d, I tell you,
I was mighty bad off for clothes, them times."

"Well, well, the Lord be praised, they're over, and you are in a free
country now!" said the wife, as she rose thoughtfully from the table,
and brought her husband the great Bible. The little circle were ranged
around the stove for evening prayers.

"Henry, my boy, you must read--you are a better reader than your
father--thank God, that let you learn early!"

The boy, with a cheerful readiness, read, "The Lord is my Shepherd," and
the mother gently stilled the noisy baby, to listen to the holy words.
Then all kneeled, while the father, with simple earnestness, poured out
his soul to God.

They had but just risen--the words of Christian hope and trust scarce
died on their lips--when, lo! the door was burst open, and two men
entered; and one of them, advancing, laid his hand on the father's
shoulder. "This is the fellow," said he.

"You are arrested in the name of the United States!" said the other.

"Gentlemen, what is this?" said the poor man, trembling.

"Are you not the property of _Mr. B._, of Georgia?" said the officer.

"Gentlemen, I've been a free, hard-working man these ten years."

"Yes; but you are arrested, on suit of Mr. B., as his slave."

Shall we describe the leave taking--the sorrowing wife, the dismayed
children, the tears, the anguish, that simple, honest, kindly home, in a
moment so desolated? Ah, ye who defend this because it is law, think,
for one hour, what if this that happens to your poor brother should
happen to you!

* * * * *

It was a crowded court room, and the man stood there to be tried--for
life?--no; but for the life of life--for liberty!

Lawyers hurried to and fro, buzzing, consulting, bringing
authorities,--all anxious, zealous, engaged,--for what? To save a
fellow-man from bondage? No; anxious and zealous lest he might escape;
full of zeal to deliver him over to slavery. The poor man's anxious eyes
follow vainly the busy course of affairs, from which he dimly learns
that he is to be sacrificed--on the altar of the Union; and that his
heart-break and anguish, and the tears of his wife, and the desolation
of his children are, in the eyes of these well-informed men, only the
bleat of a sacrifice, bound to the horns of the glorious American altar!

* * * * *

Again it is a bright day, and business walks brisk in this market.
Senator and statesman,