TONGUE OF FLAME

In her dedication to causes Maria Child's career seems a slightly milder version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's. This is not to say that she was any less fervent in her convictions or less active in promoting her causes, but her views were more open and less revolutionary in their implications. She was not a great thinker or writer but she was a courageous one. Her beliefs are portrayed here with their innuendoes and with their inconsistencies. Primarily she was an abolitionist, but not a militant one, and most of her books and articles dealt with the problems of slavery. For a time she was editor of the Liberator, and was ridiculed both by those who opposed the movement and by those who supported the more incendiary views of the Liberator. She particularly attacked the Northern business men who supported slavery in the South and the covert racism of the "free" states. In this respect the book has particular contemporary interest, for it shows the roots and ramifications of a problem which has only recently been admitted. Maria Child's other interests included religion, from a humanistic stand, and women's rights, which she strongly believed in and exemplified. The book offers some delightful background details, including descriptions of Boston and New York during the mid-nineteenth century.