most illustrious men will sometimes use the vilest instruments, to
accomplish their own purposes. A few philanthropic common places and
rhetorical flourishes, "in the abstract," have secured them your "sweet
voices," and your influence over the tribe of mawkish sentimentalists.
Wilberforce may have been yours, but what was he besides, but a wealthy
county member? You must, therefore, expect to stand on your own merits
alone before posterity, or rather that portion of it that may be curious
to trace the history of the delusions which, from time to time, pass
over the surface of human affairs, and who may trouble themselves to
look through the ramifications of transcendentalism, in this era of
extravagances. And how do you expect to appear in their eyes? As
Christians, piously endeavoring to enforce the will of God, and carry
out the principles of Christianity? Certainly not, since you deny or
pervert the Scriptures in the doctrines you advance; and in your
conduct, furnish a glaring contrast to the examples of Christ and the
apostles. As philanthropists, devoting yourselves to the cause of
humanity, relieving the needy, comforting the afflicted, creating peace
and gladness and plenty round about you? Certainly not, since you turn
from the needy, the afflicted; from strife, sorrow and starvation which
surround you; close your eyes and hands upon them; shut out from your
thoughts and feelings the human misery which is real, tangible, and
within your reach, to indulge your morbid imagination in conjuring up
woes and wants among a strange people in distant lands, and offering
them succor in the shape of costless denunciations of their best
friends, or by scattering among them "firebrands, arrows and death."
Such folly and madness, such wild mockery and base imposture, can never
win for you, in the sober judgment of future times, the name of
philanthropists. Will you even be regarded as worthy citizens? Scarcely,
when the purposes you have in view, can only be achieved by
revolutionizing governments and overturning social systems, and when you
do not hesitate, zealously and earnestly, to recommend such measures. Be
assured, then, that posterity will not regard the abolitionists as
Christians, philanthropists, or virtuous citizens. It will, I have no
doubt, look upon the mass of the party as silly enthusiasts, led away by
designing characters, as is the case with all parties that break from
the great, acknowledged ties which bin