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THE TWO CAPITALS.
Rev. M.D. Conway gave his best and most telling lecture, on the above subject, last Friday evening, at Lyceum Hall, Milford. The inclemency of the weather and bad traveling curtailed the number of hearers. But those who faced the storm were amply repaid, and left the hall with more enthusiasm and satisfaction than we are wont to witness. According to my judgment, this is one of Mr. Conway’s best efforts—in its delivery, he is truly M.D. Conway—only a little more so.
There are several striking points which he puts with an original force, suited to the hour, and which fasten to the memory of the hearer. His scathing rebuke of the servile cry, that our present struggle is not a war for Emancipation, is capital, worth more than “two capitals,” unless they get rid of slavery. His reference to the precious saints of New York, rich and caustic. “These fellows,” says Mr. C., “are continually oscillating, like the pendulum of a clock, between Washington and the Penitentiary.” The classification of those represented by the President’s Proclamation—“hunkers, neutrals, and weak-kneed and thin-skinned Republicans,” as we Yankees say, hit the nail on the head.
Then there were pathos and sympathetic power that reached the heart. Curses upon a system so foul and unnatural as American slavery were inwardly rising, as our friend narrated the paltry meanness of our Generals and others to the oppressed. The first of January, we were told, has hitherto been denominated by the slaves as the “heart-break day.” It is on this day, so pleasant to most of us in receiving and imparting tokens of affection and friendship, that the victims of oppression are assembled in shambles, to be let out, sold, and separated. No sun of brightness shines in their lonely path. But, thank God, Abraham Lincoln proposes to let in a little light on the next new year’s day! O, may it be to the suffering, toiling millions the coming of that glad hour for which they have so patiently waited, saying—“Am I not a man and a brother?”
I am glad to announce that Mr. Conway proposes to re-cast the lecture on the Two Capitals, and bring it out under the significant title of the “National Equinox.” This lecture he will deliver at Milford, on Wednesday evening. Dec. 10th. No better service can be done the Anti-slavery cause than for our friends in various places to secure his services.
G.W.S.
