ith the design of the passage in its original sacred context. We
welcome Mrs. Stowe, then, as an honored fellow-laborer in the highest
and best of causes; and I am much mistaken if this tone of welcome be
not by far the most congenial to her own feelings. We unaffectedly
sympathize with much which she must feel, and, as a lady, more
peculiarly feel, in passing through that ordeal of gratulation which is
sure to attend her steps in every part of our country; and I am
persuaded that we cannot manifest our gratitude for her past services in
any way more acceptable to herself than by earnest prayer on her behalf
that she may be kept in the simplicity of Christ, enjoying in her daily
experience the tender consolations of the Divine Spirit, and in the
midst of the most flattering commendations saying and feeling, in the
instincts of a renewed heart, 'Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but
unto thy name be the praise, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.'"

PROFESSOR STOWE then rose, and said, "If we are silent, it is not
because we do not feel, but because we feel more than we can express.
When that book was written, we had no hope except in God. We had no
expectation of reward save in the prayers of the poor. The surprising
enthusiasm which has been excited by the book all over Christendom is an
indication that God has a work to be done in the cause of emancipation.
The present aspect of things in the United States is discouraging. Every
change in society, every financial revolution, every political and
ecclesiastical movement, seems to pass and leave the African race
without help. Our only resource is prayer. God surely cannot will that
the unhappy condition of this portion of his children should continue
forever. There are some indications of a movement in the southern mind.
A leading southern paper lately declared editorially that slavery is
either right or wrong: if it is wrong, it is to be abandoned: if it is
right, it must be defended. The _Southern Press_, a paper established to
defend the slavery interest at the seat of government, has proposed that
the worst features of the system, such as the separation of families,
should be abandoned. But it is evident that with that restriction the
system could not exist. For instance, a man wants to buy a cook; but she
has a husband and seven children. Now, is he to buy a man and seven
children, for whom he has no use, for the sake of having a cook? Nothing
on the present occ