Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/150

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A CHAPTER ON SLAVERY.

as the Apostle affirms, "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

It is greatly to be regretted, however, that the wiser and nobler-minded of the citizens of the South should suffer themselves to be turned from the manifest path of duty on which they had entered, by such attacks as these. The true man goes straight on in the path of right, allowing himself neither to be stopped by opposition, nor urged on faster than he sees to be wise by goading, nor turned from his course in any direction either by shouts or sneers: he keeps right on, gently but firmly, in the path that conscience marks out, trusting in his God, and sure that a blessing will at length crown his faithful efforts.

A course very different from that of the northern fanatics has been taken by the authoress of that remarkable work, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Instead of closing the ears and clenching the hands of the citizens of the South, by violent and bitter attacks, she has striven to touch their hearts and arouse their sympathies by a series of affecting pictures, such as we are sure will reach the feelings of thousands and tens of thousands of lofty-minded men and tender-hearted women in the slave-holding States. Anxious to be just as well as compassionate, she has evidently sought to give faithfully both sides of the picture; showing the many ameliorating circumstances in the slave-relation as it really exists, and making it a very different thing from the scene of universal wailing and lashing, in which it has appeared to the excited imaginations of many. She