ining religion?" This has been said to me again and again, even
since I came to this country, but I cannot be induced to leave off
these exposures. I love the religion of our blessed Savior. I love that
religion that comes from above, in the "wisdom of God," which is first
pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy
and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. I love that
religion that sends its votaries to bind up the wounds of him that has
fallen among thieves. I love that religion that makes it the duty of its
disciples to visit the father less and the widow in their affliction. I
love that religion that is based upon the glorious principle, of love
to God and love to man; which makes its followers do unto others as they
themselves would be done by. If you demand liberty to yourself, it says,
grant it to your neighbors. If you claim a right to think for yourself,
it says, allow your neighbors the same right. If you claim to act for
yourself, it says, allow your neighbors the same right. It is because I
love this religion that I hate the slaveholding, the woman-whipping, the
mind-darkening, the soul-destroying religion that exists in the southern
states of America. It is because I regard the one as good, and pure, and
holy, that I cannot but regard the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked.
Loving the one I must hate the other; holding to the one I must reject
the other.

I may be asked, why I am so anxious to bring this subject before the
British public--why I do not confine my efforts to the United States? My
answer is, first, that slavery is the common enemy of mankind, and all
mankind should be made acquainted with its abominable character. My next
answer is, that the slave is a man, and, as such, is entitled to your
sympathy as a brother. All the feelings, all the susceptibilities,
all the capacities, which you have, he has. He is a part of the human
family. He has been the prey--the common prey--of Christendom for the
last three hundred years, and it is but right, it is but just, it is
but proper, that his wrongs should be known throughout the world. I have
another reason for bringing this matter before the British public, and
it is this: slavery is a system of wrong, so blinding to all around, so
hardening to the heart, so corrupting to the morals, so deleterious
to religion, so{326} sapping to all the principles of justice in its
immediate vicinity, that the community surroun