r of a "civil war," or "a dissolution of the
Union;" that theirs is "a bloody road," and "their purpose is abolition,
universal abolition, peaceably if it can, forcibly if it must."_

It is true that, the abolitionists pursue their object, undisturbed by
apprehensions of consequences; but it is not true, that they pursue it
"reckless of consequences." We believe that they, who unflinchingly
press the claims of God's truth, deserve to be considered as far less
"reckless of consequences," than they, who, suffering themselves to be
thrown into a panic by apprehensions of some mischievous results, local
or general, immediate or remote, are guilty of compromising the truth,
and substituting corrupt expediency for it. We believe that the
consequences of obeying the truth and following God are good--only
good--and that too, not only in eternity, but in time also. We believe,
that had the confidently anticipated deluge of blood followed the
abolition of slavery in the British West Indies, the calamity would have
been the consequence, not of abolition, but of resistance to it. The
insanity, which has been known to follow the exhibition of the claims of
Christianity, is to be charged on the refusal to fall in with those
claims, and not on our holy religion.

But, notwithstanding, we deem it our duty and privilege to confine
ourselves to the word of the Lord, and to make that word suffice to
prevent all fears of consequences; we, nevertheless, employ additional
means to dispel the alarms of those, who insist on walking "by sight;"
and, in thus accommodating ourselves to their want of faith, we are
justified by the example of Him, who, though he said, "blessed are they
that have not seen and yet have believed," nevertheless permitted an
unbelieving disciple, both to see and to touch the prints of the nails
and the spear. When dealing with such unbelievers, we do not confine
ourselves to the "thus saith the Lord"--to the Divine command, to "let
the oppressed go free and break every yoke"--to the fact, that God is an
abolitionist: but we also show how contrary to all sound philosophy is
the fear, that the slave, on whom have been heaped all imaginable
outrages, will, when those outrages are exchanged for justice and mercy,
turn and rend his penitent master. When dealing with such unbelievers,
we advert to the fact, that the insurrections at the South have been the
work of slaves--not one of them of persons discharged from slavery: we