Autographs for Freedom Part 15

_Frank._ The theatre, then, ought to promote good morals--why does it not?

_Mr. D._

"And many worthy men Maintained it might be turned to good account, And so perhaps it might, but never was."

_Mrs. G._ The "sympathetic emotion of virtue," not having an object, never rises to pa.s.sion, and therefore never produces action.

Philosophers tell us that a thought of virtue pa.s.sing often through the mind, without being wrought out into a fact, weakens the moral sense; thus people may read the best of books, and witness the finest exhibitions of moral beauty, and constantly retrograde in virtue. The dissolute characters of players, who continually utter the loftiest sentiments, and practice the lowest vices, are accounted for on this principle; and we ought to judge the theatre as we do slavery, by its demoralizing effect upon those engaged in it.

_Mr. F._ Do you mean to say, Rebecca, that slaveholding has the same effect upon me that stage-playing has upon the actor?

_Mrs. G._ Well, brother, I put it to thy own conscience. Does thee not, daily, in dealing with thy slaves, stifle thy emotions of piety, generosity, and love, and is it not easier to do this now than it was twenty years ago, when, with a heart full of tenderness and truth, thee left us for thy southern home?

_Mr. F._ (_Rising and pacing the room with great agitation_.) Now, sister, you are going to introduce another absurdity! Do I practice the principles learned in the nursery? No, I do not! Do I believe "honesty is the best policy" and its kindred humbugs? Of course I don't! Show me the man who does? Do I follow the precepts of the sermon on the Mount? Not I! The man who should undertake to do so would make himself a perfect laughing-stock. I should like to see one of your northern hypocrites attempt it. Ha! ha! ha! "Lay not up treasure upon earth," and "take no thought for the morrow;" why, what else do people take thought for, either North or South? It is not what they shall eat, drink, or wear to-day, that worries them, but how they shall lay up something for themselves or their children hereafter. You silly women are always talking about righteousness, as if you really thought it could enter in human plans, but we men of the world, who have to wring the precious dollar from the hard hand of labor, know better! I tell you, Rebecca, I don't believe there is a business-man in your pious Quaker city even, who would dare acquaint his wife and daughters with all his little arrangements for ama.s.sing wealth. Ha!

ha! ha! How the pretty things would stare at the tricks of the trade, and simper: "Is that right?" As though anybody thought business principles were gospel principles! As though they expected a man was going to love his neighbor as himself, when he was making a bargain with him! It provokes me to see you make yourself so ridiculous! You ought to know that every man _acts_ on the principle, that "Wealth is the chief good;" and you ought to know, too, that there the slaveholders have the advantage of you entirely. They do right to work, and grind it out of the slaves on a large scale, and call Abraham and Moses to witness the patriarchal method, while your northern mercenaries scheme and speculate how they can turn a penny out of ignorance and poverty, and have not even the apology of a precedent for their meanness. Why, one of our generous southern planters is as far above one of your stingy shave-three-cents-on-a-yard-tradesmen, as Robin Hood is above a miserable tea-spoon burglar. The south sails under false colors, does it? What flag do your platform men give to the wind, I should like to know? What do they care for the Fugitive Slave Law? Half of them would help a runaway to Canada with as good a will as they'd eat their dinner. (_Coming close and sitting down, so as to look fixedly in her face_.) I'll tell you what, sister, the chivalry of the south responds to you northern Christians who prate so loud of brotherhood and charity, in the words of young Cancer to his mother--"_Libenter tuis praeceptis obsequar, si te prius idem facientem videro_."

_Mrs. G._ (_very gently_.) These strictures, brother, are too keenly just. They remind me of Kossuth's a.s.sertion, that there is not yet a Christian nation on the earth, nor yet a Christian church, that dare venture entirely upon the principles of the Gospel. Still, the aberration of reformers proves no more in favor of slavery, than the vices and miseries of civilized life prove that barbarism is the natural and happy state of the human race; nay, these very aberrations prove that a centripetal power counteracts the opposing force, and holds them within the genial influence of the sun of truth.

The law of spiritual gravitation is little understood. But thousands of philosophers are closely observing the phenomena, and carefully comparing them with the data given in the Sermon on the Mount; and it is not too much to hope that this generation will give to the world a Newton, whose moral mathematics shall demonstrate that the _law_ of _love_ is the true theory of individual and national prosperity.

_Mr. F._ Well, sister, I wish you much joy of your millennial state; but before the Sermon on the Mount becomes the code of nations, I guess you will find--

_Mr. D._ (_interrupting_.) "A little more grape, Captain Bragg!"

_Frank._ I tell you, uncle, "there's a good time coming." Mother is a prophet. I have watched her words all my life, and I never knew them fall to the ground.

_Mrs. G._ Observe, my friends, that the Sermon on the Mount puts blessing before requirement. If you accept these beat.i.tudes as the gift of your Divine Master, you will find that obedience to the precepts which follow, is not the unwilling service of a bondsman, but the free and natural action of an unfranchised spirit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (signature) C. A. Bloss]

CLOVER STREET SEM., November 10th, 1853.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Gerritt Smith (Engraved by J. C. b.u.t.tre)]

A Time of Justice will Come

We are conscious of the odium that rests upon us. We feel that we are wronged; but we are not impatient for the righting of our wrongs. We bide our time. The men that shall come after us, will do us justice.

The present generation of America cannot "judge righteous judgment,"

in the case of the uncompromising friends of freedom, religion, and law. They are so debauched and blinded by slavery, and by the perverse and low ideas of freedom, religion, and law, which it engenders, that they "call evil good, and good evil; put darkness for light, and light for darkness; put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." They have been living out the lie of slavery so long, and have been, thereby, deadening their consciences so long, as to be now well nigh incapable of perceiving the wide and everlasting distinctions between truth and falsehood.

GERRITT SMITH.

Hope and Confidence.

O! What a strange thing is the human heart!

With its youth, and its joy and fear!

It doats upon creatures that day-dreams impart,-- Full sorely it grieves when their beauties depart, And weeps bitter tears over their bier.

The veriest gleamings that dart into birth, Reveal to its being of light: The dimliest shadows that flit upon earth, Allure it, with promise of pleasure and mirth In a country, where never is night.

It leaves the sure things of its own real home, To pursue the mere phantoms of thought!

Well knowing, that certain, there soon must come, An end to the visions, that so gladsome, It bewilder'd, has eagerly sought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chas. L. Reason (Engraved by J. C. b.u.t.tre)]

It fleeth the wholesome prose of life, With its riches all sure and told: And scorning the beauties, that calmly in strife Truth fas.h.i.+ons, it longs for the things all rife With glitter, and color, and gold.

It buildeth its home 'neath an ever calm sky, Near streams wherein crown-jewels sleep,-- And there it reposeth: while soothingly nigh, Some loved one, perchance, doth most wooingly sigh, As the zephyrs all full-laden creep.

Thus it musingly wasteth its strength, in dreams Of bliss, that can never prove true: And ever it revels amid what seems, A paradise smiling with Hope's warm beams, And flowers all spangled with dew.

But, even as flowers are broken and fade, And yield up their perfumes--their souls,-- So vanish the colors of which dreams are made,-- So perish the structures on which Hope is staid, And the treasures to which the heart holds.

In vain does it follow the wandering forms That promise, yet always recede:-- Too briefly the suns.h.i.+ne is darken'd by storms: Hope minstrels it onward, yet never informs Of the dangers unseen, that impede.

The Heart trusts the outward: "Of man 'tis the whole."

Thus Confidence clings to decay!

It feels the sweet homage that riches control,-- And laughs in contempt at the wealth of the soul: And behold! now, friends wait for their prey.

It trusteth in glory, and beauty, and youth,-- In love-vows that ne'er are to die: But soon the Death-king, in whose heart is no ruth, Enfolds it,--and mounting aloft, of Truth Thus sings, as turns gla.s.sy the eye.

"There's nothing so lovely and bright below, As the shapes of the purified mind!

Nought surer to which the weak heart can grow, On which it can rest, as it onward doth go, Than that Truth which its own tendrils bind.

"Yes! Truth opes within a pure sun-tide of bliss, And shows in its ever calm flood, A transcript of regions, where no darkness is, Where HOPE its conceptions may realize, And CONFIDENCE sleep in 'The Good.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: (signature) Chas. L. Reason.]

A Letter that Speaks for Itself.

To T---- M----.

Disinterested benevolence, my dear sir, has nothing at all to do with abolitionism. Nay, I doubt very much if there is such a thing as disinterested benevolence; but be this as it may, there is no occasion for it in the anti-slavery ranks.

It is selfishness,--sheer selfishness, that has thus far carried on the war with slavery and wrong in all times; and selfishness must break the chains of the American slave.