for guiding; and as for
result, this lonely and solemn rally on the deepest within us, as it is
continuously unfolded, must lead to a glad and solemn union with the
Highest without us. Who can know unfailing inward energy except through
this new birth? It proved an ever-fresh spring of vigor to my father,
and because of it he was chosen, in 1839, president of "The Philadelphia
Bible Society." What changes were wrought in the policy of the Society,
what numerous plans were devised and executed for multiplying its
operations, how it was made a cordial alliance of all denominations,
will presently appear. This is now to be said: that, after filling his
office for five years, he found that his Anti-slavery testimony had
engendered in the managers a bitterness that would seize the address of
1844 for pretext, and make retaliation in his sacrifice. Thankful, for
the thousandth time, to be a sacrifice for the cause he loved, he sent
in his resignation in a letter full of Christian kindness and sorrow. A
short extract will show its tone:

"One whose great heart wishes the best for humanity calls to us
from the West: 'When your Society propose to put a Bible into
every family, and yet omit all reference to the slaves; and
when, giving an account of the destitution of the land, they
make no mention of two and a half millions of people perishing
in our midst without the Scriptures, can we help feeling that
something is dreadfully wrong?' This, brethren, is a most solemn
question. It is a question which I verily believe the American
Bible Society, so far as they may have yielded, directly or
indirectly, openly or silently, to a corrupt public sentiment on
this subject, will have to answer at the bar of Him who has
declared, that, 'If ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin,'
and that 'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of
these, ye did it not to me.' The spirit of Christianity is a
spirit of universal love and philanthropy. She looks down with
pity, and, if she could, she would look with scorn upon all the
petty distinctions that exist among men. She casts her benignant
eye abroad over the earth, and, wherever she sees man, she sees
him _as man,_ as a being made in the image of God, whether an
Indian, an African, or a Caucasian sun may shine upon him. She
stoops from heaven to raise the fallen, to bind up the
broken-hearted, to r