Esclavage

SLIP OF PAPER INSCRIBED WITH A QUOTATION AND SIGNED BY UNITARIAN PASTOR ROBERT COLLYER WHO SUPPORTED THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY AND WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.

1880 · 37129 — Circa 1880. 1880. Good. - A slip of paper 2-3/8 inches high by 4-3/8 inches wide is inscribed & signed in black ink: "Let us thank God for the Saxon Grit / Robert Collyer". The paper is mounted on a piece of cream-colored card of approximately the same size. The card is unevenly cut & both paper & card are slightly rippled from the mounting. Good. <p>"Saxon Grit" is the title of an 1880 poem by Collyer about the Norman conquest of England in which the phrase recurs in each verse.<p>Robert Collyer 1823-1912 was an English-born American Unitarian clergyman. He became a Methodist minister in England in 1849. Emigrating to The United States in the following year he found employment as a hammer maker in Pennsylvania and soon began preaching on Sundays while still employed at the factory. His earnest rugged simple style of oratory won him great popularity but his advocacy for the antislavery cause then frowned upon by the Methodist authorities aroused opposition. He was tried for heresy and his license was revoked. Continuing as an independent preacher he joined the Unitarian Church in 1859. In 1860 he organized and became pastor of the Unity Church the second Unitarian Church in Chicago. The church grew to become one of the strongest Unitarian churches in the West and Collyer was regarded as one of the foremost pulpit orators in the country. He left Chicago in 1879 and became pastor of the Church of the Messiah now renamed the Community Church in New York City. In 1883 he was a featured speaker at the convention of the American Woman Suffrage Association where he spoke movingly about his deceased wife and their struggles over "the woman question". Circa [1880]. unknown