earth, both for this world and the next.

As to setting them free at once and indiscriminately, it would be as
unjust to them as it originally was to steal them from Africa. So it
appears to me. What God means to do with them, no one can tell. That He
has been doing a marvellous work of mercy for the poor creatures is
manifest. They were slaves at home; they have changed their situation to
their benefit. I have made up my mind to leave this great problem--the
destiny of the blacks--to my Maker, and, in the mean time, pray in
behalf of the owners, that they may have a heart to act toward them
according to the golden rule. I am glad that I am not oppressed with the
responsibility of ownership. Those who assume it should be encouraged by
us to treat their charge as a trust committed to them for a season. I do
not argue, much less plead, for the continuance of this system; it may
be abolished very soon, but that is with Providence. I have acquired no
feelings toward the institution which would not lead me to rejoice in
emancipation the moment that it would be for the good of the colored
people.

You are looking for my letter to furnish you with details of horrors in
slavery. Wherever poor human nature is, there you will find imperfection
and sin; and of course power over others is always liable to great
abuses. If I were to follow the plan of those who collect the horrors
of slavery and spread them out before our Northern friends, but should
gather merely the beautiful and touching incidents which I meet with,
and which are related to me, I could make people think that slavery is
not an evil. But I have not seen an intelligent Southerner who,
admitting all that we had said about the happiness of the slaves as a
class, did not go far beyond me in declaring that the presence of a
subject, abject race, cannot fail to be an evil. There is not an
ultraist at the North, whom, if he had their confidence, and were not
put in antagonism to him, the Southerners could not make ashamed, and
put to silence, by telling him evil things about slavery, which he had
never contemplated, and by admitting most fully things which he would
expect them to deny. But they are placed in a false position by his
clamor and anger, which set them against him and his doctrines. They
say, "Allowing all that the North asserts, here are the colored people
on our hands; what are we to do with them?" Not one of the Northern
"friends of the slave," nor all of