The great want of an anti-slavery paper at the capitol had been supplied by five-dollar subscriptions to a publication fund, and Dr.
Bailey called from Cincinnati to take charge of it, and few men have kept a charge with more care and skill.

He and the _Era_ had just passed the ordeal of a frightful mob, in which he was conciliatory, unyielding and victorious; and he was just then gravely anxious about the great crisis, but most of all anxious that the _Era_ should do yeoman service to the cause which had called it into life.

The _Era_ had a large circulation, and high literary standing, but Dr.Bailey was troubled about the difficulty or impossibility of procuring anti-slavery tales.
Mrs.Southworth was writing serials for it, and he had hoped that she, a Southern woman with Northern principles, could weave into her stories pictures of slavery which would call damaging attention to it, but in this she had failed.
Anti-slavery tales, anti-slavery tales, was what the good Doctor wanted.
Temperance had its story writer in Arthur.

If only abolition had a good writer of fiction, one who could interest and educate the young.

He knew of but one pen able to write what he wanted, and alas, the finances of the _Era_ could not command it.