e of the great question which is now unfortunately
agitating this State, and the deep interest you evince for the
prosperity and happiness of Illinois, and the preservation of the
rights and liberty of its inhabitants, do credit alike to the
native benevolence of your heart and to those divine and
political principles which distinguish the real Christian and
Republican, and cannot fail to present a contrast, which, however
mortifying it may be to me as an Illinoisan, cannot but be highly
gratifying to me as a man, to see one so far removed from the
scene, and without any other interest except that which he feels
in the general happiness of his species, nobly and generously
volunteering his services to assist in promoting the cause of
humanity, whilst there are thousands here strenuously advocating
the giving a legal sanction to the oppression and abject slavery
of their fellow-creatures. Such noble, generous, and fervid
benevolence as yours, is highly honorable even to a _Friend_; and
is a new and striking proof of that extended philanthropy, and
pure and heaven-born spirit of Brotherly love, by which that
denomination of Christians have ever been distinguished, and
cannot fail to excite the admiration and win the confidence and
attachment of all--especially of those like myself, who daily
experience pain and mortification in hearing doctrines advanced
which are directly in opposition to the great fundamental truths
of our religious and political creeds.

In behalf of the friends of freedom in this State, I give you
sincere and grateful thanks for the offer of your services to
assist us to enlighten the minds of our fellow citizens, by
publishing judicious selections and observations on the iniquity
and impolicy of Slavery, in _tract form_, and distributing them
gratuitously through the State. It may be proper, however, to
remark that distant friends should be cautious in the manner of
making their benevolent exertions, as there is danger that
designing partisans here may not only paralyze the effort, but
turn it against the cause it was intended to promote, by
representing it to be the interference of other States for the
purpose of influencing the opinion of the people of this. An
ingenious pen could dress up this subject in a manner to give