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shower down upon his head the terrors of a denunciatory eloquence. He was a man overflowing with wit and humor. It showed itself in his conversation, in his speeches, in his writings. His bitterest enemies could not deny themselves of his brilliant newspaper writings, and many of their names were upon the subscription book of the newspaper of which he was the editor.

Mr. Rogers was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire, June 3d, 1794. His father was a physician of fine abilities, and his mother was a woman of more than ordinary intellect and heart. His parentage was excellent, and as he was a lineal descendant of John Rogers, the martyr, he had no cause to be ashamed of the blood which coursed through his veins. In 1811, he entered Dartmouth College, but through ill health was obliged to leave, after remaining one year. He returned afterwards, and took his degree in 1816. He shortly afterward engaged in the study of the law, and practiced it in his native

state.

By nature possessed of extraordinary talents, when to these was added the discipline of a collegiate course, he was fitted to adorn any station in the coun try. He became thoroughly acquainted with law, and yet its practice was always distasteful to him. He seldom appeared in the courts to plead, for his spirit was of too fine material not to shrink from the

rough conflicts of such a life. He remained in his office-it was in his native town-and counseled his clients, or prepared cases for the courts. His keen intellect won for him a fine reputation, and his advice was sought in intricate cases, far and wide. For many years, Mr. Rogers continued in the profession for which he was educated, but was never content with it. His love of nature was fervent, and the poetic instincts of his nature led him to abhor the dry technicalities of the statute book. He was born and lived among grand scenery, and his soul seemed to assimilate itself to the magnificent mountains, among the shadows of which he so dearly loved to wander. He gave up book-reading and read nature. The awful peaks of the White Mountains were more welcome to him than anything in Shakspeare or Byron, and the tender song of some early spring-bird more sweet and beautiful to his ear than the measured cadences of more modern poets. He had room in his heart for everything good and gentle, sublime or beautiful.

At last the anti-slavery agitation arose, and being a true man, and in tune with nature, he at once received into his great heart God's truth, and became an abolitionist. He gave up profession, pecuniary independence, comfort; and heart and soul espoused the cause of the slave. He removed to Concord, and became the editor of the far-famed Herald of Frec

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dom, in which he wrote for many years some of the most brilliant editorials which have ever emanated from the newspaper writers of America. He adopted a style well calculated to attract attention; a pointed, homely, and, if we may use the term, a Yankee style. He eschewed the old rules, and being sure of always penning great ideas, cared little for the manner in which they were clothed. As a matter of course, he had to meet the cry "you are before the age!" and he answered it as follows:

BEFORE THE AGE.

"You are too fast." Well, friends, you are too slow. "You are altogether ahead of the times." Well, you are altogether in the rear of the times-astern of the times—at the tail of the times, if I must say it. And which is the most honorable and useful position? It is ahead of the times to denounce slavery, and demand its abandonment. But that is no reason anti-slavery is wrong, or unreasonable, or imprudent, injudicious, or any of the epithets a laggard age casts upon it. Is slave-holding right? Are the institutions that support it right? Are they for the happiness, benefit, improvement, usefulness, innocency of the people? These are the questions. "You are before the age!" Well, if I were not, it's high time I You ought to be before the age. The age is wrong. Whoever improves must go before. He must quit the age, wherein it is wrong, and the charge that he is before it is an admission that he is right. When Robert Fulton told them steam was better than wind on the water, or than horse-flesh on

were.

the land, he was before the age, though not a great ways before. He wasn't many years ahead of it. The age is up with him now. They will begin to build him monuments by and by, because he is dead and it wont do him any good. They trod him under foot when he was alive, he was so far "before the age," and called him crazy! Monomaniac I suppose they called him. One poor man got the notion, some ages ago, that the sun didn't whirl round the earth, but that it was more likely and reasonable that the appearances that looked as if it did, were brought about by the earth's turning round on its own axletree. They came nigh hanging or burning him for it. They let him off, I believe, on the ground of insanity. They made him give it up, though, publicly, to save his life. The Solemns got hold of him-the reverend divines-God's spe cially called, ordained and set apart ministers-chosen of God to guide the people to heaven. They must know all about the sun and stars, and things up the firmament, for they are guides to heaven. They said it was contrary to the inspired book to say the sun stood still and the earth whirled round. It was contrary to "Joshua." So they made the man take it back. They are a knowing people, these divines. They are specially gifted of God. They can't mistake. They were with the age. This crazy man was "before the age," now it is admitted by the very Solemns themselves, that the earth whirls over every twenty-four hours, and the sun is as still as a mouse. The Solemns always admit things after "the age" has adopted them. They are as careful about the age as the weather-cock is about the wind. They never mistake it. You might as well catch an old, experienced weather-cock on some ancient orthodox steeple,

mistaking the way of the wind, standing all day with his tail east, in a strong west wind, as the divines at odds with "the age." They can smell "the age." They taste it, at any rate.

Some of Mr. Rogers' most popular articles were written for the New York Tribune, over the signature of "Old Man of the Mountain," but they did not, to our thinking, quite equal his contributions to his Herald of Freedom. Some of these were written under circumstances which would have silenced the tongue or pen of any ordinary man. He was poor in health, poor, God knows, in purse, and an increasing family was upon his hands. And there were troubles the world knows not of with associates not so pure, gentle, and truly noble as he. We have spoken of his indignatory eloquence, and will quote a few paragraphs from one of his articles upon the martyr Torrey. It stirs the heart, even at this day, like the blast of a trumpet:

TORREY.

A New England citizen has been imprisoned and put to death without pretense of criminality-for mistaken philanthropy, at worst—for philanthropy, undeniably. But what can be done? Nothing, because of the spell slavery has shed over the land. Slavery may perpetrate anything, and New England can't see it. It can horsewhip the old commonwealth of Massachusetts, and spit in her governmental face, and she will not recognize it as an offense. She sent her Hon. Samuel

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