men, as Robin Hood is above a
miserable tea-spoon burglar. The south sails under false colors, does
it? What flag do your platform men give to the wind, I should like to
know? What do they care for the Fugitive Slave Law? Half of them would
help a runaway to Canada with as good a will as they'd eat their
dinner. (_Coming close and sitting down, so as to look fixedly in her
face_.) I'll tell you what, sister, the chivalry of the south responds
to you northern Christians who prate so loud of brotherhood and
charity, in the words of young Cancer to his mother--"_Libenter tuis
praeceptis obsequar, si te prius idem facientem videro_."

_Mrs. G._ (_very gently_.) These strictures, brother, are too keenly
just. They remind me of Kossuth's assertion, that there is not yet a
Christian nation on the earth, nor yet a Christian church, that dare
venture entirely upon the principles of the Gospel. Still, the
aberration of reformers proves no more in favor of slavery, than the
vices and miseries of civilized life prove that barbarism is the
natural and happy state of the human race; nay, these very aberrations
prove that a centripetal power counteracts the opposing force, and
holds them within the genial influence of the sun of truth.

The law of spiritual gravitation is little understood. But thousands
of philosophers are closely observing the phenomena, and carefully
comparing them with the data given in the Sermon on the Mount; and it
is not too much to hope that this generation will give to the world a
Newton, whose moral mathematics shall demonstrate that the _law_ of
_love_ is the true theory of individual and national prosperity.

_Mr. F._ Well, sister, I wish you much joy of your millennial state;
but before the Sermon on the Mount becomes the code of nations, I
guess you will find--

_Mr. D._ (_interrupting_.) "A little more grape, Captain Bragg!"

_Frank._ I tell you, uncle, "there's a good time coming." Mother is a
prophet. I have watched her words all my life, and I never knew them
fall to the ground.

_Mrs. G._ Observe, my friends, that the Sermon on the Mount puts
blessing before requirement. If you accept these beatitudes as the
gift of your Divine Master, you will find that obedience to the
precepts which follow, is not the unwilling service of a bondsman, but
the free and natural action of an unfranchised spirit.

[Illustration: (signature) C. A. Bloss]

CLOVER STREET SEM., November 10th, 1853.

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