Letter from Oliver Johnson to Rowland T. Robinson

Boston, April 20, '40.

My dear friend,

I have been trying ever since the reception of yours of the 22nd [?] to find time to pen a reply; but the multiplicity of my cares and labors has prevented. Since the commencement of this year I have had an unusual amount of labor and responsibility continually pressing upon me, and with such force, that my health has been somewhat impaired. I am now, however, acquiring my accustomed vigor and elasticity, and hope soon to be "myself again." I seize the pen now, in the greatest haste, to beg of you, by your love for the anti-slavery cause, and your regard for its integrity and vitality, to be at the coming anniversary in New York. My dear brother, I have not time to press in detail the arguments which, if I could see you face to face, I should urge upon you with great earnestness, to induce you to be present at the meeting referred to. Rely upon it, a battle is to be fought, such as has never before taken place in our ranks; a battle between the combined powers of sectarian bigotry and hatred on the Side, and genuine abolitionism on the other. Come, I beseech

you, at whatever sacrifice, if the State of your health does not imperiously forbid, and not only come yourself, but bring with you some of your dear family as well as other true and choice spirits. Great anxiety is felt here on the subject, lest the hardness of the times should keep so many of our friends at home as to give an easy victory to the wrong side. I am sure, dear brother, that your heart will say with mine, this must not, it shall not be, if any sacrifice which I can make can prevent it. It is my sober conviction, that, if the journey should make it inpracticable for you to give a single cent to the cause, in any other way, for a whole year to come, you had better go by all means, and this is the feeling which prevails among all our well-informed and sagacious friends in this quarter. It is of the utmost importance that Massachusetts should not be kept to fight the battle alone, thus giving the enemy occasion to say that it is a merely local controversy, in which the mass of abolitionists in other states feel little or no interest. No stone will be left unturned to induce the clergy and their blinded followers in Vermont to rally at the meeting; and hence it is doubly im

Rowland T. Robinson, North Ferrisburgh, Vt.