y, with due
regard to the highest good of all concerned; but let him utter a word in
arrest of your unqualified condemnation of slavery as it actually is,
and there are no persecutors, nor scourges, nor intolerance on the
earth, more fierce and cruel than you and your denunciations."

"Take it patiently, husband," said Mrs. North, "you know that you
deserve it."

"I know from this," said I, "if from nothing else, that your theory is
wrong. The truth does not excite such passions in those who love and
seek to promote it. We see that, in cases without number, the present
condition of the slaves is a blessing for both worlds, and that if all
who possess slaves were, as many are, slavery would cease to be any more
of a curse than any dependent condition in this world. There must always
be those who will do every sort of menial work. The great Father of all,
who himself says that he has 'deprived' the ostrich 'of wisdom, neither
hath he imparted to her understanding,' so arranges the capacities of
some that their happiness consists in leaning upon superior intelligence
and capability.

"The serving people, in some districts of country, are volunteers from
all races; at the South, they consist of one inferior, dependent race,
who for ages have been slaves in their own country, and would be such
even now, if they were there. We will not shut the door of hope forever
upon any part of the human family, as to their elevation among the
tribes of men, but this race has, for a long period of its history,
evidently been undergoing a tutelage and discipline at the hand of
Providence. There is some marvellous arrangement of Providence, it seems
to me, designing that this black race shall lean upon us. Let the same
number of any other immigrant race have gone from us to Canada as of
this colored race, and the world would have heard a better report from
them ere this. They thrive best in connection with us as their masters,
whether it be right or wrong for us to be in such relation to them."

"But now," said he,--in a persuasive tone, and evidently wishing to turn
the drift of the remarks,--"just set them free, and hire them; we shall
agree then. The slaves will be as well off, and so will their masters."

"Mr. North," said I, "being owned is, in itself, irrespective of the
character of the master, a means of protection to the negro. Somebody
then is responsible for him as his guardian and provider, and is
amenable to the State for