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Have I been seeking to magnify the sufferings and exalt the character of woman, that she "might have praise of men?" No! no! my object has been to arouse you, as the wives and mothers, the daughters and sisters of the South, to a sense of your duty as women, on that great subject which has already shaken our country from the St. Lawrence and the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic; and will continue mightily to shake it, until the polluted temple of slavery fall and crumble into ruin. I would say unto each one of you, "What meanest thou, O sleeper! arise and call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish not." Perceive you not that dark cloud of vengeance which hangs over our boasting Republic? Saw you not the lightnings of Heaven's wrath in the flame which leaped from the Indian's torch to the roof of yonder dwelling, and lighted with its horrid glare the darkness of midnight? Heard you not the thunders of Divine anger, as the distant roar of the cannon came rolling onward from the Texian country, where Protestant American rebels are fighting with Mexican Republicans-for what? For the re-establishment of Slavery; yes! of American Slavery in the bosom of a Catholic Republic, where that system of robbery, violence, and wrong had been legally abolished for seven years. Yes! citizens of the United States, after plundering Mexico of her land, are now engaged in deadly conflict for the privilege of fastening chains, and collars, and manacles-upon whom? upon the subjects of some foreign prince? No! upon native-born American Republican citizens, although the fathers of these very men declared to the whole world, while struggling to free themselves from the three-penny taxes of an English king, that they believed it to be a selfevident truth, that all men were created equal, and had an unalienable right to liberty.

Well may the poet exclaim in bitter sarcasm,

"The fustian flag that proudly waves,

In solemn mockery o'er a land of slaves."

Can you not, my friends, understand the signs of the times? Do you not see the sword of retributive justice hanging over the South, or are you still slumbering at your posts? Are there no Shiphrahs, no Puahs among you, who will dare, in Christian firmness and Christian meekness, to refuse to obey the wicked laws which require woman to enslave, to degrade, and to brutalize woman? Are there no Miriams who would rejoice to lead out the captive daughters of the Southern States to liberty and light? Are there no Huldahs there who will dare to speak the truth concerning the sins of the people, and those judgments, which it requires no prophet's eye to see, must follow, if repentance is not speedily sought? Is there no Esther among you who will plead for the poor devoted slave? Read the history of this Persian queen, it is full of instruction; she at first refused to plead for the Jews; but hear the words of Mordecai, "Think not within thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the Jews, for if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed." Listen, too, to her magnanimous reply to this powerful appeal; "I will go in unto the king, which is not according to law; and if I perish, I perish." Yes! if there were but one Esther at the South, she might save her country from ruin ; but let the Christian women there arise, as the Christian women of Great Britain did, in the majesty of moral power, and

that salvation is certain. Let them embody themselves in societies, and send petitions up to their different legislatures, entreating their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, to abolish the institution of slavery; no longer to subject woman to the scourge and the chain, to mental darkness and moral degradation; no longer to tear husbands from their wives, and children from their parents; no longer to make men, women, and children work without wages; no longer to make their lives bitter in hard bondage; no longer to reduce American citizens to the abject condition of slaves, of "chattels personal;" no longer to barter the image of God in human shambles for corruptible things such as silver and gold.

The women of the South can overthrow this horrible system of oppression and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to your legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the heart of man which will bend under moral suasion. There is a swift witness for truth in his bosom, which will respond to truth when it is uttered with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six signatures to such a petition in only one state, I would say, send up that petition, and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs and jeers of the heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on the table. It will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced into your legislatures in any way, even by women, and they will be the most likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as a matter of morals and religion, not of expediency or politics. You may petition, too, the different ecclesiastical bodies of the slave states. Slavery must be attacked with the whole power of truth and the sword of the Spirit. You must take it up on Christian ground, and fight against it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And you are now loudly called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict with the whole armour of righteousness, upon the right hand and on the left.

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Another encouragement for you to labour, my friends, is, that you will have the prayers and co-operation of English and Northern philanthropists. You will never bend your knees in supplication at the throne of grace for the overthrow of slavery, without meeting there the spirits of other Christians, who will mingle their voices with yours, as the morning or evening sacrifice ascends to God. Yes, the spirit of prayer and of supplication has been poured out upon many, many hearts; there are wrestling Jacobs who will not let go of the prophetic promises of deliverance for the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound. There are Pauls who are saying, in reference to this subject, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" There are Marys sitting in the house now, who are ready to arise and go forth in this work, as soon as the message is brought, "The master is come, and calleth for thee!" And there are Marthas, too, who have already gone out to meet Jesus, as he bends his footsteps to their brother's grave, and weeps, not over the lifeless body of Lazarus bound hand and foot in grave-clothes, but over the politically and intellectually lifeless slave, bound hand and foot in the iron chains of oppression and ignorance. Some may be ready to say as Martha did, who seemed to expect nothing but sympathy from Jesus, "Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days." She thought it useless to remove the stone and expose the loathsome body of her brother; she could not believe that so great a miracle could be wrought, as to raise that putrified body into life; but "Jesus said, Take ye away the stone; and when they had taken away the stone where the dead was laid, and uncov

ered the body of Lazarus, then it was that " Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me," &c. "And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." Yes, some may be ready to say of the coloured race, How can they ever be raised politically and intellectually, they have been dead four hundred years? But we have nothing to do with how this is to be done; our business is to take away the stone which has covered up the dead body of our brother, to expose the putrid carcase, to show how that body has been bound with the grave-clothes of heathen ignorance, and his face with the napkin of prejudice, and having done all it was our duty to do, to stand by the negro's grave, in humble faith and holy hope, waiting to hear the life-giving command of “ Lazarus, come forth." This is just what Anti-Slavery Societies are doing; they are taking away the stone from the mouth of the tomb of slavery, where lies the putrid carcase of our brother. They want the pure light of heaven to shine into that dark and gloomy cave; they want all men to see how that dead body has been bound, how that face has been wrapped in the napkin of prejudice; and shall they wait beside that grave in vain? Is not Jesus still the resurrection and the life? Did He come to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound in vain? Did He promise to give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness unto them that mourn in Zion, and will He refuse to beautify the mind, anoint the head, and throw around the captive negro the mantle of praise for that spirit of heaviness, which has so long bound him down to the ground? Or, shall we not rather say with the prophet, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this?" Yes, his promises are sure, and amen in Christ Jesus, that he will assemble her that halteth, and gather her that is driven out, and her that is afflicted.

Sisters in Christ, I have done. As a Southerner, I have felt it was my duty to address you. I have endeavoured to set before you the exceeding sinfulness of slavery, and to point you to the example of those noble women who have been raised up in the church to effect great revolutions, and to suffer for the truth's sake. I have appealed to your sympathies as women, to your sense of duty as Christian women. I have attempted to vindicate the Abolitionists, to prove the entire safety of immediate Emancipation, and to plead the cause of the poor and oppressed. I have done I have sowed the seeds of truth, but I well know, that even if an Apollos were to follow in my steps to water them, “God only can give the increase." To Him, then, who is able to prosper the work of his servant's hand, I commend this appeal in fervent prayer, that as he "hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty," so He may cause his blessing to descend and carry conviction to the hearts of many Lydias through these speaking pages. Farewell-count me not your "enemy because I have told you the truth," but believe me in unfeigned affection,

Your sympathizing Friend,

ANGELINA E. GRIMKE.

Americans! Can ye not discern the signs of the times? When such thrilling sentiments are uttered, not by the tongue of a practised rhetori. cian, in the exciting presence of an acclaiming audience, but by a female,

a virtuous retiring female, under the simple impulse of a holy, and bene-
volent, and righteous cause? Are ye so blind as not to know wha
all this means? In your rage to degrade your peasantry into brutes,
have ye banished from your own libraries, and your own memories, every
trace of the revolutions which history records? Can the whole world see
the doom that awaits you, and you remain the perverse and besotted vic-
tims of your own infatuation? Never, since time began, were the indi-
cations of national convulsion so clear and convincing--written with a
sunbeam, which the whole world can look up and decipher-as in the pre-
sent aspect of the American States. Their only hope of rescue lies in
the peaceful and benign, yet vigorous efforts of the Anti-Slavery cause.
This is the only rainbow of promise for the western world. If the coun-
sels of interested politicians, and the authority of an infatuated Presi-
dent, shall push matters to extremities, before the friends of human kind
have had time to leaven the mass of the public mind with their just and
god-like principles, then will the States rise up in fearful contention with
each other, and scenes of bloodshed witnessed by the fair heavens on
a larger theatre than when Alexander attempted to span the world. But
we bode better things, though we thus speak. The character of the
American mind, and of republican society; the extent to which the prin-
ciples of the religion of peace and love are diffused among them, and the
long-continued habit of deferring to public opinion rather than to brute
force, augur a more benign conclusion to the conflict that is now raging
among them. May the great God, who holdeth the reins of universal
dominion, bring this contest to such an issue as shall restore every human
being to his dignity as a man, and
for the clear progress of
open the way
the religion of justice, benevolence, and love!

SLAVERY A DIVINE INSTITUTION.

WE solicit the attention of our readers to the facts contained in the following letter. They are facts, stated by a North Carolina farmer.

Mr. Editor.-I frequently hear the assertion, and that from ministers of the gospel-"The Bible sanctions slavery." "Slavery existed in the days of our Saviour and his apostles, and it was worse than the slavery which exists among us; and the Saviour and his apostles, so far from condemning it, prescribed rules to regulate it." These are the words of a respectable Presbyterian minister, living in a populous town in one of the slaveholding states. And we find ministers of the Presbyterian church, who hold 30 or more of their fellow-mortals as goods and chattels, who are not suffered to learn to read the Bible, which sanction this "divine institution;" and ruling elders in the same church, who, for the sake of gain, make a business of driving to market immortal beings. Permit me, Mr. Editor, to give you a few extracts from a letter, written by a respectable farmer living in North Carolina, dated Jan. 8th, 1837.

"Sir, in answer to your questions, I would say, as respects the education of

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blacks, I know of none that are taught to read. The Rev. J. S. A. has 30 or more, and there is not one of them that can read a word!

"I know of none that I think would liberate their slaves even if the laws of the land would permit. The prices are too high for slaveholders to lose eight or ten hundred dollars by giving them liberty. Some of the anti-slavery publications reach us. The ministers, to whom they are mostly directed, leave them in the Post Office. You ask, are slaves permitted to attend church? Oh, yes, Mr. always (on the Sabbath) takes one to watch his horse and have him harnessed in the chaise by the time the benediction is pronounced. As respects missionary operations, our people are quite liberal. They will sell one soul to enable them to send the gospel to another. Some of us are very full of love for the poor heathen whom we have never seen, but the poor heathen whom we see every day, we have lost all feelings of humanity towards them.

"About eighteen months ago, A. H., one of the most influential elders in G- church, bought (including some of his own raising) 28 slaves, and in the usual style, accompanied by his son, E. another member of the church, drove them to Alabama and Mississippi, and sold them. He returned home and purchased another drove of about the same quantity. This the son superintended to market last fall, and returned about six weeks ago. Both he and the father are now engaged, buying another drove for the Orleans and Mississippi market. A few days ago, the father was about purchasing a slave who had a wife and family. The slave declared he would die before he would be taken from his wife and family, and sold to the cotton planter. He was ordered off to work. Two white boys were sent after a load of wood to the place he was sent to. There they found the poor man hanging by the neck to the bough of a tree by a rope which his own hands had tied. His spirit was gone. The master had lost one thousand dollars which he was to have had on delivering him up next morning.

"The people here appear like maniacs after negroes and gold dust. The principal topic is, 'Who is giving the best price for negroes,' 'I have two, three, or more for sale,' or, 'I wish to buy two or three to work at my gold mine,' &c." J. B. willed his black man Tom to go to Liberia, but he refused to leave his wife and children, and the heirs sold him for 400 dollars. He is fifty-eight years of age.

THE BAPTIST UNION.

At the Annual Meeting of the BAPTIST UNION, held in Devonshire Square Chapel, London, on Thursday, May 4th, the following resolution, on the motion of the Rev. Dr. Price, seconded by the Rev. W. Brock, of Norwich, was unanimously agreed to:

"I. THAT this Meeting regard with high approbation in point of principle, and with sincere congratulation in point of success, the operations undertaken in the United States for the abolition of slavery; that they deeply sympathize with the American Abolitionists in the difficulties with which they have to contend, as arising especially from the attitude of the highest authorities in the States; but that they desire heartily to cheer them on in an attempt which has never been made without awakening appalling opposition, and can never be persevered in without signal success.

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