"of bona fide emancipation, in the midst of the slave-holding States, evidenced by self-denying exertions to place the emancipated blacks in a land where they may be truly free and blessed, will have more effect in free — ing others, than a hundred auxiliaries at the North, or tens of thousands of speeches and resolves which never reach the eye or ear of a single slave-holder, or if they do, serve only to irritate, and shut up every avenue to conviction." And so it is: "God's ways are not as our ways, neither are His thoughts as our thoughts." We set out on a course of action, planned, as we believe, from benevolent motives, — and we push on, in our own strength, determined to overcome every obstacle, and by main force to break down all opposition, and to effect our object at every hazard: — and what is the result? we accomplish nothing: we find ourselves, after all our efforts, farther from the point aimed at than when we set out. And why? Because we have gone forward in our own strength, not in the Lord's strength: because both the plan, and the manner of its execution are from our own narrow and shortsighted understandings, made still narrower by our own obstinate wills. All this time — unobserved or despised by us — the Omnipotent and All-wise Providence is really effecting the same benevolent object, in His own quiet and peculiar manner, so working as, while accomplishing the end in view, to benefit all and injure none.
The truth of this may be strikingly seen in the present instance. Men — urged, doubtless, by benevolent motives — set their hearts on the abolition of slavery. And setting about it in their own strength,
