, and no human power can much longer
perpetuate it. The opposers of abolitionists fully believe this; one of
them remarked to me not long since, there is no doubt there will be a
most terrible overturning at the South in a few years, such cruelty and
wrong, must be visited with Divine vengeance soon. Abolitionists
believe, too, that this must inevitably be the case, if you do not
repent, and they are not willing to leave you to perish without
entreating you, to save yourselves from destruction; well may they say
with the apostle, "am I then your enemy because I tell you the truth,"
and warn you to flee from impending judgments.
But why, my dear friends, have I thus been endeavoring to lead you
through the history of more than three thousand years, and to point you
to that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before, "from works to
rewards?" Have I been seeking to magnify the sufferings, and exalt the
character of woman, that she "might have praise of men?" No! no! my
object has been to arouse _you_, as the wives and mothers, the daughters
and sisters, of the South, to a sense of your duty as _women_, and as
Christian women, on that great subject, which has already shaken our
country, from the St. Lawrence and the lakes, to the Gulf of Mexico, and
from the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic; _and will continue
mightily to shake it_, until the polluted temple of slavery fall and
crumble into ruin. I would say unto each one of you, "what meanest thou,
O sleeper! arise and call upon thy God, if so be that God will think
upon us that we perish not." Perceive you not that dark cloud of
vengeance which hangs over our boasting Republic? Saw you not the
lightnings of Heaven's wrath, in the flame which leaped from the
Indian's torch to the roof of yonder dwelling, and lighted with its
horrid glare the darkness of midnight? Heard you not the thunders of
Divine anger, as the distant roar of the cannon came rolling onward,
from the Texian country, where Protestant American Rebels are fighting
with Mexican Republicans--for what? For the re-establishment of
_slavery_; yes! of American slavery in the bosom of a Catholic Republic,
where that system of robbery, violence, and wrong, had been legally
abolished for twelve years. Yes! citizens of the United States, after
plundering Mexico of her land, are now engaged in deadly conflict, for
the privilege of fastening chains, and collars, and manacles--upon whom?
upon the subjects o
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