other
individuals may desire it. It has come before the public mind in such a
manner as peremptorily to demand the attention of every Christian and
every patriot. Whether we approve or deprecate the peculiar causes that
have made this topic so prominent in our country, both North and South,
we have to take things as they are, and turn them to the best possible
account. Politicians and demagogues are all discussing American slavery,
and will continue to do so for the purpose of forwarding their own
favorite schemes; and any attempt to silence them would be as futile as
an effort to arrest the gulf-stream in its course. It remains only for
brethren, both at the South and North, to take up the subject as we find
it brought to our hands in the inscrutable providence of God, and, under
the guidance of his Spirit, given in answer to our prayers, take a truly
Christian view of some of its leading features, and then inquire, What
is duty? I think you will not claim, with some of your southern friends,
that slavery is a subject with which we at the North "have nothing to
do." As patriots, we have something to do with every thing that affects
the interests of our common country; and as Christians, we sustain
responsibilities which we cannot shake off toward all our brethren of
the human family, whether it be at the North or South--whether they be
bound or free. "Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created
us?" "We are many members, but one body, and whether one member suffer
all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the
members rejoice with it."

Your candor will not impute to me any unkind or improper motive in
entering upon this discussion; and you will permit me, in the outset, to
enter a few disclaimers, in order that you may be the better able to
appreciate what I have to say.

In the first place, it is not my design to throw down the glove for the
purpose of enlisting you, or any of your friends, in a controversy; this
would be an unpleasant and profitless undertaking.

Nor is it to advocate the doctrine, that sustaining the legal relation
of master to a slave for a longer or shorter time is in all possible
cases sin. I will admit that there may be circumstances in which the
relation may subsist without any moral delinquency whatever; as, for
instance, persons may become slaveholders in the eye of the law without
their own consent, as by heirship; they sometimes become so voluntarily
to befri