l me," said Mr. North, "how you view it."

"On stating this, once," said I, "in a public meeting, I raised a
clamor. Three or four men sprung to their feet, and one of them, who
first caught the chairman's eye, cried out, his face turning red, his
eyes starting from their sockets, his fist clenched, 'I demand of the
gentleman whether he means to approve of all the abominations of
American slavery! Is he in favor of separating husbands and wives,
parents and children? Let us know it, Sir, if it be so. No wonder that
strong anti-slavery men turn infidels when they hear Christian men
defending American slavery from the Bible. No wonder that they say, "The
times demand, and we must have, an anti-slavery constitution, an
anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God." Mr. Moderator, will the
gentleman answer my question,--Do you mean to approve all the atrocities
of American slavery, on the ground that the Bible countenances them?'

"I was never more calm in my life. I replied, 'Mr. Chairman, taking for
my warrant an inspired piece of advice as to the best way of answering a
man according to his folly, it would be just, should I reply to the
gentleman's question, Yes, I do. But the gentleman, I perceive, is too
much excited to hear me.'

"He had flung himself round in his seat, put his elbow on the back of
it, and his hand through his hair; he then flung himself round in the
opposite direction, and put his arm and hand as before, and he blew his
nose with a sound like a trombone.

"I then said, 'Mr. Chairman, if all that the gentleman meant to ask was,
Do you find any countenance under any circumstances, for the relation of
master and slave in the divine legation of Moses,--and this was all
which, as a fair man, not carried away by a gust of passion, he should
have asked me,--my answer was correct and proper. If he wished to know
my views of what is right and proper as to the marriage relation of our
slaves, he should have put the question in a different shape. But first,
Sir,' said I, 'if he dislikes the twenty-first chapter of Exodus, his
controversy must be with his God, not with me. Sinai was, let me remind
him, more of a place than Bunker Hill. I am not a friend of "oppression"
any more than the gentleman; but I trust that had I lived in Israel, I
should never have thought of being more humane than my Maker.'

"I then proceeded to say that (as before remarked to you) we are not
warranted by the Bible to make men slave