e
friends of the slave, which pained me more than I can express. It seemed
to me that the spirit which many of them manifested was very different
from the spirit of Christ. I also cheerfully bear testimony to the
general courtesy, the Christian urbanity, and the calmness under
provocation which, in a remarkable degree, characterized the conduct of
the members from the South."

In the flood of sophisms which the abolitionists usually pour out in
their explosions of passion, none is more common than what is
technically termed by logicians the _ignoratio elenchi_, or a mistaking
of the point in dispute. Nor is this fallacy peculiar to the more vulgar
sort of abolitionists. It glares from the pages of Dr. Wayland, no less
than from the writings of the most fierce, bitter, and vindictive of his
associates in the cause of abolitionism. Thus, in one of his letters to
Dr. Fuller, he says: "To present this subject in a simple light. Let us
suppose that your family and mine were neighbors. We, our wives and
children, are all human beings in the sense that I have described, and,
in consequence of that common nature, and by the will of our common
Creator, are subject to the law, _Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself_. Suppose that I should set fire to your house, shoot you as you
came out of it, and seizing your wife and children, 'oblige them to
labor for my benefit without their contract or consent.' Suppose,
moreover, aware that I could not thus oblige them, unless they were
inferior in intellect to myself, I should forbid them to read, and thus
consign them to intellectual and moral imbecility. Suppose I should
measure out to them the knowledge of God on the same principle. Suppose
I should exercise this dominion over them and their children as long as
I lived, and then do all in my power to render it certain that my
children should exercise it after me. _The question before us I suppose
to be simply this: Would I, in so doing, act at variance with the
relations existing between us as creatures of God?_ Would I, in other
words, violate the supreme law of my Creator, Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself? or that other, Whatsoever ye would that men should
do unto you, do ye even so unto them? I do not see how any intelligent
creature can give more than one answer to this question. Then I think
that every intelligent creature must affirm that do this is wrong, or,
in the other form of expression, that it is a great moral evi