deprives us of the only epithets
which are capable of depicting their enormity. Every well regulated
heart is smitten with horror at the bare idea of their perpetration;
and we are uncertain whether most to loathe at the claim of those who
habitually commit them to companionship with human nature, or to marvel
that the unutterable wrath of heaven doth not scathe and blast them in
the midst of their enormities. Let the father look upon the dawning
intelligence of the boy that prattles around his knee, the pride of his
fond heart, and the hope and stay of his honest name; and then, if he
can, let him picture him in distant bondage, the fountain of his
affections dried up, the light of knowledge extinguished in his mind,
his manly and upright spirit broken by oppression, and his free person
and just proportions marred and lacerated by the incessant scourge. Let
the husband look upon the object in whose sacred care he has "garnered
up his heart," and on the little innocent who draws the fountain of its
life from her pure breast, recalling, as he gazes on one and the other,
the freshness and the strength of his early and his ardent love; and
then if he be able, let him picture those objects, in comparison with
which all that earth has to give is valueless in his eyes, torn from him
by violence, basely exchanged for gold, like beasts at the shambles,
bent down under unpitied sorrows, their persons polluted, and their pure
hearts corrupted--hopeless and unpitied slaves, to the rude caprice and
brutal passions of those we blush to call men. Let him turn from these
spectacles, and look abroad on the heritage where his lot has been cast,
glad and smiling under the profuse blessings which heaven has poured
on it, let him look back on the even current of a life overflowing with
countless enjoyments, and before him on a career full of anticipated
triumphs, and lighted by the effulgence of noble and virtuous deeds,
the very close of which looks placid, under the weight of years made
venerable by generous and useful actions, and covered by the gratitude
and applause of admiring friends; let the man-stealer come upon him, and
behold the wreck of desolation! Shame, disgrace, infamy, the blighting
of all hopes, the withering of all joys; long unnoticed wo, untended
poverty, a dishonored name, an unwept death, a forgotten grave; all, and
more than all, are in these words, _he is a slave_! He who can preserve
the even current of his thought