ther topic," I added, "which is interesting and important.

"Here," said I, taking a newspaper-slip from my wallet, "is something
which fairly made me weep. It is a picture of one of our poor, virtuous,
honest New England homes, in which I would rather dwell and suffer, than
be an 'oppressor' with my hundreds of slaves, and wealth counted by
hundreds of thousands. A slave-holder, blessed be God, is not a synonyme
of 'oppressor;' nor are the slaves as a matter of course 'oppressed.'
Our people to a great extent think otherwise, and it is useful to see
how we appear to others when this error leads us into folly. This little
picture in the newspaper-slip gives us a transient look into an abode
whose honest poverty and want are made more painful by evil-doing under
the influence of fanaticism."

I then read to my friends the following from a Southern paper;--I here
omit the names which are given in full:--

"The touching letter which was found on the body of ---- ----, one of
the insurgents, from his sister in ----, ----, has been published. The
following paragraph in that letter is a suggestive one:

"'Would you come home if you had the money to come with? Tell me what
it would cost. Oh! I would be unspeakably happy if it were in my power
to send you money, but we have been very poor this winter. I have not
earned a half-dollar this winter. Mattie has had a very good place,
where she has had seventy-five cents a week; she has not spent any of it
in the family, only a very little for mother. Father has had very small
pay, but I think he has more now; he is a watchman on the ---- ----,
that runs from here to ----.'

"Here, says the Southern editor, is a family, one of thousands of
families in New England in similar circumstances, where one daughter
thinks it a 'very good place' where she can get seventy-five cents a
week; another has not earned a half-dollar during the winter, and all
are 'very poor;' yet the son and brother goes off and deserts a mother
and sisters thus situated,--a mother and sisters who, though poor, have
evidently the most affectionate feelings and tender sensibilities,--for
the purpose of liberating a class of people, not one of whom knows
anything of the want or privation from which his own family is
suffering, or who would not look without contempt upon such remuneration
as seemed the height of good fortune to the destitute sisters and mother
of this abolitionist. When we bear in mind the intellig