“Let us return to Benjamin Rush, who foresaw the revolutionary implications of Benjamin [Lay]'s philosophy. Writing after the abolitionist movement had burst into existence during the "age of revolution," Rush was acutely conscious that Benjamin had been a lonely fighter against slavery for forty long years, suffering endless persecution, ridicule, and repression, without a movement to support and sustain him. Rush saw that his very survival took rare strength, confidence, certitude, and character. He sought to turn the experience into an object lesson for activists of his own time. The "benefactors of mankind," he continued, must not "despair, if they do not see the fruits of their benevolent proportions, or undertakings, during their lives." Wherever the "seed of truth or virtue" is planted, it will "preserve and carry with it the principle of life." Some seeds bear fruit quickly, Rush explained, but the "most valuable of them, like the venerable oak, are centuries in the growing." Like the fearless Benjamin Lay, these giant oaks do not wither. "They exist and bloom for ever.” CharacterConvictionSelf ConfidencePersistenceTenacity Author:Marcus Rediker, The Fearless Benjamin Lay