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THE REV. DAVID THOMAS, D.D., ON FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND HIS WORK

interest of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and recalls tragic adventures equal to the boldest
creations of romance. It will, I trow, run as widely and live as long as "Robinson
Crusoe" and kindred works, but exert at the same time a more potent and beneficent
influence.

The book is an autobiography, in which a great man tells out the heartrending
wrongs which he has endured, and the agonizing and tremendous struggles which
he put forth for freedom and justice. The Author 's life was so mixed up with the
most tragical period in American history, that this autobiography reveals, in aspects
new and grand, the labours of the anti-slavery reformers, such as the illustrious
Lloyd Garrison, and his noble colleagues; the characters of Presidents Lincoln and
Garfield; and the origin, the progress, and the issues of the great Civil War between
the North and the South.

It also reveals the possibilities of a human soul to change external circum-
stances. Here is a man, born and bred in slavery, subject for twenty-one long years
to the most terrible oppression and ruthless cruelty, bleeding under the lash of the
slaveholder, incarcerated in dungeons, subject to daily insults even from the conven-
tional sainthood of the Churches, as well as from white men everywhere, and what
does he do? He breaks through all, like Samson through the "withs" that bound him,
until he becomes one of the first men in the State, an associate of leading Senators.
a most distinguished citizen, the "Marshal of Columbia," wearing the title of
"Honourable". Men need never, ought not ever. to be the creature of circumstances.
He degrades his manhood when he yields to externalities. Heaven has endowed him
with the power to use the most unpropitious external conditions. as the skillful mari-
ner uses hostile waves and winds, to carry him on to his destination. In truth, to a
great soul, as in the case of Frederick Douglass, the most unfavourable circum-
stances may be turned into triumphant chariots, to bear our manhood on to its ideal
power and grandeur.

Mr. Lobb, in publishing this volume. does a work of true patriotism and philan-
thropy. I trust that it will find its way not only to every railway stall and every cir-
culating library, but into every British home. All who, through this work, come in
contact with Frederick Douglass, will be impressed with the dignity of human
nature, and feel refreshed and encouraged. They will find a man here: an existence,
alas! somewhat rare.

Amongst millions of bipeds there are not many real men. Jeremiah was com-
missioned by the Almighty to "run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and
to search the broad places" in order to find a "man." The city had at that time. not
been desolated by war, nor had its inhabitants, so far as is known, been thinned by
any catastrophe; its streets resounded with the tread of a crowded population, its
broad market-places were thronged with those who bought and sold in "order to get
gain," but amidst this dense concourse of human animals--feeding, thinking, barter-
ing, all acting with more or less energy, and some flaunting as local magnates,--to
find a man was a difficult work. A man amongst a teeming population of human