at, as a nation sows, so
shall it also reap? "Wherefore, hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful
men that rule this people: Because ye have said, We have made a
covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the
overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for
we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid
ourselves: Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Judgment will I lay to
the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep
away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the
hiding-place: And your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your
agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it."

These are solemn times. It is not a struggle for national salvation;
for the nation, as such, seems doomed beyond recovery. The reason why
the South rules, and North falls prostrate in servile terror, is
simply this: With the South, the preservation of Slavery is paramount
to all other considerations--above party success, denominational
unity, pecuniary interest, legal integrity, and constitutional
obligation. With the North, the preservation of the Union is placed
above all other things--above honour, justice, freedom, integrity of
soul, the Decalogue and the Golden Rule--the Infinite God himself. All
these she is ready to discard for the Union. Her devotion to it is the
latest and the most terrible form of idolatry. She has given to the
Slave Power a _carte blanche_, to be filled as it may dictate--and if,
at any time, she grows restive under the yoke, and shrinks back aghast
at the new atrocity contemplated, it is only necessary for that Power
to crack the whip of Disunion over her head, as it has done again and
again, and she will cower and obey like a plantation slave--for has
she not sworn that she will sacrifice everything in heaven and on
earth, rather than the Union?

What then is to be done? Friends of the slave, the question is not
whether by our efforts we can abolish Slavery, speedily or
remotely--for duty is ours, the result is with God; but whether we
will go with the multitude to do evil, sell our birthright for a mess
of pottage, cease to cry aloud and spare not, and remain in Babylon
when the command of God is, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be
not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
Let us stand in our lot, "and having done all,