of course he is not, for 
 it is not ready for him. I think Mr. Abbot has transferred 
 his natural modesty with reference to himself, in some de- 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 21 
 
 gree, to the great ideas which he advances ; and I think that 
 he perhaps has not, and naturally has not, such confidence in 
 their immediate growth and progress as those who sit on the 
 outside. "The outsiders see the most of the game," as the 
 proverb goes. I think that his ideas are like the roots of 
 the tree Ygdrasil, which go down to the roots of every 
 thing, and which, although they have not yet reached much 
 above the ground, will overshadow the whole earth. This 
 is more than enthusiasm : it is a hope, and a hope which 
 I think is well founded. I had no idea, when I got up, of 
 saying as much as I have. It occurred to me, when our 
 Chairman spoke about serving up a man, that it might be 
 desirable to serve him up on toast ; and a little toast of a 
 better man than I, and in better words than I could use, 
 occurred to me at that time: — 
 
 " Yes : we know we must lose him; yet friendship may claim 
 To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame : 
 Though fondly at parting we call him our own, 
 'Tis the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. 
 
 As the rider who rests with the spur on his heel, 
 As the guardsman who sleeps in his corselet of steel, 
 As the archer who stands with his shaft on the string, 
 He stoops from his toil to the garlands we bring. 
 
 So fill a bright cup with the sunlight which gushed 
 
 When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed : 
 
 True prophet of freedom, our hearts hold him dear. 
 
 Love bless him ! Joy crown him ! God speed his career I " 
 
 In introducing Mr. William J. Potter, the President of the 
 evening said: *'The king is dead. Long live the king! 
 There is still to be an Index, and the late lamented shall 
 have a successor in our next speaker, Mr. Potter." That 
 gentleman then spoke as follows : — 
 
 ADDRESS OF REV. W. J. POTTER. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, — I think some of us who are in the habit 
 of speaking every Sunday, and oftener, might envy the man 
 who never makes a speech. I thought, sir, as I was hearing 
 
22 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 Dr. Wigglesworth, that certainly his was a most effective 
 speech ; and I wished that, at least, I might not come di- 
 rectly after him. I don't know, friends, how to speak to 
 you to-night. A banquet should be a joyous occasion; but 
 I cannot feel very joyous at this banquet, and I thought, 
 when we were coming into the room to-night, that we all 
 had a kind of melancholy tread, and a silence betokening not 
 a joyous occasion, but one necessarily somewhat saddened. 
 And yet I do not know as we ought to feel so. Of course, 
 there is the breaking of associations, and this I especially 
 feel. I cannot claim to have known our friend Abbot as long 
 as those whom the Chairman has alluded to, as having grown 
 up with him in his youth, and having therefore ''the Frank- 
 ing privilege" ; but I have known him and stood very close to 
 him through all these sixteen years that have been specially 
 the public part of his life. I first saw him during the famous 
 Syracuse Unitarian Conference, in 1866. Before that, I had 
 known him only through certain articles of his in the North 
 American Review and the Christian Examiner. It occurs to 
 me now (I believe I never made an acknowledgment to him 
 before) that from a certain article in the Christian Examiner 
 I cribbed a considerable portion, and used it in a sermon 
 [laughter], making, however, acknowledgment to my hear- 
 ers. I had not met Mr. Abbot then, but there was some- 
 thing in that article that brought him very close to my own 
 heart and my owii convictions, so that I found in its expres- 
 sion on a certain topic words that were more to my own 
 thought than any I could choose for myself. I have never 
 been able, however, to use the sermon since, because there 
 was a special confession of Christianity in it, and, I believe, 
 in that particular part that I quoted [laughter] : so it has 
 had to go to the bottom of the barrel, and I am afraid never 
 can be resurrected. At Syracuse, we met ; and yet I was 
 rather an observer than an actor in that contest. I had not 
 so much hope of Unitarianism or Unitarian organizations 
 then as, perhaps, our friend Abbot or some of the younger 
 men had. I was not born in that denomination. I do not 
 know how I got into it. I have known better how I got out 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 23 
 
 of it than how I got into it. [Laughter.] I think at that 
 time, after the war, there was apparently a kind of new birth 
 in the denomination, at least a struggling effort toward a re- 
 generation, so that more practical humanitarian works might 
 be taken up. I remember that the call for the first Confer- 
 ence in New York sounded like a bugle summons for a grand 
 humanitarian effort. I went to that Conference. I was dis- 
 appointed that, after all this bugle summons, there came out 
 only a little creedlet, that produced immediately a theologi- 
 cal discussion and very little humanitarian work. But it 
 was at Syracuse, the next year, where an attempt was made, 
 which has been mightier in its results than it was in itself, 
 to change the form of the original constitution so as to 
 strike out the objectionable theology, that our friend Abbot 
 made his debiU, really, into the field of theological conflict, 
 and it was there that I was drawn to his side. After that 
 battle, which ended in defeat, but in a Bunker Hill defeat, 
 there was a gathering of the forces in the minority, though 
 the minority was small ; and, before we reached our homes, 
 there seems to have been a kind of drawing together of 
 hearts, sympathies, convictions, on the part of those who 
 had been defeated, which finally culminated in the Free 
 Religious Association. 
 
 From that time, I have stood by the side of this friend 
 whom you have met to honor to-night, very closely, — our 
 hearts touching each other, — in seasons of joy and seasons 
 of sorrow ; and it seems to me to-night as if a friend with 
 whom I had been walking all my days as my twin compan- 
 ion were dropping away from me. And yet, friends, as I 
 said at the outset, we ought not, perhaps, to bring these 
 personal thoughts of sadness here, or to feel for our friend 
 who is going away to another vocation any sadness at all, 
 but rather to congratulate him that he is going out from the 
 turmoil of conflict into a sphere of life where his talents, 
 that are too fine to be wasted in this kind of contest and 
 abrasion, can be brought to bear more effectively for the 
 permanent welfare of mankind. [Applause.] And I be- 
 lieve, I cannot help believing, that in time that result will 
 
24 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 come. Our friend is going into the field of teaching. Dr. 
 Wigglesworth has just given a most excellent testimonial to 
 his capacity as a teacher. Those Latin School boys knew 
 very well where they were to find a good teacher, when they 
 competed with each other in order to get into his recitation- 
 room ; and I am sure that the boys who will come under his 
 instruction in New York (and I hope there will be a good 
 many of them) will find him to be the same just and fair and 
 vivifying and inspiring teacher and helper that the boys in 
 the Latin School found him to be. And I do not think that, 
 because he is going into that work, he is going into retire- 
 ment. He calls it, I know, ''retirement from public life"; 
 but it is utterly impossible for that man to retire from public 
 life. [Applause.] Even if he himself for a time shall not be 
 heard- of in the personal conflicts of battle over these old 
 questions, we shall hear of his work through some of those 
 boys whose ideas he is to train so that they will be shooting 
 into intellectual life, and who will before long be stepping 
 into the field of conflict in public life. And he himself, I be- 
 lieve, after a few years will be drawn again into other work, 
 — he cannot help it, the public will demand it, — he will be 
 drawn again into work which will satisfy his own best aspi- 
 rations, which we as his friends will be proud of, and which 
 will lift his name higher even than anything he has yet 
 done, noble as that is, and as beneficial as it has been for 
 mankind, — lift his name into a permanent place where it 
 shall shine among the intellectual stars in the firmament of 
 our American scholarship forever. 
 
 The Chairman read letters from Messrs. Learned, Savage, 
 Chadwick, Collyer, Curtis, and Bellows, and then called 
 upon Rev. Mr. Batch elor, of Salem. 
 
 ADDRESS OF THE REV. GEORGE BATCHELOR. 
 
 If I should speak, gentlemen, according to my feeling, I 
 should take the rest of the evening ; but, if I speak accord- 
 ing to the necessities of the case, I shall only occupy three 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 25 
 
 minutes. It is nineteen years since I have known our 
 friend. It would be impossible for me, in the time which I 
 may properly occupy, to tell all that I know about him, and 
 all that I have received from him. But you will see that I 
 have a peculiar claim to be here as his friend, when I tell 
 you that we were in the same theological class together ; 
 that, when I was ordained as a Christian minister, he gave 
 me the right hand of fellowship ; that we went together to 
 Syracuse, a week after my ordination ; that we were at the 
 same house ; that we went through that controversy to- 
 gether ; that I sympathized with my brother then. But we 
 divided ; and he went one way, and I went the other. He 
 became the editor of The htdex, and I became the Secretary 
 of the " National Conference of Unitarian and other Chris- 
 tian Churches." But we have stood together ever since as 
 friends, and more. I have sympathized with all his earnest 
 work, although I have not agreed with all his propositions. 
 I have doubted his premises, and therefore I could not 
 accept his conclusions. One great mistake which he made, 
 and which is illustrated by the speech of our friend Connor, 
 here to-night, I will take a moment to speak of ; because it 
 seems to me it illustrates not only principles, but the history 
 of jDrinciples. Also our friend Potter has referred to the 
 same thing. At the first convention, called fifteen years ago 
 in New York, by the Unitarians, it has been truly said that 
 there was a bugle call of freedom in the name of humanity. 
 Men were called upon to organize. The result was that 
 those who issued the call, and who had the cause at heart, 
 were defeated. That is true. They were defeated inside 
 the ranks of Unitarianism ; therefore, it seemed to some of 
 our friends logical and right that they should go outside, and 
 find outside this liberality which could not be found within 
 the organization. They went outside, and what was the 
 result } They issued their call, and they have been defeated. 
 That is to say, there is no such amount of liberalism within 
 the ranks of any Christian denomination, nor outside the 
 ranks of any Christian denomination, as to justify the ex- 
 travagant anticipations of a speedy success. There has 
 
26 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 been no great change in the world outside in these ten 
 years. There has been no going backward. The simple 
 fact is, they went outside, expecting to find there a paradise 
 of liberalism ; and they have found, scattered here and there, 
 a few faithful ones who would stand by the banner, and a 
 multitude who would not. I think the history is almost 
 identical within and without. 
 
 Now some of us said, *' We will stay where we are, and we 
 will be true to this proclamation, and we will stand by this 
 banner till we have made it possible for it to have fulfilment 
 in the place where we stand." And the years have passed ; 
 and to-day I profess that we have made advance toward that 
 standard, in the fulfilment of our professions. I have no 
 question whatever about the future. I have no doubt about 
 the future of liberalism : its principles are founded in truth, 
 and they are sure to prevail. When I came here, I under- 
 stood that we were to sink the "shop," and to come together 
 for a little good fellowship ; but I have found, since I came 
 here, that the "shop" would not be sunk, — that we had 
 come here really to celebrate it; and so I must have my 
 little word. 
 
 But, in regard to our friend, I have been in intimate 
 relations with him during all this time ; and, at this moment, 
 this is the one thing that occurs to me as being better than 
 anything else, as an illustration of his friendship : he is 
 almost the only man I know of who can tell me I am a blank 
 fool, without getting me mad. Now I value a friend who 
 can do that. [Laughter and applause.] He can tell me to 
 my face, when he thinks my arguments are folly, that "it 
 is discouraging to see" — and he does put in a qualifying 
 phrase, he does say, "it is discouraging to see — what argu- 
 ments an intelligent man can use." [Laughter.] He has a 
 habit of that sort. If he sees folly, he calls it folly ; and, if 
 he sees fraud, he calls it fraud ; and he doesn't exactly see 
 why it is that those whom he characterizes don't always take 
 it kindly. [Laughter.] He simply states these things as he 
 would any other fact in natural history : it is a part of his 
 science ; and it is not at all strange that other people, who 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 2J 
 
 don't understand him, think there is some rancor in him. 
 There is not a bit : it is simply cool, quiet, scientific state- 
 ment of fact as he understands it. And I am not a bit sorry 
 that he is going to get out of this business that he is in, for 
 this reason, — not because the cause of liberalism is by any 
 means too poor work for such a man to do : but, by this 
 plainness of speech, and by the pecuHar relations he has 
 come into with certain people, he has made it impossible for 
 him to use his best gifts. I had occasion to remark, when I 
 first heard of this change that was taking place, that St. Paul 
 — (I don't think our Brother Connor did him quite justice. 
 He said, speaking of his superstitions, that they had won 
 the world; that we hadn't got far enough away from the 
 superstitions of St. Paul to do Marcus Aurelius justice. The 
 fact is, we haven't got far enough away from St. Paul's super- 
 stitions to do him justice), — but Twas going to remark of 
 him that he was very proud of having, on a certain occasion, 
 fought with beasts at Ephesus ; but he didn't have any idea 
 of taking it up as a regular vocation. [Laughter.] I think 
 our friend has too good gifts to be wasted in that warfare. 
 Let the gladiators fight with beasts ; but he is not of that 
 sort, and he has not quite come to himself yet. There is a 
 poet in him that he is not doing justice to now. By and by, 
 when he gets into retirement, in the " still air of delightful 
 studies " that has been referred to, the poet and the good 
 fellow will come out again ; and I think that in the course o£ 
 ten years he will do far better work than he could do in any 
 controversy, in any contest, of this sort ; and I believe that 
 we shall all at last come into a substantial unity. We have 
 been divided in theology, we have been much united in our 
 philosophy : I am sure we are wholly united in friendship, 
 and I bid him God-speed. I am just as ready now, as four- 
 teen years ago, to return the right hand of fellowship, 
 which I think never has been taken back ; although in the 
 peculiar sense in which it was then offered it could not now 
 be given. [Loud applause.] 
 
 The Chairman read a long telegram from Dr. Felix Adler, 
 
28 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 and letters from Judge Hurlbiit, Rabbi Schlesinger, and Rev. 
 Mr. Voysey, of London ; after which he called upon Dr. 
 Horsch, of Dover, N.H. 
 
 REMARKS OF DR. CARL H. HORSCH. 
 
 I was with our friend in that first fight in Dover ; and ever 
 since he and I have, as we call it in German, ** Bruederschaft 
 getrunken," — drunk brotherhood together. Talent and schol- 
 arship, shrewdly and cunningly adapted to established con- 
 ditions, to the rules and notions of society, and used for 
 selfish ends, bring generally financial success and reputation 
 from the masses, but not from developed minds. A scholar 
 who advocates truth for the truth's sake, and is compelled by 
 his honesty to criticise the so-called prominent men, and 
 expose falsehood and wrong, has a hard task, because the 
 masseis do not understand him. The indifferent do not co- 
 operate ; and those who do or ought to comprehend and 
 appreciate his efforts like their easy and lucrative positions 
 too well. But we rejoice that a ten years' toil for the better 
 conditions of humanity, which our dear friend Francis E. 
 Abbot has carried out so well, finds more and more apprecia- 
 tion ; and, if evolution and progress do not cease, posterity 
 must yet accept and enjoy the principles which The Index 
 has pointed out, and which we sincerely hope it will con- 
 tinue to do. I therefore call our meeting this evening the 
 "Holy Supper of the Nineteenth Century" ; and I think, if 
 those good men, Socrates, Jesus, and others, were living, 
 they would be likely to be here with us. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. SIDNEY H. MORSE. 
 
 Having done ample justice to two dinners this afternoon 
 and evening, it may be supposed that I am pretty well 
 wound up, and ready for the emergency. But one may be 
 wound up in two ways : he may be wound up ready to go, or 
 so wound up he can't go. Whichever may be my predica- 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 29 
 
 ment at the present time, I can certainly say as much as 
 this : I am truly glad to come here to-night, and take part in 
 this *' Farewell, God bless you ! " to our friend. But I must 
 also say that my presence here does not mean a desire on 
 my part to indorse Mr. Abbot's course during the last three 
 years, nor for any particular year. I take him in the lump ; 
 and not because I have agreed with him in opinion, for I 
 have often found that I did not, and sometimes should have 
 liked to go and fight it out with him. But he has a way of 
 insisting upon reasons ; and it is not always easy to give a 
 reason. [Laughter.] So I have adopted with him the same 
 course which so well serves me with others from whom I 
 differ. In this evolutionary epoch, one cannot go far wrong, 
 if he begins by admitting what everybody says, and then 
 goes on with his own beliefs. [Laughter.] 
 
 I esteem Mr. Abbot as a man of convictions. I honor 
 him as an able and earnest worker. I like him because he 
 will say squarely what he thinks ; and tJiaty I take it, is what 
 we should desire of every man. We want a free and fearless 
 expression of convictions on all subjects that may arise for 
 our consideration. And we must remember also that no 
 question can be held to be so settled and sacred that there 
 may not be entertained in different rninds more than one 
 side. This is true not alone of theological or religious ques- 
 tions, but likewise of all social and moral questions. And 
 what is always needed is that all people shall freely give ut- 
 terance to their convictions, and also exercise the broadest 
 charity toward one another. So only can we get at fact 
 and truth. I have come to believe that there can scarcely be 
 an opinion so abhorrent to my own sense of right. but some 
 honest man may hold it. Truly, there is no accounting for 
 opinions. And now I am led to say that, if there is any one 
 thmg that may excite our fear, — and I am not given to fear, — 
 if there is anything we need to fear, it is this : that we shall 
 get so into the habit of saying "we" and **us" that we shall 
 not do justice to others who hold opposing views. It is the 
 partisan spirit that needs to be crushed everywhere. We 
 must not only listen to those who totally disagree with us in 
 
30 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 their intellectual convictions, but be as ready to respect and 
 honor them as if they and we were in closest harmony. If 
 there has been anything done helpful to theology, it is, I 
 think, the ^getting rid of a Deity who would cast into a hor- 
 rible place all unbelievers. We are taught that Deity is in 
 some way enshrined in mankind. Our friend Mr. Potter 
 has written of the "Divine Incarnation in Humanity," Now, 
 if we have indeed got a better Deity, — better because he 
 does not burn unbelievers, — and we are here to represent 
 that Deity in our own conduct, why, we ourselves must not 
 burn them. If we object to a hell for such offenders be- 
 yond, we must not make one here On the contrary, we 
 must so tolerate or appreciate all shades of conviction that 
 we can enter into the thoughts and feelings of all people, 
 and thereby be able better to judge of what they may say, 
 and so fairly come to understand one another. The great 
 mass of people, holding whatever opinions, mean to be hon- 
 est, and are honest. We must come together as man with 
 man, brother with brother, neither saying, *' I am holier than 
 thou," but each inviting the other, with " Come, let us reason 
 together." So only shall we get at the truth, and fitly serve 
 each the other. 
 
 Let me say a word in regard to what was said by friend 
 Connor. I was a little surprised at his speech ; and yet I 
 must honor him for making it, for that is the way he feels. 
 -If he had had two dinners, perhaps he would not have felt 
 quite that way. [Laughter.] I cannot think the country is 
 quite so badly off. I can't believe that even our Presiden- 
 tial contest, to which he looks forward without pleasure, is 
 going to be so miserable a failure in all respects. I don't 
 much care which man wins. That will not bother me. He 
 deprecates the wrangling and confusion, the hurrahing and 
 inconsequential strife. But there is this which all this tu- 
 mult will secure, — a wide-spread discussion of important top- 
 ics ; not merely on the stump, but it will be all the people 
 talking with one another, discussing the right and wrong of 
 things. Thus, whichever party or man shall triumph, an 
 educational process for all the people will be one of the 
 
FAREWELL DINNER, 3 I 
 
 results. I think there is a great principle lying somewhere 
 between the two parties. I am myself half Republican and 
 half Democrat. [Laughter.] I believe in centralization, 
 one way looking at it ; and I believe in extreme State rights, 
 looking at that in a certain way. There is a question herein 
 involved yet to be settled, — a great question, which lies 
 deeper than any merely political movement. It is a ques- 
 tion of the kind of civil life that shall prevail throughout the 
 whole country. We ask, What shall become of the country } 
 Shall the country be equal to its opportunity } Shall there 
 be room for all people to liveh^x^ and grow here, — for all, 
 every man and every woman, to be himself and herself, and 
 make the most of himself or herself, and the best } It is 
 not, I say, a question of political fortunes, but a question 
 involving the social life and growth of a great people. 
 
 Our friend does not hope for very much, at least in the 
 near future. I may say that I have ceased to hope ; and yet 
 I am not without hope or its equivalent. I don't hope that 
 this or that may happen. It really doesn't matter. I am 
 not cast down if it does not, nor am I greatly lifted up if it 
 does. For all the time I feel and know that there is some- 
 thing in the heart of the world that has got to come out of 
 it, and will come out, in due season. In short, the universe 
 has a meaning that must and will be expressed. The worlds 
 — we — are in the process. So it does not signify whether 
 the "millennium" come to-day, to-morrow, or a hundred or 
 a thousand years hence. It can't come any faster than it 
 can come. If I hadn't faith that this universe, this univer- 
 sal life, meant this successful evolution and achievement, I 
 would end all thought on the subject at once. But I have 
 the abiding, ever-present conviction that all this agitation, 
 all this work, and all these plans, — all the joys, sorrows, all 
 the manifold life we are passing through, — mean — in due 
 season — the blossoming of the flower of humanity. The 
 race can no more escape the achievement than it can escape 
 the life it has begun. 
 
 So, you see, while I do not have hopes, I am not without 
 hope, in what I believe to be the largest and best sense of 
 the word. 
 
32 FAREWELL DINNER, 
 
 And therefore I recognize in this work, in this Free Relig- 
 ious movement, in what our friend Abbot has achieved, in 
 what others have done, in what all have done and are doing, 
 good and helpful contributions. There was a time when I 
 was much disturbed because the Unitarians adopted for a 
 creed the '* Lordship of Christ." But I have lived to see 
 even their little creed become a dead letter. 
 
 Mr. Ames. — No! 
 
 Mr. Morse. — No } The very presence of our friend here 
 on this occasion testifies that it is so. [Laughter.] 
 
 Well, this was an entirely impromptu speech. Thoreau 
 used to say that it takes a long time to make a thing short. 
 [Laughter.] Perhaps if I had been better occupied during 
 the day, I might have made it shorter, and have told you 
 what I feel and think better than I have done. One word 
 more, and I will stop. Let everybody say as he thinks, and, 
 whether what he says be right or wrong, it won't matter ; for 
 if only the Spirit of Truth lead, it will guide into all truth. 
 It is not of so much consequence whether you or I speak 
 the truth to-day, but whether we try to speak it. Every one 
 so trying, with charity and free toleration of one another, 
 instead of dividing more and more into cliques or sects or 
 associations, we shall come more and more to realize that we 
 belong to the whole race, and have one common association 
 round the globe. [Applause.] 
 
 REMARKS OF URIEL H. CROCKER, ESQ. 
 
 I did not expect to be called upon to-night. I am not a 
 talking man, and there are so many here who are talking 
 men — clergymen and ex-clergymen — that I supposed there 
 would be no danger of my being reached ; and I believe the 
 hour has arrived, too, at which we agreed to adjourn. I will 
 say, however, that I am one of the few here that have never 
 met Mr. Abbot till to-night ( I believe I had only known him 
 through 7^^^ Index, and through his published addresses); 
 but I felt, from what I had known of him, strongly moved to 
 come, and, by my mere presence as one, help to give expres- 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 33 
 
 sion to the feeling that I had of honor for the effort shown 
 by him in his honest and earnest and self-sacrificing main- 
 tenance of what he believed to be the truth, in endeavoring 
 to help to dispel the superstitions that were prevalent, and 
 in trying to hold back the body of the liberals from rushing 
 precipitately, after having given up certain superstitions, 
 into the adoption of every new and crude idea as the truth. 
 It has seemed to me that he was one of the few that had 
 battled nobly to resist that tendency. J^or that reason, I 
 was glad, and am glad, to be here to help to honor him. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. W. H. SPENCER. 
 
 It is too late now, Mr. Chairman, to make a speech ; but 
 I do want to say to Mr. Abbot what I never have said to 
 him, and what I never said to any other man in the world, 
 but what I did say to my wife, — that I felt under more 
 obligation to Mr. Abbot for mental stimulus during the last 
 ten years, since he has been the editor of The Index, than to 
 any other living man in New England ; and that is saying 
 considerable. And I believe that Free Religion, too, is 
 under more obligation to him than to any other man in New 
 England. He has made Free Religion more rational ; he 
 has defended it, I think, with the best reasons ; he has 
 made it more free, in the best possible sense of that word, — 
 never allowing freedom to run down into license or licen- 
 tiousness ; and we owe him an immense debt of gratitude, 
 I think, because he has defended Free Religion from what, 
 in his letter just read, Mr. Voysey well describes as ''the 
 dissolute section of the liberals." When she was assailed, 
 when her principles were attacked, Frank Abbot, at consid- 
 erable personal sacrifice, we all feel, drew his sword and 
 defended her, and did it manfully. For that we ought to be 
 very grateful. It may be that the result of all this may not 
 be seen in a day ; but, as another letter-writer says, it may 
 be the stones which we have been sinking in the marsh, and 
 which by and by will make a highway over which the relig- 
 
34 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 ion of the future will travel safely. I do not feel so gloomy 
 as Mr. Connor does, by any means. I feel very hopeful for 
 Free Religion. I do not know that it will prosper as Free 
 Religion, under that name. But I say that it is infiltrating 
 itself everywhere ; it is honeycombing all the Christian 
 sects; they are adopting our ideas. Unitarianism finds it 
 very difficult in many places in the West to establish her 
 churchCvS, because she finds already established there some 
 orthodox church with a liberal minister, a minister who does 
 not believe in eternal punishment, or in the deity of Jesus in 
 any proper sense, any more than the Unitarian minister 
 does ; and he is preaching it to his people, and is out- 
 flanking Unitarianism in that way. Sometimes Unitarian- 
 ism is reproached because she is making so little progress, 
 establishing so few churches ; but she is growing under 
 another name. And our ideas are growing under another 
 name; they are saturating Unitarianism. And I cannot 
 agree with Brother Batchelor that Unitarianism, although 
 it is liberal, does stand essentially where we do. It is 
 not so broad, I think, as Free Religion. We invite to our 
 fellowship not only all those who, as the Unitarians say, 
 are ''followers of Jesus Christ, or wish to be," but those 
 who believe in truth as it is in Jesus, and truth as it is out- 
 side of Jesus, — those who are followers of truth wherever it 
 may lead, I wish to say that to Mr. Batchelor, because, 
 like my friend on my left here [Mr. Potter], I have felt that 
 I was excluded from even the rather hospitable body of 
 Unitarians. I am very happy to be here to express the love 
 and admiration which I have for our friend. This, I trust, 
 will not be our last supper, by any means. I hope he will 
 have many more ; and, although Mr. Abbot goes away from 
 us, I think that that same spirit of truth — what our Chris- 
 tian friends call the Holy Ghost — which has filled him 
 during the last ten years will pursue him still, and so pos- 
 sess him that he will be obliged to take up the work which 
 he now drops for a moment. [Applause.] 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 35 
 
 Mr. Connor desired to add a word of explanation, and 
 said : — 
 
 I am not in the least bit " gloomy." I only stood on one 
 side of the question, the other side of which has been so 
 well talked about by those who have followed me. And I 
 am very glad of that. I never recognized so much before the 
 advantage of speaking early, and having a somewhat crude 
 presentation whipped into shape. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN'S CLOSING WORDS. 
 
 The hour for breaking up the assembly having arrived, 
 Mr. Ames said : — 
 
 GentlemeUy — I think we part to-night with something of 
 inward assurance that we belong to each other in a way we 
 knew before, but never so well comprehended. It is not 
 Garfield nor Hancock, — it is a fair election ; and it is not 
 your ism nor mine, but it is fair and honest methods in in- 
 quiry and in action. Isn't that our platform and purpose } 
 And isn't that the central impression of all we have said 
 and tried to say, and mean to do and be } So help us 
 Heaven, we will carry it out from this place, and help to 
 make it a part of the public property of the world. [Ap- 
 plause.] And you, my friend, — you have not only pointed 
 out the way, but have walked in it ; and our differences do 
 not touch that central and radical agreement which is the 
 most conservative thing in the universe. God bless us every 
 one ! Good-night ! 
 
36 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 THE LETTERS. 
 
 From Rev. John C. Learned. 
 
 St. Louis, Mo., June 18, 1880. 
 Rev. M.J. Savage : 
 
 My dear Sir, — I am glad my friend Abbot is to have a dinner. Since 
 1865, he has been plentifully served with "gridiron." Now let him have 
 a dinner! I only wish there was some way to make it perpetual. There 
 is no man of my acquaintance who better deserves it. 
 
 Mr. Abbot was a classmate of mine at the Cambridge Divinity School. 
 It was there that I first conceived an admiration for his scholarship and 
 for his high sense of honor. No man among us read Greek so well : 
 and he was master of the rules of logic. His arguments, on any ques- 
 tion that interested him, were always worth hearing, — though they did 
 not always convince me then, and have not always done so since. Our 
 premises were sometimes different. For example, I remember that once 
 we argued the question of temperance. I was brought up on the total- 
 abstinence principle, and defended it. He did not believe in that doc- 
 trine or practice, — denied that it could properly be called temperance, 
 and, to clinch the argument, cited the example of " our Lord and Sav- 
 iour," who drank wine with his disciples ! It was in vain that I quoted, 
 in desperation, from an elaborate sermon of the Plummer Professor, re- 
 cently preached to the Harvard students, showing that Jesus and the 
 twelve used only the unfermented juice of the grape. (We both of us 
 know that that argument was as weak as water !) 
 
 Though I am nearly as good a total-abstinent to-day as I was then, 
 yet I will now admit that, on " Christian grounds," he had the advantage 
 of me in the discussion. In other words, at that time, I feel sure, he 
 was a better " Christian " than I was ; and he knows how it was himself. 
 
 To speak more seriously, however, the man whom this festival was 
 meant to honor by his presence honors all who gain admission to the 
 feast. I wish it were possible for me to be there, for old friendship's 
 sake, for present congratulations, and for the " great expectations " we 
 all cherish of his services to truth nnd humanity in new fields of thought 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 37 
 
 and labor. It is a rare thing, in any century, that men meet to compli- 
 ment such worth and work as is identified with the name of Francis 
 E. Abbot. Heroism is of many kinds. Every age can furnish heroes of 
 some sort. But the moral hero, — the man who can speak truth when 
 others dissemble, who dares to trust th^ naked truth in the face of armed 
 and overwhelming majorities, who stands for conscience and character 
 in an age of immoralities, — rarest of all, — surely such a man deserves 
 the right hand of our approval and fellowship. 
 
 " Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, 
 
 The compact nucleus round which systems grow; 
 Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, 
 And whirls impregnate with the central glow." 
 
 Accept my thanks for the invitation to be with you, and my regrets 
 that I cannot take my place at the table, and believe me, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, Jno. C. Learned. 
 
 From the Rev. Edward C Towne. 
 
 Underbank Parsonage, Stannington, 
 Near Sheffield, England. 
 Rev. M. J. Savage: 
 
 Dear Sir, — If I could possibly arrange it on so short notice, I should 
 cross the Atlantic to join Mr. Abbot's friends in the greeting of affection 
 and sympathy and honor which they will give him on the twenty-fifth. 
 
 The motion for keeping Unitarianism liberal and our Christianity free, 
 which Mr, Abbot made at Syracuse, and made in vain, it fell to me to 
 second. If that motion were to be made now, Unitarianism itself, not 
 only by its younger leaders, but by its elder, would eagerly second it, 
 and with an acclaim of pride and respect toward Mr. Abbot which few 
 men ever win. The denial of the petition made at Syracuse by Mr. 
 Abbot led to the founding of the club first called the Free Religious 
 Club, and afterwards the Radical Club, and to the organization of the 
 Free Religious Association. Every incident of that history is as fresh 
 before me as if but yesterday; and I am confident that, from first to 
 last, the grace and truth of Mr. Abbot's participation in it were singu- 
 larly clear and pure and genuine. I believe there is no doubt that Mr. 
 Abbot deliberately sacrificed a valuable and distinguished appointment 
 at Harvard University to keep truth with his conscience by his Syra- 
 cuse protest: and I know that a like appointment at Cornell University 
 would have fallen to him, had not those who confessed his unexampled 
 claims felt bound to conciliate prejudice by preferring a man who had 
 the high candor to say, "Against Mr. Abbot I have no claim." Those 
 
38 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 who were responsible, at New York and at Syracuse, for an orthodox 
 bolt on the door of Unitarian communion, did wrong and injury in 
 more than one case, as real and cruel as any ever done by persecuting 
 vigor. There were wounds inflicted then which have not yet ceased 
 to bleed. The best that courage and self-devotion and patient endur- 
 ance could accomplish, to make a career outside the lines of inherited 
 opportunity, has been done by Mr. Abbot during the decade of toils 
 and ti-ials which has now reached a close. Between a liberalism that 
 was faithless and a libertinism that was shameless, Mr. Abbot had to 
 stand doubly unsupported ; but he has stood increasingly triumphant to 
 the end, and he leaves his post without a stain. 
 
 My own experience shows me how extreme is the difficulty of making 
 a great breach with tradition, and a great battle over untried ground for 
 a new field and new lines of religious and humane activity. My conclu- 
 sion has been that Unitarianism went outside of genuine Christianity 
 when it decreed to keep a survival of worship of the " Lord Jesus " ; 
 and I hold that the identical mind that was in Christ has remained un- 
 abated, undimmed, and illustrious in the character, the conscience, the 
 career of toil and sacrifice and renunciation, for which your festival of 
 affection and sympathy will make a sacramental celebration. I ardently 
 hope that Mr. Abbot has another career yet before him, of noble study 
 in many directions, and of counsels of wisdom and learning and conse- 
 cration by which religion, social progress, morals, philosophy, and poli- 
 tics may greatly benefit. To whatever motion of honor to him may be 
 made, I beg to give my most hearty second and most cordial applause, 
 fervently trusting that the sweetness and light which Mr. Abbot has 
 ever kept within himself may henceforth fall all about him to make 
 bright and glad his every step. 
 
 I am, dear sir, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Edward C. Towne. 
 
 From Mr. Charles D. B. Mills. 
 
 To Rev. M. J. Savage, Rev. W. J. Potter, and others of the Com- 
 mittee : 
 Dear Friends^ — Your kind invitation to me to be present and partici- 
 pate in the enjoyments of the occasion that your circular describes has 
 been received. Be assured that nothing would give me greater pleasure 
 than to unite with you, and others who may be there, in rendering this 
 mark, slight token as it is, of honor to the name and services of the re- 
 tiring editor of The Index. But to attend will be out of my power. I 
 can be present, therefore, with you only in spirit. 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 39 
 
 There ivS no name, certainly in our country, whom I more cordially 
 esteem — none that I more deeply love, and with all my heart would 
 bless — than Francis E. Abbot. 
 
 I knew of Mr. Abbot first in 1866 (I think it was), at the time of the 
 holding of the National Conference of the Unitarian Churches, in this 
 city. His brave and memorable protest in that Convention I have 
 always remembered. I was not, however, at that time so fortunate as 
 to have heard him on the floor of the Conference, or to have made his 
 personal acquaintance. Later, I heard of and saw extracts from the 
 sermons of the young preacher in Dover, N.H. ; and later still, but not 
 long after, I became acquainted with the projected enterprise of pub- 
 lishing The Index at Toledo, Ohio. 
 
 The protest, the sermons, the withdrawal from the denomination he 
 had stood connected with, prompted by deep, conscientious convictions, 
 the prospectus of The Index, and the utterances of that paper, — these 
 all, and increasingly as they came, won my. respect and approval; and, 
 from that first day to the present, I have marked the course of this 
 protestant and earnest apostle of truth and liberty with ever-deepening 
 interest and ever-growing admiration. 
 
 He has struck stalwart blows for freedom ; he has borne invaluable 
 testimony for a principle in religious faith which must have more and 
 more recognition and cordial honor in ages to come, as the mind of man 
 expands, becomes more thoughtful, wise, and free. His service in this 
 behalf has been priceless. The cause of Free and Rational Religion 
 in our country, and through the world, owes him a debt deeper than can 
 ever be cancelled. 
 
 In the defence he has made latterly, especially, of the principles of 
 morality, — showing that liberty is not license, that the restraints and 
 guidance of a just morality are not annulled or broken, they are rather 
 confirmed and strengthened in the emancipation from a dogmatic and 
 limitary religion, — he has done also an inestimable service. Here, too, 
 we have occasion to hold him in high honor. 
 
 Our brother has stood for us and for humanity. He has wrought, 
 through all these years of toil and sacrifice, for liberty, and for interests 
 in which we all have vital stake. 
 
 I offer, if in order for your occasion, my sentiment : — 
 
 Our esteemed guest, whose clear perceptions have been equalled 
 alone by his dauntless courage, — to whom truth was majesty supreme, 
 with whom to see was to do, to be commanded of Heaven was to obey. 
 His unswerving devotion we warmly honor, his work and example we 
 cherish with deep gratitude and love, — we hold in remembrance, and 
 commend them for quickening and inspiration. Our benedictions follow 
 him. May his work, in whatever field in the future, be crowned with a 
 success as complete, a recognition as wide and cordial, as his labors 
 
40 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 during the past in behalf of Free Religion, and the enduring claims of 
 a true morality, have been arduous, self-sacrificing, and untiring. 
 I remain, with sincere sympathy, and best wishes ever. 
 
 Yours fraternally, Chas. D. B. Mills. 
 
 Syracuse, N.Y., June 23, 1880. 
 
 From Mr. E. W. Meddaugh. 
 
 Detroit, June 23, 1880. 
 
 Getttlemen^ — I briefly replied some days since to a note of invitation 
 to be present and participate at a dinner in honor of my esteemed friend, 
 Mr. Abbot ; but I cannot permit the occasion to pass without adding a 
 few words beyond the formal regret for my enforced absence. 
 
 As one of the Directors of the Index Association from its organiza- 
 tion to its dissolution, and as his friend, I have had personal knowledge 
 of some of the difficulties that Mr. Abbot has had to contend with in his 
 work for the past nine years. Himself actuated by motives as high and 
 pure as ever moved man to action, and filled with a spirit of zeal for 
 helping his fellows to a higher and better life, he began the publication 
 of The Index. He was young, and hope was buoyant in him. The 
 future seemed full of promise, — not of personal gain or advantage to 
 himself (for of this he took no thought), but of opportunity for the great 
 work of reform to which he had dedicated his life. 
 
 He has met with reverses. He has not realized that full measure of 
 success which he not only hoped for, but expected. The Index, which 
 to most of its readers for the past ten years has been a synonyme for 
 Abbot, which he created, and with which are associated in his mind the 
 most cherished desires of his life, is about to pass from his hands; 
 and he is compelled to abandon this chosen field of labor and usefulness 
 for another, which is not of his choice, but is born of necessity. Such 
 an occasion would be a trying one to any of us, and it is the more so to 
 our friend from the profoundly earnest and deeply rooted purpose of his 
 soul, which is thus temporarily thwarted of its object. 
 
 But, while tendering to Mr. Abbot the sympathy of our hearts in his 
 disappointment, we should but poorly perform the friendly office, if we 
 failed to reverse the shield, that he may see the other side. In these 
 years of editorial labor, he has accomplished a noble work. Both by 
 precept and example, he has helped many poor souls to a clearer per- 
 ception of the duties of life, and to the strength for performing them. 
 He has taught them that there is a foundation for pure ethics outside of 
 the lex scripta, and by his example has demonstrated the practicability 
 of living, not only by it, but up to it The influence of his teaching and 
 example will continue to bear abundant and rich fruit, through the lives 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 4I 
 
 and labors of his disciples, that will testify to the grand success of his 
 life and work, though he should " end all here." 
 
 But, invaluable as has been his work of the past, it is, if life, health, 
 and opportunity permit, but a preface to the great volume that is to 
 come. The world cannot spare Francis Ellingwood Abbot from the 
 field of philosophical thought ; and there is a grave duty resting upon 
 us, who know and appreciate his value here, to see to it that no circum- 
 stance within our control is suffered to drive him from it. Let us, then, 
 avail ourselves of this social occasion, not alone to wish him a hearty 
 God-speed in the business upon which he is entering, but to comfort and 
 cheer him with the pledge of our substantial aid, should it be required, 
 to the end that he may continue his philosophical studies, and labor for 
 the furtherance of truth and the well-being of mankind. 
 
 E. W. Meddaugh. 
 
 To Rev. M. J. Savage and others, Committee, etc., Boston. 
 
 From the Rev. Charles Voysey. 
 
 Camden House, Dulwich, London, S.E., 
 
 June 7, 1880. 
 To the Rev. M. J. Savage: 
 
 Dear Sir, — I regret exceedingly that the wide Atlantic prevents my 
 being present at the complimentary dinner to be given to my dear and 
 esteemed friend, Francis Ellingwood Abbot. I have a grateful recol- 
 lection of the years during which I served under him as a modest 
 contributor to The Index. For kindness and courtesy to his staff, he 
 could not be surpassed. But, apart from all personal considerations, I 
 have admired Mr. Abbot as in every inch of him an honest, courageous, 
 and pure-minded man. His attitude, of late years especially, toward 
 the dissolute section of free-thinkers and so-called liberals, commands 
 our warmest applause. "Abbot and The Index'''' will be remembered 
 generations hence as the savior of the cause of true liberty of thought, 
 by claiming and demanding that before all things it should be decent. 
 I only wish that our common gratitude could find some solid expression 
 in giving to our friend Abbot, for the rest of his life, absolute immunity 
 from worldly cares. If any such testimonial is started, I beg you kindly 
 to give, me the earliest opportunity of subscribing towards it. 
 I am, dear sir, very faithfully yours, 
 
 Charles Voysey. 
 
42 - FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 From Gen. Rohert J. Turnbull. 
 
 Westchester, June 5, 1880. 
 The Rev. M. J. Savage and Members of the Committee : 
 
 Gentiemejt, — As your note of invitation was only received a few days 
 ago on my return from the South, my reply has been necessarily delayed. 
 I should be rejoiced to be one of the company on the occasion of the 
 dinner to our admired friend, Mr. Abbot, but regret that family duties at 
 that time render it impossible for me to be absent from home. 
 
 I cannot, however, at this time forbear recording my testimony to the 
 expanding and enlightening influence that Mr. Abbot's editorship of The 
 Index, with its purity of moral sentiment and elevating tone, free from 
 all taint of superstition, has had upon, my mind during the decade that I 
 have been its constant reader. The paper was first brought to my notice 
 by my valued friend, Mr. A. Warren Kelsey, also a frequent contributor 
 to its columns, during the dark days at the South that followed the close 
 of the war, when failure and ruin in that section seemed to follow every 
 enterprise, however well conceived or faithfully executed. In the isola- 
 tion of a bachelor's life upon a remote plantation, its advent was then 
 like a ray of light from a brighter world ; and its strong reliance upon 
 natural resources and upon our own natural endowments, for the solu- 
 tion of all difficulties, was a tower of strength to the mind in dealing 
 with the trials and disappointments of the situation, and I think in my 
 own case has contributed much to a result which I think I may consider 
 a partial success, where there has been little else than failure. 
 
 That this life is worth living for its own sake, and that as a duty, as 
 well as a pleasure, we should live in action, has appeared so clearly from 
 its pages and his pen that the scene of labor has seemed invested with 
 a new interest, and as leading to issues in a fruitful future, notwithstand- 
 ing the encouragements which seemed to be wanting to the eye of faith. 
 
 In whatever channel the labors of Mr. Abbot may hereafter be di- 
 rected, there is none, I am sure, where their spirit will be more missed, 
 and where greater regret will follow their cessation, than as editor of 
 The Index. Yours very truly, 
 
 Robert J. Turnbull. 
 
 From Prof. Ezra Abbot, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Rev. M. J. Savage : 
 
 Dear Sir, — Please accept my thanks for your invitation to attend the 
 dinner in honor of Francis E. Abbot. I have been hoping to be present, 
 but find, to my great regret, that it will be out of my power. Though 
 our opinions are different on some important subjects, no one could join 
 more heartily in a testimonial of respect for his noble character. His 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 43 
 
 disinterestedness, earnestness, courage, honesty, and purity, conjoined 
 with remarkable intellectual ability, have long commanded my highest 
 admiration. He is one whom no motive could tempt for a moment to 
 swerve from fidehty to his convictions of Truth and Right. It is of such 
 stuff that heroes and martyrs are made. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Ezra Abbot. 
 
 From ex-Judge E. P. Hurlbut. 
 
 Albany, June 14, 1880. 
 Messrs. M. J. Savage, W. J. Potter, and others : , 
 
 Gentlemen, — My time of life, and the distance (reckoned by miles) 
 between us, prevent my attendance at the dinner to Mr. Francis E. 
 Abbot. Yet the distance is only of miles, for I am near you in spirit, 
 and shall be proud to be recorded as of the number who rendered due 
 honor to the manly worth, the enlightened intellect and moral tone of 
 the editor of The Index. 
 
 It is rare, in this world of ours, to find a man who combines the intel- 
 lect to form, and the moral courage to avow and defend, in the face 
 of all prejudice, opinions at variance with those of the large majority 
 of his fellow-men, placing himself remote from the sympathies of his 
 contemporaries, — 
 
 " Above life's weakness, and its comforts too," — 
 
 simply for truth's sake. Yet Mr. Abbot is such a man, — one "quit of 
 the priests and books," who has attained from the first to the fourth 
 good rule of Gautama, " Right doctrine, right purpose, right discourse, 
 and right behavior." 
 
 On two great points which he has made prominent in The Index and 
 advocated with singular ability, — the correction of religious opinions by 
 the light of science and the complete secularization of the State, — he 
 will live, I hope, to find himself with the majority. 
 
 On another point, — the advocacy of a pure morality, based on the 
 natural laws, amid the wreck of ancient myths and superstitions, — 
 Mr. Abbot has labored long and well, being all the while "the best- 
 abused man " among us. Yet he and his paper have survived, — himself 
 to flourish in some other field of usefulness to his fellow-men, and the 
 paper to be still welcomed by the leading minds of America and Europe, 
 which have hitherto appreciated it so highly. 
 
 I would write much more, but, on occasions Hke yours, brevity is a 
 virtue ; and I content myself with adding my kindest wishes for Mr. 
 Abbot and those who honor him. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 E. P. Hurlbut. 
 
44 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 From Mr. George William Curtis. 
 
 West New Brighton, Staten Island, N.Y., 
 
 June 21, 1880. 
 My dear Sir, — I am very much obliged by the kind invitation to the 
 dinner to Mr. Abbot, and I am very sorry that I cannot accept it It is 
 a tribute of honor to a scholar who has resolutely maintained the three 
 fundamental American rights, — the three in one, and the only trinity 
 which probably he would be willing to acknowledge : free thought, free 
 speech, and a free press. All friends of moral and intellectual liberty, 
 who know how subtle, but how strong, are the influences arrayed against 
 it, will gladly unite both in testifying their regard and sympathy for one 
 who has served the cause so faithfully as Mr. Abbot, and in wishing him 
 prosperity in his new career. 
 
 With great regard, very truly yours, 
 
 George William Curtis. 
 
 From Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D. 
 
 New York, 232 E. 15, May 30, 1880. 
 
 Dear Mr. Savage, — I shall not be able to join your dinner to Mr. 
 Abbot, for I have just lost a very dear brother, and shrink from 
 festivities. 
 
 I am none the less glad that Boston is ready to testify its respect for 
 the manly coura2;e and conscientious verity of my honored friend, Mr. 
 Abbot, with whose special views I have no great sympathy, but with 
 whose pure spirit and self-sacrificing fidelity I have boundless fellow- 
 feeling. I wish you the greatest success in giving Mr. Abbot a hearty 
 send-off from his editorial ofiice. We shall welcome him in New York, 
 where we hear he is coming, with lively expectations of his success in 
 his new calling as classical teacher : and we hope to give him all the 
 support he desires. 
 
 V^ery cordially yours, 
 
 Henry W. Bellows. 
 
 From Prof. William T. Harris. 
 
 St. Louis, Mo., June 22, 1880. 
 Rev. M. J. Savage : 
 
 Dear Sir, — It would give me great pleasure to be with you on the 
 occasion of the dinner to Mr. Francis E. Abbot, but the necessity of 
 visiting Missouri and Arkansas this week renders it impossible. I 
 share with you in the desire to show some token of respect and regard 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 45 
 
 for Mr. Abbot, who has given such a rare example of honest, manly 
 character to the world. I trust he may yet long continue to be as 
 helpful to us as in the past. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 W. T. Harris. 
 
 From Rev. Moncure D. Conway. 
 
 Dear Mr. Savage, — I regret that my departure for America this year 
 will be a little too late for me to avail myself of the invitation with which 
 your Committee have honored me. I have met many a worthy soldier 
 of truth and justice at Young's, but none more valiant in a cause he 
 holds true than Francis E. Abbot. When he ran up his little paper- 
 banner at Toledo, it was something like Garrison running up his small 
 Liberator. The latter has become a historic flag of liberty, and the 
 former will not be forgotten or unsung in the day when America wears 
 as her jewels the names of those who set free her heart and brain. ^ 
 
 Your honored guest is less known to me personally than to most of 
 those who will gather around him. I have known him mainly through 
 The Index. I have sometimes differed from his opinions, and he per- 
 haps oftener from mine, — if that isn't an Irishism: therefore, it will not 
 be thought the partiahty of personal friendship, when I say that Francis 
 E. Abbot appears to me to be one of the few distinctly religious men 
 who have never drawn a line against freedom of thought. That which 
 was called the Theistic move'ment in England is declining, as I think, 
 simply because those who pioneered it came to a point beyond which 
 they could not move in the direction of liberty. There are some who 
 feel, with Spinoza, that to define God is to destroy him ; whose only 
 clear conceptions in that direction are such as are defined against such 
 defiifitions. I am one of these, and must say that the more constructive 
 Theists speak of us and our negative position in an unfriendly way, — 
 some of them sharply enough to suggest that their deity is not far 
 evolved beyond that earlier one supposed to be so anxious about human 
 notions concerning him. Among the songs which the late Professor 
 Clifford composed while at Cambridge, and which the students there 
 still sing, one has a verse runnmg : — 
 
 " If you and God should disagree 
 On questions of Theologee, 
 You're damned to all Eternitee, 
 Poor, blind worm ! " 
 
 The song will no doubt be sung so long as even liberal minds are so 
 often found defending certain views as if religion and moral life de- 
 pended on them, — which were as much as to say that one cannot fall 
 in love without holding certain physiological or metaphysical theories 
 
46 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 of his sweetheart's nature. The little difficulty about this proposition 
 is that it is not true. And Mr. Abbot has recognized that it is not. 
 While meeting opinion with argument, he has not added any sting such 
 as men use on each other when they are aiming to please God. He 
 has spoken strongly when the interests of morality seemed to him at 
 stake ; but even in that controversy I cannot remember that Mr. Abbot 
 has appealed to theological prejudice or claimed that The Index was 
 an organ inspired by God. These appear to me rare merits. So long 
 as human society and the human mind are left free to follow a natural 
 evolution, I believe they will steadily gain in wisdom, truth, and virtue : 
 no error or fiction will remain, there can be no survival of the unfittest, 
 unless the arrest come through some phantasmal force not included 
 among the factors of natural evolution. Our differences and discussions 
 may all go on in a healthy human way, if only no man fancies he is 
 dearer to God than the other man who holds another opinion. So long 
 as that notion survives, even in the accents of discussion, our progres- 
 sion can never be perfect. We must cast away utterly that false weight 
 perpetually insinuating itself into the balances of reason, turning the 
 scale this way or that by playing upon the nerves (inherited from 
 theocratic ages) of the hand which should hold the balances untrem- 
 blingly true. I believe Francis Abbot has held them true. So steadily 
 has he done so in instances where I could judge, that even in others 
 where, to my distant vision, his case was not made quite clear, I have 
 felt that he was honestly endeavoring to hold his balances true ; and it 
 is for this his equity, for his scorn of piously poisoned weapons, as well 
 as for his courage in taking the side of an unpopular truth and his 
 patient working for it, that I am grateful for this opportunity of adding 
 to the tributes of those nearer to him an old freethinker's appreciation 
 of services which it will require further years to estimate. 
 
 Ever faithfully, 
 
 MONCURE D. CONtVAY. 
 
 Inglewood, Bedford Park, Chiswick, Eng., June 7, 1880. 
 
 Telegram from Prof. Felix Adler, Ph.D. 
 
 Western Union Telegraph Company, New York, 
 
 June 25, 1880. 
 To Chairman of the Abbot Dinner: — 
 
 Warmest, heartiest, and affectionate good wishes to Francis E. Abbot, 
 who has so long pointed The Index finger of liberty against all that is 
 unfree, untrue, and unclean ! I deplore his temporary retirement from 
 the combatants, but shall be consoled m watching how the streams of 
 his intellect, that have poured through the scattered channels of journal- 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 47 
 
 ism, will unite in one broad flow, and bear a memorable tribute to the 
 sea of deep philosophical thought. 
 
 Examinations take place in my Kindergarten to-day. I cannot be 
 with you in person. I am wholly with you in spirit. Among all the 
 appreciative words which you hear to-day, Abbot, there is none that 
 expresses sincerer kindness than is felt for you by 
 
 Felix Adler. 
 
 From Rev. John W. Chadwick. 
 
 Brooklyn, May 28, 1880. 
 My dear Savage: — 
 
 I can see far enough into the future to know that it will be quite im- 
 possible for me to be in Boston, June 25. I am very sorry that it hap- 
 pens so, for it would give me great pleasure to attend the dinner which 
 is to be given in honor of Mr. Abbot. I should be sure of meeting there 
 many dear and valued friends, with whom I should like exceedingly to 
 join in doing reverence to Mr. Abbot for his long and faithful service 
 as editor of The Index. Service more faithful, more earnest, more con- 
 scientious, my imagination cannot conceive. Of how many editors of 
 our American journals, secular or rehgious, could it be truly said that 
 they have never once written an editorial or a paragraph which did not 
 express their undermost conviction concerning the matter in hand.-^ liut 
 I am confident that this might be said of Francis Abbot without a parti- 
 cle of exaggeration. The life of an editor, Hke that of a policeman, "is 
 not a happy one," I fancy, under all circumstances. Its annoyances and 
 anxieties cannot be few. But, while Mr. Abbot has doubtless had his 
 full share of these, his consciousness of always endeavoring to find and 
 speak the highest truth on every pressing theme must have afforded him 
 the purest consolation. 
 
 Precious as much of Mr. Abbot's editorial work has been to me, what 
 I have valued most have been his elaborate essays upon the nature of 
 religion and morality and other kindred themes. For these I cannot 
 sufficiently express my gratitude. Here, it appears to me, the genius of 
 our friend has its most natural home; and I am hoping that one effect 
 of his retirement from The Index will be to furnish him with ampler 
 opportunity for '-beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet 
 and still air of delightful studies," and reporting to us the radiance which 
 he has seen. 
 
 Absent from you in body, from my heaven-kissing hill in Western 
 Massachusetts my spirit will signal across to you with kindliest fraternal 
 salutation. May grace be given unto Mr. Abbot to listen patiently and 
 sweetly to the truth concerning himself, in so far as it shall then and 
 
48 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 there be told ! Assure him that, where.ver he goes, our love will follow 
 him, and that in the great battle for truth and freedom we shall still count 
 on him for many a valiant stroke. 
 
 Yours ever faithfully, 
 
 John W. Chadwick. 
 
 To Rev. M. J. Savage. 
 
 P>om the Hon. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Washington, D.C, June 15, 1880. 
 Rev. M. J. Savage : 
 
 My dear Sir, — I give you my best thanks for the invitation. Few 
 things, were it but convenient, would be more agreeable to my wishes 
 than to be present at the dinner proposed to be given in Boston on the 
 twenty-fifth in honor of Mr. Francis E. Abbot, a gentleman for whom I 
 entertain sentiments of highest respect and esteem. He has not only 
 done much to break the fetters of religious superstition, for which he is 
 entitled to gratitude, but he has with singular abihty and earnestness 
 enforced those lessons of personal rectitude without the observance of 
 which there can be no solid happiness in the world. I have often risen 
 from the perusal of his editorials in The Index, deeply impressed with 
 their wholesome, bracing, and elevating tendency; and, 'with many 
 others, I regret that his vigorous pen is soon to be withdrawn from its 
 accustomed work. I am not quite sure that I cannot be with you on the 
 25th of June ; but, if not present on that occasion, please express to Mr. 
 Abbot my best wishes for his health, prosperity, and happiness, and for 
 his speedy return to the field in which he has been a most sturdy and 
 valuable laborer. Very truly yours, 
 
 Fred'k Douglass. 
 
 From Mr. John L. Stoddard. 
 
 At Sea, on board S. S. " City of Richmond," 
 
 May 31, 1880. 
 J. A. J. Wilcox, Esq. : 
 
 Dear Sir, — When, on the eve of my departure from America, I read 
 your kind invitation to the Abbot Dinner, I thought I regretted as much 
 as was possible my inability to be present. But after having been for a 
 week tossed unmercifully on the reehng billows of old Father Neptune, 
 amid horrid visions of sloping floors, swinging lamps, and drunken 
 state-rooms, enlivened only by the recollection of vile gruel and nause- 
 ating dishes served by short-waisted stewards slanting about at every 
 possible and impossible angle, — under such circumstances, I confess, 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 49 
 
 I realize my deprivation more than ever; for the thought of a quiet 
 dinner at Young's, at a motionless table loaded with choice viands and 
 surrounded by friendly faces, seems to me now the height of human 
 happiness. 
 
 Truly did Virgil sing, — " Caelum, non ammu?n, nmtant qui trans 
 mare currufit,^'' — " They change the clime, but not the soul, who cross 
 the sea." For, however far I may be in body on the evening of June 25, 
 in spirit, in sympathy, in affection, I shall be one of your pleasant com- 
 pany. Were I in reality to be with you on that occasion, I would gladly 
 join in the sentiment which I know animates you all. I would gladly 
 unite in uttering words (which yet are unneeded) to assure our beloved 
 friend and guest of the evening of the appreciation and affection which 
 we feel for him, of the sorrow we experience that he is to change his 
 residence to another city, and, above all, of our keen regret that he 
 has deemed it necessary to relinquish the editorship of The Index. For 
 one, I cannot express in w^ords my indebtedness to Mr. Abbot for his 
 clear, thoughtful, and inspiring editorials. 
 
 There is no parallel in America to his course as the truth-and-purity- 
 loving editor of The Index. All honor to him for it ! For his bold lead- 
 ership and self-sacrificing devotion, the liberals of America should have 
 rewarded him by an enthusiastic and loyal following. They will one day 
 bitterly regret their faithless desertion of him. Yet this is, after all, true 
 only of certain cunning partisans and their deluded followers. In reality, 
 Mr. Abbot has a countless host of loving, sympathizing friends, who, 
 though obscure, are not disloyal. Indeed, where are not his friends? 
 They have spoken in unmistakable accents from Australia, from Europe, 
 and from every part of our country. We represent at this dinner-table 
 only a minute fraction of those who at heart thank our beloved friend a 
 thousand times for all that he has done, for all that he has spoken and 
 written, yes, and particularly for all that he has suf¥ered for us and the 
 cause that we hold dear. No fragrant flowers, no dinners, speeches, or 
 letters, acceptable though they may be, can ever even remotely express 
 our debt of gratitude to Francis E. Abbot. But as we pledge him here 
 our love and devotion, — as we wish him the best of fortune, and bid 
 him a heartfelt farewell, — let us hope that he can at least detect a trace 
 of what we feel in the moistened eye, the pressure of the hand, or the 
 look of soul to soul. With cordial regards, 
 
 J. L. Stoddard. 
 
 From Rev. David A. Wasson. 
 
 West Mf:dford, June 24, 1880. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I regret that it will be impossible for me to attend the 
 
 dinner to be given in honor of Mr. Abbot. But I beg leave to signify 
 
50 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 my hearty appreciation of the zeal, earnestness, industry, and constancy 
 shown by him in the propagation of ideas which it required intellectual 
 intrepidity to arrive at, and moral courage to profess. He and I have 
 differed, and do so still, though less, it may be, than formerly. But I 
 have never been blind — how could anyone be blind? — either to his 
 acumen or his uncommon personal qualities; and of late I have warmly 
 sympathized with his contention against a wild liberalism (wild, when not 
 worse), and with his assertion of the authorhy of reason, represented by 
 the great consensus of healthy minds, as opposed to the pretensions of 
 an upstart individualism which would dissolve all the great unities, spir- 
 itual and social, into a dust of squeaking atoms. From his "scientific 
 method " he hopes more than I ; but I long to see a book in which he 
 shall thoroughly test its capabilities as applied to the grand ideal inter- 
 ests of mankind; and I hope earnestly that he may have health and 
 leisure to prepare such an addition to our serious literature. 
 
 Yours very truly, D. A. Wasson. 
 
 From Rev. Robert Collyer. 
 
 New York, June 21, 1880. 
 Dear Sir, — Your circular, which came this morning, thirty-five days 
 after date of issue, leaves me no time to come to Boston to attend the 
 dinner you propose to give Mr. Abbot on the twenty-fifth. I might not 
 have been able to come in any event, but should have tried to be there* 
 because I love Francis Abbot like a brother, and admire as I love him. 
 I think we are all his debtors for the noble words he has spoken to this 
 generation, and the truth he has bought at such a cost, but never sold. 
 It has been laid on him to penetrate into regions of thought still dim to 
 many of us, and remote from our life, and to report to us how divine 
 they are, even as the little garden plots in which we have to labor. He 
 sees the truth in its clear whiteness : we split the white shaft into prisms 
 after our kind. We cannot help this. We must all be true to our vision. 
 But the whole world of freethinkers must feel, as I do, what worth there 
 is in such a rare gift, and in being faithful as Mr. Abbot has been to it, 
 and will be even unto death. May God bless all true pioneers like my 
 friend. Yours indeed, 
 
 Robert Collyer. 
 
 From Rev. Minot J. Savage. 
 Mr. J. A. J. Wilcox : 
 
 Dear Sir, — I had hoped to be present at the Abbot Dinner, and in 
 person express my appreciation of the brains and devotion which that 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 5 I 
 
 occasion is to honor. But, so far from that, I have not now the time 
 even to put on paper what I think and feel. 
 
 We honor ourselves in honoring such a man. It has never been my 
 fortune to know a more complete and unselfish consecration to principle. 
 The mind and heart of one such man is enough to save any cause from 
 contempt; and no movement which develops such can be a failure. 
 Hercules cleansing the Augean stables must have presented a pitiable 
 sight. I rejoice to see our Hercules set free from so disagreeable a 
 labor. And now I only hope that some first-rate university will be wise 
 enough to find or ?nake a chair for one of the first philosophical minds 
 of America. 
 
 Wishing you all a good dinner and God-speed, I am heartily yours, 
 
 M. J. Savage. 
 
 Boston, June 13, 1880. 
 
 From Mr. Oliver Johnson. 
 
 81 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y., 
 June II, 1880. 
 My dear Mr. Savage : — 
 
 I very much regret that it will not be in my power to accept your kind 
 invitation to the dinner to be given to Mr. Francis E. Abbot in view of 
 his approaching retirement from The Index. No one will have a place at 
 your board on that occasion who cherishes a more hearty respect and 
 admiration than I do for Mr. Abbot's character and attainments, or a 
 higher appreciation of the personal independence which has marked his 
 whole public career. If my opinions were in all respects the same as 
 his, I might well suspect that my admiration for him was that of a parti- 
 san elated upon finding a strong champion of his own views ; but, differ- 
 ing from him as I do upon some important issues, I feel sure that my 
 admiration of him is genuine. Christianity, as I define it, — nay, let me 
 rather say, as it is defined for me by our standard lexicographers, — 
 imposes no yoke upon my freedom either of thought or speech, but 
 furnishes me with a name of mighty power in the conflict with whatever 
 tends to debase our noble humanity. Mr. Abbot is constrained to fight, 
 for liberty, purity, and righteousness under another banner; but he is 
 fighting in the same cause and for the same ends that I am, and fighting 
 honorably and bravely ; and I honor him not the less because he thinks 
 his position and his weapons are better than mine. I say with Paul, 
 " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." When he has 
 succeeded in reconstructing the world according to his aspirations, I am 
 perfectly sure that what I call Christianity will be found enthroned in 
 the minds and hearts of men, and the name of Jesus of Nazareth be 
 honored and loved as never before. 
 
52 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 And so, with all my heart, I crave a blessing upon your feast, and a 
 perpetual benediction upon the noble man in whose honor it will be 
 spread. Yours for the largest liberty, 
 
 Oliver Johnson. 
 
 From Prof. Francis E. Nipher. 
 
 St. Louis, May 29, 1880. 
 Rev. M. J. Savage : 
 
 My dear Sir, — I greatly regret that I cannot participate in the pleas- 
 ant occasion in honor of Mr. Abbot, as it will be impossible for me to 
 reach Boston until a somewhat later date. I am in full sympathy with 
 the objects proposed, and only wish it were possible to repay the debt 
 which we owe to Mr. Abbot in a more substantial currency. I hope he 
 will not feel discouraged by the present appearance of events. 
 
 When we build a road through a marsh, it is sometimes necessary to 
 spend thousands of dollars in sinking stones and logs out of sight into 
 the mud. Apparently there is nothing to show for the work ; but the 
 stones are there, and suddenly we have a road. 
 
 I think much of Mr. Abbot's work in The Index is of this kind. The 
 issues have been bravely met. People are thinking about them, and the 
 final result is not doubtful. Others besides Mr. Abbot are suffering, 
 and for like reasons. The most essential thing is that we do not allow 
 our individual troubles to annoy us unduly. 
 
 Thanking you most cordially for the kindness of your letter, 
 I remain very truly yours, 
 
 Francis E. Nipher. 
 
 From Rabbi Max Schlesinger. 
 
 Albany, June 22, 1880. 
 Rev. M. J. Savage, Boston : 
 
 Dear Sir, — You know that there is no wisdom in fretting because of 
 the slavery in which we are held by circumstances. But sometimes the 
 temptation to be unwise is too strong. How I Would have delighted to 
 vie with Mr. Abbot's friends in showing honor to him who deserves it so 
 well! If the tyrant circumstances had permitted me to be with you, I 
 might have drawn inspiration from the genial face and sparkling eyes of 
 your honored guest, and perhaps succeeded in giving utterance to the 
 love and reverence I harbor for the noble man and eminent thinker. 
 
 From the first time I ever read a line of Mr. Abbot, he became one 
 of my ideals after which I endeavor to aspire. His intellectual vigor, 
 unwavering earnestness, and outspoken honesty exerted upon me, at 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 53 
 
 least, an irresistible attraction. It seemed to me as if I had been 
 acquainted with him from my earliest youth; for his is a spirit kindred 
 to that of our own Jewish prophets. With the same purity of heart and 
 exaltedness of thought, he forestalls the future more or less clearly 
 pointed out by the Hebrew prophets, when all men will worship the God 
 of Truth only. With the same fervency, unmindful of consequences, he 
 expounds the religion of humanity to which Judaism at all times aspired. 
 It seems but natural that he, being one of the prophets of our genera- 
 tion, should be maligned and persecuted. But this fate, common to all 
 great men, must endear him the more to the heart of all who are able to 
 appreciate his greatness and the inestimable services which he renders 
 to the development of religious thought. 
 
 Though I deeply sorrow over his retirement from The Index, which 
 for years has been my most welcom-e friend, I am confident that Mr. 
 Abbot will find a field for his untiring activity and zeal in behalf of 
 enlightened religious sentiments. 
 
 Thanking you most heartily for your kindness which permitted me to 
 express my sympathies with Mr. Abbot and Mr. Abbot's friends, I 
 assure you that, though absent in body, I am with you in spirit. 
 Most truly and respectfully yours, 
 
 Dr. M. SCHLESINGER. 
 
 From Mr. B. F. Underwood. 
 
 Thorndike, June 24, 1880. 
 Mr. M. J. Savage: 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have been expecting till to-day the pleasure of meeting 
 with Mr. Abbot and his friends in Boston to-morrow evening ; but cir- 
 cumstances I could not foresee will prevent. The loss will be mine. 
 Could I be present, I should wish to speak a few words, giving my esti- 
 mate of Mr. Abbot's ability and of the value of his services. I am glad 
 to know that others will be there who will speak more fittingly than I 
 should be able to. 
 
 All honor to Francis E. Abbot, the clear-headed thinker, the con- 
 scientious editor, the scholarly representative of free thought, and the 
 earnest advocate of equal and exact justice for all ! His unwavering 
 loyalty to his own convictions of duty, and the noble moral enthusiasm 
 which has sustained him in his work, command the admiration even of 
 his opponents. His character, without a vulnerable spot as large even 
 as the heel of Achilles through which any arrow of malice could find its 
 way, is valued most by those who know him bes*. Thousands who have 
 become acquainted with Mr. Abbot through The Index will continue to 
 feel a deep interest in his welfare, while they will never forget the heroic 
 work he has done. 
 
54 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 Regretting that I cannot be present, and wishing you a very pleasant 
 party, I am 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 B. F.' Underwood. 
 
 From Mr. Charles K. Whipple. 
 
 Brook LINE, May 30, 1880. 
 Messrs. M. J. Savage, Wm. J. Potter, and others : 
 
 Dear Friends^ — I rejoice to learn, by your kind note of invitation now 
 before me, that the friends of Mr. Francis E. Abbot intend to give public 
 expression to their high regard for him, and their appreciation of his 
 work as editor of The Index, before he leaves Boston. Circumstances 
 will prevent my presence at the dinner you propose to give on the 25th 
 of June. But I am heartily glad to find this occasion of declaring the 
 respect and reverence I feel for Mr, Abbot, and my sense of the prac- 
 tical value of his editorial work in promoting the public welfare, intel- 
 lectually and morally. For ten years, we, the readers of The Index, have 
 recognized in Mr. Abbot an earnest search for truth, a candid estimate 
 of conflicting opinions in regard to it, a frank and fearless expression 
 of the conclusions at which he had arrived, justice in dealing with oppo- 
 nents, signal sweetness of temper under misrepresentation and abuse, 
 confidence that free discussion is the right and the best means of finding- 
 truth, persistent labor and self-sacrifice in behalf of principle, and a 
 purity and nobleness of life which enhanced the value of his testimony. 
 
 I would especially mention in Mr. Abbot's praise that, when occasion 
 arose, he emphasized the distinction between liberalism and libertinism, 
 and did not shrink from the unpleasant duty of resisting those who would 
 press liberty to the point of licentiousness. 
 
 Trusting that Mr. Abbot may meet the success he so well deserves 
 in his next enterprise, and that all may go well at the pleasant festival 
 you are arranging, 
 
 I am yours very truly, 
 
 Charles K. Whipple. 
 
 From Prof. Adolph Werner. 
 
 New York, 339 West 29th Street, June 1,1880.' 
 Mr. M. J. Savage: 
 
 Dear Sir, — Please accept my thanks for your kind invitation. It 
 would give me great pleasure to be able to join you in an expression of 
 admiration of Mr. Abbot, for whose character, intellect, attainments, and 
 work I have long had the highest respect. I regret exceedingly that the 
 work connected with the close of the college year will detain me in New 
 York. 
 
 I am very respectfully yours, 
 
 Adolph Werner. 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 55 
 
 From Rev. Samuel Longfellow. 
 
 Germantown, May 31. 
 Dear Sir, — My duties will keep me at home at the time of the pro- 
 posed dinner to Mr. Abbot, so that I cannot accept your invitation. I 
 should be glad, however, to say that, while I have often differed from 
 The Index in thought and in methods, I have always respected its 
 editor's ability, thorough sincerity, and good spirit; his devoted and 
 eager knight-errantry in behalf of liberty and in the search for truth ; 
 and his earnest loyalty in keeping the banner of liberalism free from 
 moral stain. 
 
 Sending my respects to him and the good company which will gather 
 to greet him on the twenty-fifth, 
 
 I am, dear sir, cordially yours, 
 
 Samuel Longfellow. 
 
 Rev. M. J. Savage. 
 
 From Mr. George Jacob Holyoake. 
 
 Newcastle Chambers, Essex Street, Temple, 
 London, W.C., June 10, 1880. 
 
 My dear Sir, — A short illness overtook me in Scotland, else I should 
 have replied to your letter at once. It would be to me a pleasure, as 
 well as an honor, to take part in the dinner to Mr. Francis Ellingwood 
 Abbot, were it possible. Few persons whom I had the pleasure to 
 meet in America impressed me more than he, with his bright earnest- 
 ness and singleness of purpose in the advocacy of progressive opinion. 
 His noble impetuosity in striving for the intrinsic integrity of free 
 thought, alike in principle and conduct, makes us all in every country 
 his debtors, who care for the reputation of intellectual liberty. I trust 
 that the great cause which he has so brilliantly carried forward will 
 continue to prosper in the hands of Mr. Potter, his successor, and that 
 Mr. Abbot will live long to witness, with pride and honor, the good 
 seeds spring up a thousand-fold, which he has sown with so valiant 
 a hand. 
 
 Not being able to write myself, my daughter Emilie writes for me, in 
 the hope that these few words may reach you with the many others you 
 will receive on the twenty-fifth. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 George Jacob Holyoake. 
 
 The Rev. M. J. Savagh. 
 
56 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 From Mr. Charles Watts. 
 
 The " Secular Review," 84 Fleet Street, 
 London, E.C., June 8, 1880. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Many thanks for your kind invitation to be present at the 
 dinner you intend giving to Mr. Abbot on June 25. I regret very much 
 that I shall not be present, as it would afford me great pleasure to join 
 in a manifestation of hearty appreciation of the labors of one who, like 
 Mr. Abbot, has lived a noble and consistent public life. I have not the 
 pleasure of personally knowing the gentleman ; but, from his writings 
 and the testimony of those who have the advantage of his acquaintance, 
 it is evident that he is thoroughly worthy of the honor you are about to 
 confer upon him. Mr. Abbot is undoubtedly a consistent worker for the 
 public good, and one who has the courage of his opinions and a marked 
 fidelity to conviction; a gentleman who has proved that he has a mind 
 superior to selfish interests, and whose actions are governed by the 
 principles of uniform rectitude and integrity. In his future career, I 
 earnestly wish him every success, and trust that your gathering on the 
 twenty-fifth will be in every sense successful. 
 
 With sympathy for all who work for human improvement. 
 Believe me, yours very truly, 
 
 Charles Watts. 
 
 The Rev. M. J. Savage, Boston, Mass. 
 
 From Mr. Nathaniel R. Waters. 
 
 Rev. M. J. Savage: 
 
 Dear Sir, — Your missives reached me in Baltimore a few days ago, 
 and I would gladly thank you for them in person and be present at the 
 forthcoming banquet ; but fate will not have it so. To honor Mr. Abbot 
 at this time is to honor Truth and Right, and to uphold the liberal cause 
 upon its only safe and sound basis. We have crying need of men like 
 him, and of the work they are fitted to do. Happy for society and the 
 world, whose monster evils the spread of knowledge and righteousness 
 alone can effectually redress, if the nee'ded seers and doers shall speedily 
 come, and if they shall be recognized and honored as they ought to be 
 wherever they appear. The liberal name covers self-seekers and dema- 
 gogues to a fearful extent ; and the amount of small shot expended 
 against the heaving sides of moribund church religion is shocking to 
 an economist. But the " words fitly spoken," that will help us to avoid 
 putting our own lusts in the place of our neighbors' superstitions, are 
 indeed so rare as to be " like apples of gold in network of silver." For 
 my part, I can hardly conceive of our Index without an Abbot ; but I 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 57 
 
 heartily hope that the organ will flourish under the new auspices, for we 
 require it still, and I know of no paper to take its place. 
 
 Let me in conclusion wish a useful, prosperous, and lengthened life- 
 time to Mr. Abbot; to The Index, abounding success and triumph; to 
 all your good company, appetite, digestion, and fresh, free-thinking 
 
 fruits to follow. 
 
 I am, sir, respectfully yours, 
 
 Nathaniel Ramsay Waters. 
 
 Washington, D.C, June 3, 1880. 
 
 From Mr. Lewis G. Janes. 
 
 Brooklyn, June 23, 1880. 
 Mr. J. A. J. Wilcox: 
 
 My dear Sir, — Contrary to my expectation, business engagements 
 will prevent me from being present at the dinner to Mr. Abbot on 
 Friday next. I had made all my arrangements to go, and am reluc- 
 tantly compelled to alter my plans. 
 
 I shall be with you, however, in spirit and sympathy. My acquaint- 
 ance with Mr. Abbot through The Index, since its earliest issue, has 
 steadily heightened my respect for his sincerity, truthfulness, and 
 ability. The cause of freedom and character in religion can ill afford 
 to lose the labor of his brain and pen ; and I can but hope, while 
 wishing him all success in his new field of labor, that the cause to 
 which he has already devoted so many of his best years may not 
 wholly be deprived of his voice and pen. 
 
 Acknowledging gratefully my own personal obligations to Mr. Abbot, 
 
 I am yours faithfully, 
 
 Lewis G. Janes. 
 
 From Mr. Charles M. Cuyler. 
 
 Albany, N.Y., June 23, 1880. 
 J. A. J. Wilcox : 
 
 Dear Sir, — Absence from the city and other causes have interfered 
 to prevent an earlier reply to the kind invitation of yourself and others 
 to be present at a dinner to be tendered our friend, Mr. F. E. Abbot, 
 upon the occasion of his leaving The Index, over whose columns he 
 has so long and so ably presided. I exceedingly regret that business 
 engagements will not permit my attendance at an entertainment which 
 cannot fail to be an extremely delightful one. My sympathies have 
 been with Mr. Abbot throughout his connection with The Index, but 
 more particularly during the last few years, when he has been obliged 
 
58 FAREWELL DINNER. 
 
 to Struggle with a desperate effort to pervert to base uses and ends the 
 cause he had so dearly loved and bravely and unselfishly labored for. 
 
 My kindest and best wishes go equally with our friend wherever duty 
 may in the future carry him, and with the dear Index under its new 
 management. I shall be pleased at any time to contribute my mite to 
 any more substantial testimonial which Mr. Abbot's friends may see fit 
 to tender him, and which I believe he deserves to receive. 
 I am yours very respectfully, 
 
 Chas. M. Cuyler. 
 
 From Mr. E. B. Welch. 
 
 New York, 137 Broadway, June 24, 1880. 
 Mr. J. A. J. Wilcox: 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have been hoping, ever since the receipt of the invita- 
 tion that you kindly sent me, to be able to meet our mutual friend, 
 Francis E. Abbot, at the dinner to be given in his honor to-morrow, in 
 Boston, by a few of his numerous friends and admirers ; but at the last 
 moment I am reluctantly compelled to forego the anticipated pleasure. 
 I know that the occasion will be a rare social and intellectual treat, and 
 regret that I cannot enjoy it and express to Mr. Abbot the obligations 
 that I feel under to him for the large measure of enjoyment and instruc- 
 tion derived from The Index while under his editorship. 
 
 Will you also do me the favor to present to Mr. Abbot a volume which 
 I found to-day in a street book-stall, bearing the following title : — 
 
 '■' Antonii van Dale Dissertatiojies de Origine ac Frogressu Idololatrice 
 et Snperstitionutn^'' etc. 
 
 It bears the imprint of "Boom," Amsterdam, MDCXCVI (1696); so 
 that booms are not a modern invention, as New Yorkers generally sup- 
 pose. Whether the book has any special value except for its age and 
 the Sw ejects it treats of, I am not competent to judge, having dropped 
 my school-days Latin, together with my early Calvinistic education, along 
 the road of life ; but I think that Mr. Abbot, being a scholar as well as a 
 philosopher, may find something in it that may give it some value to him. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 E. B. Welch. 
 
 From Mr. William Green. 
 
 West New^tox, May 31, 1880. 
 Mr. J. A. J. Wilcox : 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have before me your note of the 1 7th instant, inviting 
 me to unite with some of Mr. Abbot's friends in giving him a social 
 reception before he shall relinquish the editorship of The Index. Mr. 
 
FAREWELL DINNER. 59 
 
 Abbot deserves all the attention and honor and sympathy that will ever 
 be given him, and I am pleased to hear of the proposed meeting of his 
 friends. As long as I have known The Index, I have been much inter- 
 ested in it and in Mr. Abbot, and would be much gratified to become 
 acquainted with those who sympathize with him in his reformatory 
 labors. But my age, with its usual accompaniments, is such that I do 
 not go out evenings, nor could I endure the fatigue that would attend it ; 
 and my hearing is such that I should hear very little of what would be 
 said on the occasion, and consequently should be no companion. There- 
 fore I am obliged to ask you to accept these reasons as my excuse for 
 not joining with you and others on the proposed occasion. Please accept 
 my thanks for the invitation. 
 
 Yours fraternally, 
 
 William Green. 
 
 From Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, by his daughter. 
 
 Concord, June 23, 1880. 
 Rev. Mr. Savage : 
 
 Dear Sir, — My father duly received your note inviting him to the 
 dinner for Mr. Abbot ; but he does not feel able to come, nor even to 
 write a letter for the occasion. He for some time deferred answering 
 your letter, thinking he might be able to write later ; but he finds he 
 is not. Yours truly, 
 
 Ellen J. Emerson. 
 
YC 1 00065 
 
 
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