with choice sentiments, and which might be read with profit by every young man.

He wrote the worst manuscript I ever undertook to decipher. Tramping printers who applied to the Enquirer for a "sit" were handed an article from Bloss' pen as the shortest way of disposing of them. Giving it a brief examination, they would drop it like a hot potato. A sheet of his manuscript, taken at random from the waste basket of the Enquirer, which had been set up in that office, was presented to me several years ago. I have often exhibited it to curious people, but have never met one that could read the first word of it, and I have been equally unfortunate myself. I might add that Bloss was a native of Jefferson county, if I am not mistaken, and removed with his parents to Oswego when a young child.

The year 1852 was a presidential year. The democrats, after a wearisome struggle of four days, nominated Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire for president. Among those voted for in the convention were General Cass, James Buchanan, Governor Marcy, Stephen A. Douglas, Sam Houston and General Lane. General Cass received the largest number of votes. General Pierce did not receive a single vote until the convention had balloted about forty times, when the Kentucky delegation voted for him. Tennessee followed suit. On the forty-ninth ballot Pierce was nominated, receiving the entire vote of the convention. His appears to have been about the only name the convention could agree upon. Like Polk, who was named by the democrats in 1844, he was little known, and so nothing could be said against him. He was an "unknown quantity." Neither of the democratic factions in this state was pleased with the nomination, but both supported it with more or less zeal. At this time the barnburners did not see any good reason for electing a whig to the presidency upon a pro-slavery

platform. Unless something was to be gained to freedom by defeating the democratic nominee, they did not understand why he should not be supported by them. They preferred him to General Scott, the whig nominee, who was not considered a fit person for president. He was a vain man, and by his opponents styled "old fuss and feathers." Daniel Webster declared the nomination of Scott one "not fit to be made." The same thing could have been said of Pierce, and with as much reason. He was a poor stick. But he was a dyed-in-the-wool democrat, a citizen of the granite state, a lawyer of fair reputation, and so the democrats generally voted for him, and he was chosen. Governor Marcy was given the posi tion of secretary of state, who looked after the appointments in this state, and, so far as I remember, they were fairly distributed. In its general policy, however, the administration of Pierce leaned toward the south. matter of fact, he could not have been nominated had he occupied a position at all equivocal on the slavery question.

As a

The whigs had the same trouble in their convention the democrats did in theirs. The candidates were Millard Fillmore, General Scott and Daniel Webster. Mr. Fillmore had the highest vote on the first ballot; subsequently Scott was ahead. The nomination was made on the fiftythird ballot, when Scott received 158, Fillmore 112 and Webster 21. On the previous ballots Webster had received 27 votes.

Both the friends of Fillmore and Webster were greatly disgusted with the choice of the convention. Both had made extraordinary efforts to secure the nomination. Mr. Fillmore had signed the fugitive slave law, under which slaves escaping from the slave states to the free were being taken back to their owners, and Mr. Webster.declared the statute a just one, insisting that the north ought to "conquer its prejudices" and assist in the exe

cution of its provisions. Both, however, got "left," and saw General Scott bear off the prize they had so diligently sought. They were sorely disappointed, and their special friends, I think, did not care how the election resulted. At all events, Pierce was elected almost unanimously. Scott carried but four states and received only 42 of the 298 electoral votes.

Mr. Webster died the same year, and Theodore Parker, who preached a discourse on the occasion of his death, expressed the belief that his disappointment was so great on account of his defeat in the convention that he did not care to live. Mr. Parker says:

"He longed for the presidency; but Harrison kept him from the nomination in '40, Clay in '44, Taylor in '48, and Scott in '52. He never had a wide and original influence in the politics of the nation, for he had no elemental thunder of his own-the tariff was Mr. Calhoun's at first; the force bill was from another hand; the fugitive slave bill was Mr. Mason's; the 'omnibus' had many fathers, whereof Webster was not one. He was not a blood relation to any of the great measures-to free trade or protection, to paper money or hard coin, to freedom or slavery; he was of their kindred only by adoption. He has been on all sides of most questions, save on the winning side."

And speaking of Parker impels me to say that he was one of the most talented divines this country has ever produced. Of course I understand he was not orthodox; he was both feared and hated by that kind of people-hated because he was feared-but few men have lived who were more loyal to truth, right, justice and true Christianity than Theodore Parker. He was at least half a century in advance of his age. He was a deep thinker, and he dared to express his thoughts, as did Martin Luther, who proclaimed to the world his convictions with such force and earnestness as to change the drift of religious sentiment throughout the civilized world. Parker was an indefatigable worker; he had an immense library, and was as familiar with its treasures as the real mechanic is with the tools in his workshop; he spoke and wrote with equal facility, and always with tre

mendous power. As an analytical writer he has seldom been equaled.

How would the reader relish a portrait of the man as he appeared in the pulpit and in private life? I think I will have to give it.

CHAPTER XXV.

Theodore Parker as a Preacher-A Sermon by him-A Temple of Free Seats and Free Speech-His Estimate of Daniel Webster-A Mixed Eulogy.

I was in Boston one Sunday in the summer of 1852, and having a curiosity to see and hear Theodore Parker, of whom terrible things had been said, both in the pulpit and the press-for he was unsparing in his denunciations of pro-slavery newspapers and pro-slavery preachers-I asked the clerk at the hotel at which I was stopping for information which would enable me to find the place at which Mr. Parker held forth. He gave the necessary directions, and about ten o'clock in the forenoon I set out for the church edifice. I found it without difficulty. I was early. Few persons had arrived, and there was no sexton or usher to show me in. I waited in the vestibule a few minutes, and then ventured in. Proceeding up one of the three aisles, I discovered a man sitting alone. Passing into the slip, I hesitatingly inquired if I would be an intruder if I took a seat with him? "No, sir," he answered, and he spoke very emphatically, "the seats are all free here."

So I seated myself and awaited coming events. The congregation came in leisurely, but in the course of half an hour or more the auditorium was comfortably filled, and finally the preacher made his appearance, went straight into the desk, and immediately began work. He read half a dozen verses from the Bible, delivered a short invocation, and very soon commenced his sermon, a written one. I am not certain whether there was singing or not. If so, the fact did not leave an impression