ly adopted, which will defend even that great, rich
country against the evils that have grown out of the commercial system
in the Old World? Can I say our social laws are generally better, or
show a nobler insight into the wants of man and woman? I do, indeed,
say what I believe, that voluntary association for improvement in
these particulars will be the grand means for my nation to grow, and
give a nobler harmony to the coming age. But it is only of a small
minority that I can say they as yet seriously take to heart these
things; that they earnestly meditate on what is wanted for their
country, for mankind,--for our cause is indeed, the cause of all
mankind at present. Could we succeed, really succeed, combine a deep
religious love with practical development, the achievements of genius
with the happiness of the multitude, we might believe man had now
reached a commanding point in his ascent, and would stumble and faint
no more. Then there is this horrible cancer of slavery, and the wicked
war that has grown out of it. How dare I speak of these things here?
I listen to the same arguments against the emancipation of Italy, that
are used against the emancipation of our blacks; the same arguments
in favor of the spoliation of Poland, as for the conquest of Mexico.
I find the cause of tyranny and wrong everywhere the same,--and lo! my
country! the darkest offender, because with the least excuse; forsworn
to the high calling with which she was called; no champion of the
rights of men, but a robber and a jailer; the scourge hid behind her
banner; her eyes fixed, not on the stars, but on the possessions of
other men.

How it pleases me here to think of the Abolitionists! I could never
endure to be with them at home, they were so tedious, often so narrow,
always so rabid and exaggerated in their tone. But, after all, they
had a high motive, something eternal in their desire and life; and if
it was not the only thing worth thinking of, it was really something
worth living and dying for, to free a great nation from such a
terrible blot, such a threatening plague. God strengthen them, and
make them wise to achieve their purpose!

I please myself, too, with remembering some ardent souls among the
American youth, who I trust will yet expand, and help to give soul to
the huge, over-fed, too hastily grown-up body. May they be constant!
"Were man but constant, he were perfect," it has been said; and it is
true that he who could be co