No better education could he have had as the preparation for his life work.

He began to understand then the strength of deep-seated public evils, to acquaint himself with the methods and instruments with which to attack them.

The _Philanthropist_ was a sort of forerunner, so far as the training in intelligent and effective agitation was concerned, of the _Genius of Universal Emancipation_ and of the _Liberator_.

One cannot read his sketch of the progress made by the temperance reform, from which I have already quoted, and published by him in the _Philanthropist_ in April, 1828, without being struck by the strong similitude of the temperance to the anti-slavery movement in their beginnings.

"When this paper was first proposed," the young temperance editor records, "it met with a repulsion which would have utterly discouraged a less zealous and persevering man than our predecessor.