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SUNNY MEMORIES

OF

FOREIGN LANDS.

BY

MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,

AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," ETC.

  ... "When thou haply seest
  Some rare note-worthy object in thy travels,
  Make me partaker of thy happiness."

  SHAKSPEARE.

ILLUSTRATED FROM DESIGNS BY HAMMATT BILLINGS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

BOSTON:
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY.
NEW YORK: J.C. DERBY.
1854.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by PHILLIPS,
SAMPSON, AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the
District of Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. WRIGHT AND HASTY,
PRINTERS, NO. 3 WATER ST.

PREFACE.

This book will be found to be truly what its name denotes, "Sunny
Memories."

If the criticism be made that every thing is given _couleur de rose_,
the answer is, Why not? They are the impressions, as they arose, of a
most agreeable visit. How could they be otherwise?

If there be characters and scenes that seem drawn with too bright a
pencil, the reader will consider that, after all, there are many worse
sins than a disposition to think and speak well of one's neighbors. To
admire and to love may now and then be tolerated, as a variety, as well
as to carp and criticize. America and England have heretofore abounded
towards each other in illiberal criticisms. There is not an unfavorable
aspect of things in the old world which has not become perfectly
familiar to us; and a little of the other side may have a useful
influence.

The writer has been decided to issue these letters principally, however,
by the persevering and deliberate attempts, in certain quarters, to
misrepresent the circumstances which, are here given. So long as these
misrepresentations affected only those who were predetermined to believe
unfavorably, they were not regarded. But as they have had some
influence, in certain cases, upon really excellent and honest people, it
is desirable that the truth should be plainly told.

The object of publishing these letters is, therefore, to give to those
who are true-hearted and honest the same agreeable picture of life and
manners which met the writer's own, eyes. She had in view a wide circle
of friends throughout her own country, between whose hearts and her own
there has been an acquaintance and sympathy of years, and who, loving
excellence, and feeling the reality of it in themselves, are sincerely
pleased to have their sphere of hopefulness and charity enlarged. For
such this is written; and if those who are not such begin to read, let
them treat the book as a letter not addressed to them, which, having
opened by mistake, they close and pass to the true owner.

The English reader is requested to bear in mind that the book has not
been prepared in reference to an English but an American public, and to
make due allowance for that fact. It would have placed the writer far
more at ease had there been no prospect of publication in England. As
this, however, was unavoidable, in some form, the writer has chosen to
issue it there under her own sanction.

There is one acknowledgment which the author feels happy to make, and
that is, to those publishers in England, Scotland, France, and Germany
who have shown a liberality beyond the requirements of legal obligation.
The author hopes that the day is not far distant when America will
reciprocate the liberality of other nations by granting to foreign
authors those rights which her own receive from them.

The _Journal_ which appears in the continental tour is from the pen of
the Rev. C. Beecher. The _Letters_ were, for the most part, compiled
from what was written at the time and on the spot. Some few were
entirely written after the author's return.

It is an affecting thought that several of the persons who appear in
these letters as among the living, have now passed to the great future.
The Earl of Warwick, Lord Cockburn, Judge Talfourd, and Dr. Wardlaw are
no more among the ways of men. Thus, while we read, while we write, the
shadowy procession is passing; the good are being gathered into life,
and heaven enriched by the garnered treasures of earth.

H.B.S.

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

INTRODUCTORY.

LETTER I.
The Voyage.

LETTER II.
Liverpool.--The Dingle.--A Ragged School.--Flowers.--Speke
Hall.--Antislavery Meeting.

LETTER III.
Lancashire.--Carlisle.--Gretna Green.--Glasgow.

LETTER IV.
The Baillie.--The Cathedral.--Dr. Wardlaw.--A Tea Party--Bothwell
Castle.--Chivalry.--Scott and Burns.

LETTER V.
Dumbarton Castle.--Duke of Argyle.--Linlithgow.--Edinburgh.

LETTER VI.
Public Soirée.--Dr. Guthrie.--Craigmiller Castle.--Bass
Rock.--Bannockburn.--Stirling.--Glamis Castle.--Barclay of Ury.--The
Dee.--Aberdeen.--The Cathedral.--Brig o'Balgounie.

LETTER VII.
Letter from a Scotch Bachelor.--Reformatory Schools of
Aberdeen.--Dundee.--Dr. Dick.--The Queen in Scotland.

LETTER VIII.
Melrose.--Dry burgh.--Abbotsford.

LETTER IX.
Douglas of Caver.--Temperance Soirée.--Calls.--Lord Gainsborough.--Sir
William Hamilton.--George Combe.--Visit to Hawthornden.--Roslin
Castle.--The Quakers.--Hervey's Studio.--Grass Market.--Grayfriars'
Churchyard.

LETTER X.
Birmingham.--Stratford on Avon.

LETTER XI.
Warwick.--Kenilworth.

LETTER XII.
Birmingham.--Sybil Jones.--J.A. James.

LETTER XIII.
London.--Lord Mayor's Dinner.

LETTER XIV.
London.--Dinner with Earl of Carlisle.

LETTER XV.
London.--Anniversary of Bible Society.--Dulwich Gallery.--Dinner with
Mr. E. Cropper.--Soirée at Rev. Mr. Binney's.

LETTER XVI.
Reception at Stafford House.

LETTER XVII.
The Sutherland Estate.

LETTER XVIII.
Baptist Noel.--Borough School.--Rogers the Poet.--Stafford
House.--Ellesmere Collection of Paintings.--Lord John Russell.

INTRODUCTORY

The following letters were written by Mrs. Stowe for her own personal
friends, particularly the members of her own family, and mainly as the
transactions referred to in them occurred. During the tour in England
and Scotland, frequent allusions are made to public meetings held on her
account; but no report is made of the meetings, because that
information, was given fully in the newspapers sent to her friends with
the letters. Some knowledge of the general tone and spirit of the
meetings seems necessary, in order to put the readers of the letters in
as favorable a position to appreciate them as her friends were when they
were received. Such knowledge it is the object of this introductory
chapter to furnish.

One or two of the addresses at each of several meetings I have given,
and generally without alteration, as they appeared in the public
journals at the time. Only a very few could be published without
occupying altogether too much space; and those selected are for the most
part the shortest, and chosen mainly on account of their brevity. This
is certainly a surer method of giving a true idea, of the spirit which
actually pervaded the meetings than could be accomplished by any
selection of mere extracts from the several speeches. In that case,
there might be supposed to exist a temptation to garble and make unfair
representations; but in the method pursued, such a suspicion is scarcely
possible. In relation to my own addresses, I have sometimes taken the
liberty to correct the reporters by my own recollections and notes. I
have also, in some cases, somewhat abridged them, (a liberty which I
have not, to any considerable extent, ventured to take with others,)
though without changing the sentiment, or even essentially the form, of
expression. What I have here related is substantially what I actually
said, and what I am willing to be held responsible for. Many and bitter,
during the tour, were the misrepresentations and misstatements of a
hostile press; to which I offer no other reply than the plain facts of
the following pages. These were the sentiments uttered, this was the
manner of their utterance; and I cheerfully submit them to the judgment
of a candid public.

I went to Europe without the least anticipation of the kind of reception
which awaited us; it was all a surprise and an embarrassment to me. I
went with the strongest love of my country, and the highest veneration
for her institutions; I every where in Britain found the most cordial
sympathy with this love and veneration; and I returned with both greatly
increased. But slavery I do not recognize as an institution of my
country; it is an excrescence, a vile usurpation, hated of God, and
abhorred by man; I am under no obligation either to love or respect it.
He is the traitor to America, and American institutions, who reckons
slavery as one of them, and, as such, screens it from assault. Slavery
is a blight, a canker, a poison, in the very heart of our republic; and
unless the nation, as such, disengage itself from it, it will most
assuredly be our ruin. The patriot, the philanthropist, the Christian,
truly enlightened, sees no other alternative. The developments of the
present session of our national Congress are making this great truth
clearly perceptible even to the dullest apprehension.

C.E. STOWE.

ANDOVER, _May_ 30, 1854.

BREAKFAST IN LIVERPOOL--APRIL 11.

THE REV. DR. M'NEILE, who had been requested by the respected host to
express to Mrs. Stowe the hearty congratulations of the first meeting of
friends she had seen in England, thus addressed her: "Mrs. Stowe: I have
been requested by those kind friends under whose hospitable roof we are
assembled to give some expression to the sincere and cordial welcome
with which, we greet your arrival in this country. I find real
difficulty in making this attempt, not from want of matter, nor from
want of feeling, but because it is not in the power of any language I
can command, to give adequate expression to the affectionate enthusiasm
which pervades all ranks of our community, and which is truly
characteristic of the humanity and the Christianity of Great Britain. We
welcome Mrs. Stowe as the honored instrument of that noble impulse which
public opinion and public feeling throughout Christendom have received
against the demoralizing and degrading system of human slavery. That
system is still, unhappily, identified in the minds of many with the
supposed material interests of society, and even with the well being of
the slaves themselves; but the plausible arguments and ingenious
sophistries by which it has been defended shrink with shame from the
facts without exaggeration, the principles without compromise, the
exposures without indelicacy, and the irrepressible glow of hearty
feeling--O, how true to nature!--which characterize Mrs. Stowe's
immortal book. Yet I feel assured that the effect produced by Uncle
Tom's Cabin is not mainly or chiefly to be traced to the interest of the
narrative, however captivating, nor to the exposures of the slave
system, however withering: these would, indeed, be sufficient to produce
a good effect; but this book contains more and better than even these;
it contains what will never be lost sight of--the genuine application to
the several branches of the subject of the sacred word of God. By no
part of this wonderful work has my own mind been so permanently
impressed as by the thorough legitimacy of the application of
Scripture,--no wresting, no mere verbal adaptation, but in every
instance the passage cited is made to illustrate something in the
narrative, or in the development of character, in strictest accordance
with the design of the passage in its original sacred context. We
welcome Mrs. Stowe, then, as an honored fellow-laborer in the highest
and best of causes; and I am much mistaken if this tone of welcome be
not by far the most congenial to her own feelings. We unaffectedly
sympathize with much which she must feel, and, as a lady, more
peculiarly feel, in passing through that ordeal of gratulation which is
sure to attend her steps in every part of our country; and I am
persuaded that we cannot manifest our gratitude for her past services in
any way more acceptable to herself than by earnest prayer on her behalf
that she may be kept in the simplicity of Christ, enjoying in her daily
experience the tender consolations of the Divine Spirit, and in the
midst of the most flattering commendations saying and feeling, in the
instincts of a renewed heart, 'Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but
unto thy name be the praise, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.'"

PROFESSOR STOWE then rose, and said, "If we are silent, it is not
because we do not feel, but because we feel more than we can express.
When that book was written, we had no hope except in God. We had no
expectation of reward save in the prayers of the poor. The surprising
enthusiasm which has been excited by the book all over Christendom is an
indication that God has a work to be done in the cause of emancipation.
The present aspect of things in the United States is discouraging. Every
change in society, every financial revolution, every political and
ecclesiastical movement, seems to pass and leave the African race
without help. Our only resource is prayer. God surely cannot will that
the unhappy condition of this portion of his children should continue
forever. There are some indications of a movement in the southern mind.
A leading southern paper lately declared editorially that slavery is
either right or wrong: if it is wrong, it is to be abandoned: if it is
right, it must be defended. The _Southern Press_, a paper established to
defend the slavery interest at the seat of government, has proposed that
the worst features of the system, such as the separation of families,
should be abandoned. But it is evident that with that restriction the
system could not exist. For instance, a man wants to buy a cook; but she
has a husband and seven children. Now, is he to buy a man and seven
children, for whom he has no use, for the sake of having a cook? Nothing
on the present occasion has been so grateful to our feelings as the
reference made by Dr. M'Neile to the Christian character of the book.
Incredible as it may seem to those who are without prejudice, it is
nevertheless a fact that this book was condemned by some religious
newspapers in the United States as anti-Christian, and its author
associated with infidels and disorganizers; and had not it been for the
decided expression of the mind of English Christians, and of Christendom
itself, on this point, there is reason to fear that the proslavery power
of the United States would have succeeded in putting the book under
foot. Therefore it is peculiarly gratifying that so full an indorsement
has been given the work, in this respect, by eminent Christians of the
highest character in Europe; for, however some in the United States may
affect to despise what is said by the wise and good of this kingdom and
the Christian world, they do feel it, and feel it intensely." In answer
to an inquiry by Dr. M'Neile as to the mode in which southern Christians
defended the institution, Dr. Stowe remarked that "a great change had
taken place in that respect during the last thirty years. Formerly all
Christians united in condemning the system; but of late some have begun
to defend it on scriptural grounds. The Rev. Mr. Smylie, of Mississippi,
wrote a pamphlet in the defensive; and Professor Thornwell, of South
Carolina, has published the most candid and able statement of that
argument which has been given. Their main reliance is on the system of
Mosaic servitude, wholly unlike though it was to the American system of
slavery. As to what this American system of slavery is, the best
documents for enlightening the minds of British Christians are the
commercial newspapers of the slaveholding states. There you see slavery
as it is, and certainly without any exaggeration. Read the
advertisements for the sale of slaves and for the apprehension of
fugitives, the descriptions of the persons of slaves, of dogs for
hunting slaves, &c., and you see how the whole matter as viewed by the
southern mind. Say what they will about it, practically they generally
regard the separation of families no more than the separation of cattle,
and the slaves as so much property, and nothing else. Their own papers
show that the pictures of the internal slave trade given in Uncle Tom,
so far from being overdrawn, fall even below the truth. Go on, then, in
forming and expressing your views on this subject. In laboring for the
overthrow of American slavery you are pursuing a course of Christian
duty as legitimate as in laboring to suppress the suttees of India, the
cannibalism of the Fejee Islands, and other barbarities of heathenism,
of which human slavery is but a relic. These evils can be finally
removed by the benign influence of the love of Christ, and no other
power is competent to the work."

PUBLIC MEETING IN LIVERPOOL--APRIL 13.

The Chairman, (A. HODGSON, Esq.,) in opening the proceedings, thus
addressed Mrs. Beecher Stowe: "The modesty of our English ladies, which,
like your own, shrinks instinctively from unnecessary publicity, has
devolved on me, as one of the trustees of the Liverpool Association, the
gratifying office of tendering to you, at then request, a slight
testimonial of their gratitude and respect. We had hoped almost to the
last moment that Mrs. Cropper would have represented, on this day, the
ladies with whom she has cooperated, and among whom she has taken a
distinguished lead in the great work which you had the honor and the
happiness to originate. But she has felt with you that the path most
grateful and most congenial to female exertion, even in its widest and
most elevated range, is still a retired and a shady path; and you have
taught us that the voice which most effectually kindles enthusiasm in
millions is the still small voice which comes forth from the sanctuary
of a woman's breast, and from the retirement of a woman's closet--the
simple but unequivocal expression of her unfaltering faith, and the
evidence of her generous and unshrinking self-devotion. In the same
spirit, and as deeply impressed with the retired character of female
exertion, the ladies who have so warmly greeted your arrival in this
country have still felt it entirely consistent with the most sensitive
delicacy to make a public response to your appeal, and to hail with
acclamation your thrilling protest against those outrages on our common
nature which circumstances have forced on your observation. They engage
in no political discussion, they embark in no public controversy; but
when an intrepid sister appeals to the instincts of women of every color
and of every clime against a system which sanctions the violation of the
fondest affections and the disruption of the tenderest ties; which
snatches the clinging wife from the agonized husband, and the child from
the breast of its fainting mother; which leaves the young and innocent
female a helpless and almost inevitable victim of a licentiousness
controlled by no law and checked by no public opinion,--it is surely as
feminine as it is Christian to sympathize with her in her perilous task,
and to rejoice that she has shed such a vivid light on enormities which
can exist only while unknown or unbelieved. We acknowledge with regret
and shame that that fatal system was introduced into America by Great
Britain; but having in our colonies returned from our devious paths, we
may without presumption, in the spirit of friendly suggestion, implore
our honored transatlantic friends to do the same. The ladies of Great
Britain have been admonished by their fair sisters in America, (and I am
sure they are bound to take the admonition in good part,) that there are
social evils in our own country demanding our special vigilance and
care. This is most true; but it is also true that the deepest sympathies
and most strenuous efforts are directed, in the first instance, to the
evils which exist among ourselves, and that the rays of benevolence
which flash across the Atlantic are often but the indication of the
intensity of the bright flame which is shedding light and heat on all in
its immediate vicinity. I believe this is the case with most of those
who have taken a prominent part in this great movement. I am sure it is
preeminently the case with respect to many of those by whom you are
surrounded; and I hardly know a more miserable fallacy, by which
sensible men allow themselves to be deluded, than that which assumes
that every emotion of sympathy which is kindled by objects abroad is
abstracted from our sympathies at home. All experience points to a
directly opposite conclusion; and surely the divine command, 'to go into
all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,' should put to
shame and silence the specious but transparent selfishness which would
contract the limits of human sympathy, and veil itself under the garb of
superior sagacity. But I must not detain you by any further
observations. Allow me, in the name of the associated ladies, to present
you with this small memorial of great regard, and to tender to you their
and my best wishes for your health and happiness while you are
sojourning among us, for the blessing of God on your children during
your absence, and for your safe return to your native country when your
mission shall be accomplished. I have just been requested to state the
following particulars: In December last, a few ladies met in this place
to consider the best plan of obtaining signatures in Liverpool to an
address to the women of America on the subject of negro slavery, in
substance coinciding with the one so nobly proposed and carried forward
by Lord Shaftesbury. At this meeting it was suggested that it would be a
sincere gratification to many if some testimonial could be presented to
Mrs. Stowe which would indicate the sense, almost universally
entertained, that she had been the instrument in the hands of God of
arousing the slumbering sympathies of this country in behalf of the
suffering slave. It was felt desirable to render the expression of such
a feeling as general as possible; and to effect this it was resolved
that a subscription should be set on foot, consisting of contributions
of one penny and upwards, with a view to raise a testimonial, to be
presented to Mrs. Stowe by the ladies of Liverpool, as an expression of
their grateful appreciation of her valuable services in the cause of the
negro, and as a token of admiration for the genius and of high esteem
for the philanthropy and Christian feeling which animate her great work,
Uncle Tom's Cabin. It ought, perhaps, to be added, that some friends,
not residents of Liverpool, have united in this tribute. As many of the
ladies connected with the effort to obtain signatures to the address may
not be aware of the whole number appended, they may be interested in
knowing that they amounted in all to twenty-one thousand nine hundred
and fifty-three. Of these, twenty thousand nine hundred and thirty-six
were obtained by ladies in Liverpool, from their friends either in this
neighborhood or at a distance; and one thousand and seventeen were sent
to the committee in London from other parts, by those who preferred our
form of address. The total number of signatures from all parts of the
kingdom to Lord Shaftesbury's address was upwards of five hundred
thousand."

PROFESSOR STOWE then said, "On behalf of Mrs. Stowe I will read from her
pen the response to your generous offering: 'It is impossible for me to
express the feelings of my heart at the kind and generous manner in
which I have been received upon English shores. Just when I had begun to
realize that a whole wide ocean lay between me and all that is dearest
to me, I found most unexpectedly a home and friends waiting to receive
me here. I have had not an hour in which to know the heart of a
stranger. I have been made to feel at home since the first moment of
landing, and wherever I have looked I have seen only the faces of
friends. It is with deep feeling that I have found myself on ground that
has been consecrated and made holy by the prayers and efforts of those
who first commenced the struggle for that sacred cause which has proved
so successful in England, and which I have a solemn assurance will yet
be successful in my own country. It is a touching thought that here so
many have given all that they have, and are, in behalf of oppressed
humanity. It is touching to remember that one of the noblest men which
England has ever produced now lies stricken under the heavy hand of
disease, through a last labor of love in this cause. May God grant us
all to feel that nothing is too dear or precious to be given in a work
for which such men have lived, and labored, and suffered. No great good
is ever wrought out for the human race without the suffering of great
hearts. They who would serve their fellow-men are ever reminded that the
Captain of their salvation was made perfect through suffering. I
gratefully accept the offering confided to my care, and trust it may be
so employed that the blessing of many "who are ready to perish" will
return upon your heads. Let me ask those--those fathers and mothers in
Israel--who have lived and prayed many years for this cause, that as
they prayed for their own country in the hour of her struggle, so they
will pray now for ours. Love and prayer can hurt no one, can offend no
one, and prayer is a real power. If the hearts of all the real
Christians of England are poured out in prayer, it will be felt through
the heart of the whole American church. Let us all look upward, from our
own feebleness and darkness, to Him of whom it is said, "He shall not
fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth." To him,
the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both now and ever. Amen.'--These are the words, my friends, which Mrs.
Stowe has written, and I cannot forbear to add a few words of my own. It
was our intention, as the invitation to visit Great Britain came from
Glasgow, to make our first landing there. But it was ordered by
Providence that we should land here; and surely there is no place in the
kingdom where a landing could be more appropriate, and where the
reception could have been more cordial. [Hear, hear!] It was wholly
unexpected by us, I can assure you. We know that there were friendly
hearts here, for we had received abundant testimonials to that effect
from letters which had come to us across the Atlantic--letters wholly
unexpected, and which filled our souls with surprise; but we had no
thought that there was such a feeling throughout England, and we
scarcely know how to conduct ourselves under it, for we are not
accustomed to this kind of receptions. In our own country, unhappily, we
are very much divided, and the preponderance of feeling expressed is in
the other direction, entirely in opposition, and not in favor. [Hear,
hear!] We knew that this city had been the scene of some of the
greatest, most disinterested, and most powerful efforts in behalf of
emancipation. The name of Clarkson was indissolubly associated with this
place, for here he came to make his investigations, and here he was in
danger of his life, and here he was protected by friends who stood by
him through the whole struggle. The names of Cropper, and of Stephen,
and of many others in this city, were very familiar to us--[Hear,
hear!]--and it was in connection with this city that we received what to
our feelings was a most effective testimonial, an unexpected letter from
Lord Denman, whom we have always venerated. When I was in England in
1836, there were no two persons whom I more desired to see than the Duke
of Wellington and Lord Denman; and soon I sought admission to the House
of Lords, where I had the pleasure both of seeing and hearing England's
great captain; and I found my way to the Court of Queen's Bench, where I
had the pleasure of seeing and hearing England's great judge. But how
unexpected was all this to us! When that book was written, in sorrow,
and in sadness, and obscurity, and with the heart almost broken in the
view of the sufferings which it described, and the still greater
sufferings which it dared not describe, there was no expectation of any
thing but the prayers of the sufferers and the blessing of God, who has
said that the seed which is buried in the earth shall spring up in his
own good time; and though it may be long buried, it will still at length
come forth and bear fruit. We never could believe that slavery in our
land would be a perpetual curse; but we felt, and felt deeply, that
there must be a terrible struggle before we could be delivered from it,
and that there must be suffering and martyrdom in this cause, as in
every other great cause; for a struggle of eighteen years had taught us
its strength. And, under God, we rely very much on the Christian public
of Great Britain; for every expression of feeling from the wise and good
of this land, with whatever petulance it may be met by some, goes to the
heart of the American people. [Hear, hear!] You must not judge of the
American people by the expressions which have come across the Atlantic
in reference to the subject. Nine tenths of the American people, I
think, are, in opinion at least, with you on this great subject; [Hear,
hear!] but there is a tremendous pressure brought to bear upon all who
are in favor of emancipation. The whole political power, the whole money
power, almost the whole ecclesiastical power is wielded in defence of
slavery, protecting it from all aggression; and it is as much as a man's
reputation is worth to utter a syllable boldly and openly on the other
side. Let me say to the ladies who have been active in getting up the
address on the subject of slavery, that you have been doing a great and
glorious work, and a work most appropriate for you to do; for in slavery
it is woman that suffers most intensely, and the suffering woman has a
claim upon the sympathy of her sisters in other lands. This address will
produce a powerful impression throughout the country. There are ladies
already of the highest character in the nation pondering how they shall
make a suitable response, and what they shall do in reference to it that
will be acceptable to the ladies of the United Kingdom, or will be
profitable to the slave; and in due season you will see that the hearts
of American women are alive to this matter, as well as the hearts of the
women of this country. [Hear, hear!] Such was the mighty influence
brought to bear upon every thing that threatened slavery, that had it
not been for the decided expression on this side of the Atlantic in
reference to the work which has exerted, under God, so much influence,
there is every reason to fear that it would have been crushed and put
under foot, as many other efforts for the overthrow of slavery have been
in the United States. But it is impossible; the unanimous voice of
Christendom prohibits it; and it shows that God has a work to
accomplish, and that he has just commenced it. There are social evils in
England. Undoubtedly there are; but the difference between the social
evils in England and this great evil of slavery in the United States is
just here: In England, the power of the government and the power of
Christian sympathy are exerted for the removal of those evils. Look at
the committees of inquiry in Parliament, look at the amount of
information collected with regard to the suffering poor in their
reports, and see how ready the government of Great Britain is to enter
into those inquiries, and to remove those evils. Look at the benevolent
institutions of the United Kingdom, and see how active all these are in
administering relief; and then see the condition of slavery in the
United States, where the whole power of the government is used in the
contrary direction, where every influence is brought to bear to prevent
any mitigation of the evil, and where every voice that is lifted to
plead for a mitigation is drowned in vituperation and abuse from those
who are determined that the evil shall not be mitigated. This is the
difference: England repents and reforms. America refuses to repent and
reform. It is said, 'Let each country take care of itself, and let the
ladies of England attend to their own business.' Now I have always found
that those who labor at home are those who labor abroad; [Hear, hear!]
and those who say, 'Let us do the work at home,' are those who do no
work of good either at home or abroad. [Hear, hear!] It was just so when
the great missionary effort came up in the United States. They said, 'We
have a great territory here. Let us send missionaries to our own
territories. Why should we send missionaries across the ocean?' But
those who sent missionaries across the ocean were those who sent
missionaries in the United States; and those who did not send
missionaries across the ocean were those who sent missionaries nowhere.
[Hear, hear!] They who say, 'Charity begins at home,' are generally
those who have no charity; and when I see a lady whose name is signed to
this address, I am sure to find a lady who is exercising her benevolence
at home. Let me thank you for all the interest you have manifested and
for all the kindness which we have received at your hands, which we
shall ever remember, both with gratitude to you and to God our Father."

The REV. C.M. BIRRELL afterwards made a few remarks in proposing a vote
of thanks to the ladies who had contributed the testimonial which had
been presented to the distinguished writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin. He said
it was most delightful to hear of the great good which that remarkable
volume had done, and, he humbly believed, by God's special inspiration
and guidance, was doing, in the United States of America. It was not
confined to the United States of America. The volume was going forth
over the whole earth, and great good was resulting, directly and
indirectly, by God's providence, from it. He was told a few days ago, by
a gentleman fully conversant with the facts, that an edition of Uncle
Tom, circulated in Belgium, had created an earnest desire on the part of
the people to read the Bible, so frequently quoted in that beautiful
work, and that in consequence of it a great run had been made upon the
Bible Society's depositories in that kingdom. [Hear, hear!] The priests
of the church of Rome, true to their instinct, in endeavoring to
maintain the position which they could not otherwise hold, had published
another edition, from which, they had entirely excluded all reference to
the word of God. [Hear, hear!] He had been also told that at St.
Petersburg an edition of Uncle Tom had been translated into the Russian
tongue, and that it was being distributed, by command of the emperor,
throughout the whole of that vast empire. It was true that the
circulation of the work there did not spring from a special desire on
the part of the emperor to give liberty to the people of Russia, but
because he wished to create a third power in the empire, to act upon the
nobles; he wished to cause them to set free their serfs, in order that a
third power might be created in the empire to serve as a check upon
them. But whatever was the cause, let us thank God, the Author of all
gifts, for what is done.

Sir GEORGE STEPHEN seconded the motion of thanks to the ladies,
observing that he had peculiar reasons for doing so. He supposed that he
was one of the oldest laborers in this cause. Thirty years ago he found
that the work of one lady was equal to that of fifty men; and now we had
the work of one lady which was equal to that of all the male sex.
[Applause.]

PUBLIC MEETING IN GLASGOW--APRIL 15.

THE REV. DR. WARDLAW was introduced by the chairman, and spoke as
follows:--

"The members of the Glasgow Ladies' New Antislavery Association and the
citizens of Glasgow, now assembled, hail with no ordinary satisfaction,
and with becoming gratitude to a kindly protecting Providence, the safe
arrival amongst them of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. They feel obliged by
her accepting, with so much promptitude and cordiality, the invitation
addressed to her--an invitation intended to express the favor they bore
to her, and the honor in which they held her, as the eminently gifted
authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin--a work of humble name, but of high
excellence and world-wide celebrity; a work the felicity of whose
conception is more than equalled by the admirable tact of its execution,
and the Christian benevolence of its design, by its exquisite adaptation
to its accomplishment; distinguished by the singular variety and
consistent discrimination of its characters; by the purity of its
religious and moral principles; by its racy humor, and its touching
pathos, and its effectively powerful appeals to the judgment, the
conscience, and the heart; a work, indeed, of whose sterling worth the
earnest test is to be found in the fact of its having so universally
touched and stirred the bosom of our common humanity, in all classes of
society, that its humble name has become 'a household word,' from the
palace to the cottage, and of the extent of its circulation having been
unprecedented in the history of the literature of this or of any other
age or country. They would, at the same time, include in their hearty
welcome the Rev. C.E. Stowe, Professor of Theological Literature in the
Andover Theological Seminary, Massachusetts, whose eminent
qualifications, as a classical scholar, a man of general literature, and
a theologian, have recently placed him in a highly honorable and
responsible position, and who, on the subject of slavery, holds the same
principles and breathes the same spirit of freedom with his accomplished
partner; and, along with them too, another member of the same singularly
talented family with herself. They delight to think of the amount of
good to the cause of emancipation and universal liberty which her Cabin
has already done, and to anticipate the still larger amount it is yet
destined to do, now that the Key to the Cabin has triumphantly shown it
to be no fiction; and in whatever further efforts she may be honored of
Heaven to make in the same noble cause, they desire, unitedly and
heartily, to cheer her on, and bid her 'God speed.' I cannot but feel
myself highly honored in having been requested to move this resolution.
In doing so, I have the happiness of introducing to a Glasgow audience a
lady from the transatlantic continent, the extraordinary production of
whose pen, referred to in the resolution, had made her name familiar in
our country and through Europe, ere she appeared in person among us. My
judgment and my heart alike fully respond to every thing said in the
resolution respecting that inimitable work. We are accustomed to make a
distinction between works of nature and works of art, but in a sense
which, all will readily understand, this is preeminently both. As a work
of art, it bears upon it, throughout, the stamp of original and varied
genius. And yet, throughout, it equally bears the impress of nature--of
human nature--in its worst and its best, and all its intermediate
phases. The man who has read that little volume without laughing and
crying alternately--without the meltings of pity, the thrillings of
horror, and the kindlings of indignation--would supply a far better
argument for a distinct race than a negro. [Loud laughter and cheers.]
He must have a humanity peculiarly his own. And he who can read it
without the breathings of devotion must, if he calls himself a
Christian, have a Christianity as unique and questionable as his
humanity. [Cheering.] Never did work produce such a sensation. Among us
that sensation has happily been all of one kind. It has been the
stirring of universal sympathy and unbounded admiration. Not so in the
country of its own and of its gifted authoress's birth. There, the
ferment has been among the friends as well as the foes of slavery. Among
the former all is rage. Among the latter, while there are some--we trust
not a few--who take the same high and noble position with the talented
authoress, there are too many, we fear, who are frightened by this
uncompromising boldness, and who are drawn back rather than drawn
forward by it--who 'halt between two opinions,' and are the advocates of
medium principles and medium measures. By many among ourselves, the
excitement which has been stirred is contemplated with apprehension.
They regard it as unfavorable to emancipation, and likely to retard
rather than to advance its progress. I must confess myself of a somewhat
different mind. That the cause may be obstructed by it for a time, may
be true. But it will work well in the long run. Good will ultimately
come out of it. Stir is better than stagnancy. Irritation is better than
apathy. Whence does it arise? From two sources. The conscience and the
honor of the country have both been touched. Conscience winces under the
touch. The provocation shows it to be ill at ease. The wound is painful,
and it naturally awakens fretfulness and resentment. But by and by the
angry excitement will subside, and the salutary conviction will remain
and operate. The national honor, too, has been touched. Our friends
across the wave boast, and with good reason, of the free principles of
their constitution. They glory in their liberty. But they cannot fail to
feel the inconsistency of their position, and the exposure of it to the
world kindles on the cheek the blush of shame and the reddening fire of
displeasure. Now, the blush has aright source. It is the blush of
patriotism--it is for their country. But there is anger with the shame;
for few things are more galling than to feel that to be wrong which you
are unable to justify, and which, yet, you are not prepared to
relinquish. [Loud applause.] On the whole, I cannot but regard the
agitation which has been produced as an auspicious, rather than a
discouraging omen. It was when the waters of the pool were troubled that
their healing virtue was imparted. Let us then hope that the troubling
of the waters by this ministering angel of mercy may impregnate them
with a similar sanative influence, [the reverend doctor here pointed
towards Mrs. Stowe, while the audience burst out with enthusiastic
acclamations and waving of handkerchiefs,] and thus ultimately
contribute to the healing of the ghastly wounds of the chain and the
lash, and to the setting of the crushed and bowed down erect in the
soundness and dignity of their true manhood. [Loud cheering.] Sorry we
are that Mrs. Stowe should appear amongst us in a state of broken health
and physical exhaustion. No one who looks at the Cabin and at the Key,
and who knows aught of the effect of severe mental labor on the bodily
frame, will marvel at this. We fondly trust, and earnestly pray, that
her temporary sojourn among us may, by the divine blessing, recruit her
strength, and contribute to the prolongation of a life so promising of
benefit to suffering humanity, and to the glory of God. [Cheers.]
Meanwhile she enjoys the happy consciousness that she is suffering in a
good cause. A better there could not be. It is one which involves the
well being, corporeal and mental, physical and spiritual, temporal and
eternal, of degraded, plundered, oppressed, darkened, brutalized,
perishing millions. And, while we delight in furnishing her for a time
with a peaceful retreat from 'the wrath of men,' from the resentment of
those who, did they but rightly know their own interests, would have
smiled upon her, and blessed her. We trust she enjoys, and ever will
enjoy, quietness and assurance of an infinitely higher order--the divine
Master, whom she serves and seeks to honor; proving to her, in the terms
of his own promise, 'a refuge from the storm, and a covert from the
tempest.' [Enthusiastic cheering.] It may sound strangely, that, when
assembled for the very purpose of denouncing 'property in man,' we
should be putting in our claims for a share of property in woman. So,
however, it is. We claim Mrs. Stowe as ours--[renewed, cheers]--not ours
only, but still ours. She is British and European property as well as
American. She is the property of the whole world of literature and the
whole world of humanity. [Cheers.] Should our transatlantic friends
repudiate the property, they may transfer their share--[laughter and
cheers]--most gladly will we accept the transference."

PROFESSOR STOWE, on rising to reply, was greeted with the most
enthusiastic applause. He said that he appeared in the name of Mrs.
Stowe, and in his own name, for the purpose of cordially thanking the
people of Glasgow for the reception that had been given to them. But he
could not find words to do it. Was it true that all this affectionate
interest was merited? [Cheers.] He could not imagine any book capable of
exciting such expressions of attachment; indeed he was inclined to
believe it had not been written at all--he "'spected it grew."
[Tremendous cheers.] Under the oppression of the fugitive slave law the
book had sprung from the soil ready made. He regretted exceedingly that
in consequence of the state of Mrs. Stowe's health, and in consequence
of the great pressure of engagements on himself, their stay in this
country would be necessarily short. But he hoped they would accept of
the expression of thanks they offered, and their apology for not being
in a condition to meet their kindness as they would desire. When they
were about to set out from Andover, a friend of theirs expressed his
astonishment that they should enter upon such a journey in the delicate
state of Mrs. Stowe's health. The Scotch people, he doubted not, would
be kind to them--_they would kill them with kindness_; and he feared it
would be so. It was from Glasgow the idea of the invitation they had
received had originated; and well might it originate in that city, for
when had been the time that Glasgow was not in earnest on the subject of
freedom? They had had hard struggles for liberty, and they had been
successful, and the people in the United States were now struggling for
the same privilege. But they labored under circumstances greatly
different from those in Great Britain. Scotland had ever been
distinguished for its love of freedom. [Great applause.] The religious
denominations in the United States--to a great extent, give few and
feeble expressions of disapprobation against the system of slavery. Two
denominations had never been silent--the Old Scotch Seceders, or
Covenanters, and the disciples of William Penn--not one of their number,
in the United States, owns a slave. Not one can own a slave without
being ejected from the society.[A] In fact, the general feeling was
against slavery; but to avoid trouble, the people hesitate to give
publicity to their feelings. Were this done, slavery would soon come to
an end. Great sacrifices are sometimes made by slaveholders to get rid
of slavery. He went once to preach in the State of Ohio. He found there
a little log house. Inside was a delicate woman, feeble and with white
hands. She seemed wholly unaccustomed to work. Her husband had the same
appearance of delicacy. They were very poor. How had they come into that
state? They belonged to a slave State, where they had formerly possessed
a little family of slaves. They had felt slavery to be wrong. They set
them free, and with the remainder of their little property tried to get
their living by farming; but like many similar cases, it had been one of
martyrdom. The Professor then proceeded to make some very practical
remarks on the character of the fugitive slave law, after which he said
that the prosperity of Great Britain in a great measure resulted from
the products of slave labor. American cotton was the chief support of
the system. We must, both in Britain and America, get free-grown cotton,
or slavery will not, at least for a long time to come, be abolished.
What he would impress on the minds of Christians was unity in this great
work. Let slaveholders be ever so much opposed to each other on other
topics, they were unanimous in their endeavors to support slavery. But
let the prayers of all Christians and the efforts of all Christians be
united; and the system of oppression would speedily be destroyed
forever.

PUBLIC MEETING IN EDINBURGH--APRIL 20.

THE LORD PROVOST rose, and stated that a number of letters of apology
had been received from parties who had been invited to take part in the
meeting, but who had been unable to attend. Among these he might
mention Professor Blackie, the Rev. Mr. Gilfillan, of Dundee, Rev. J.
Begg, D.D., the Earl of Buchan, Dr. Candlish, and Sir W. Gibson Craig,
all of whom expressed their regret that they could not be present. One
of them, he observed, was from a gentleman who had long taken an
interest in the antislavery cause,--Lord Cockburn,[B]--and his note was
so warm, and sympathetic, and hearty on the subject about which they had
met, that he could not resist the temptation of reading it. It
proceeded, "I regret, that owing to my being obliged to be in Ayrshire,
it will not be in my power to join you in the expression of respect and
gratitude to Mrs. Stowe; she deserves all the honor that can be done
her; she has done more for humanity than was ever accomplished before by
a single book of fiction. [Cheers.] It did not require much to raise our
British feeling against slavery, but by showing us what substantially
are facts, and the necessary tendency of this evil in its most mitigated
form, she has greatly strengthened the ground on which this feeling
rests. Her work may have no immediate or present influence on the states
of her own country that are now unhappily under the curse, and may
indeed for a time aggravate its horrors; but it is a prodigious
accession to the constantly accumulating mass of views and evidence,
which by reason of its force must finally prevail." [Cheers.] The Lord
Provost proceeded to say, that they had now assembled chiefly to do
honor to their distinguished guest, Mrs. Stowe. [Applause.] They had
met, however, also to express their interest in the cause which it had
been the great effort of her life to promote--the abolition of slavery.
They took advantage of her presence, and the effect which was produced
on the public mind of this country, to reiterate their love for the
abolition cause, and their detestation of slavery. Before they were
aware that Mrs. Stowe was to grace the city of Edinburgh with her
presence, a committee had been organized to collect a penny
offering--the amount to be contributed in pence, and other small sums,
from the masses of this country--to be presented to her as some means of
mitigating, through her instrumentality, the horrors of slavery, as they
might come under her observation. It was intended at once as a mark of
their esteem for her, of their confidence in her, of their conviction
that she would do what was right in the cause, and, at the same time, as
an evidence of the detestation in which the system of slavery was held
in this free country. That penny offering now, he was happy to say, by
the spontaneous efforts of the inhabitants of this and other towns,
amounted to a considerable sum; to certain gentlemen in Edinburgh
forming the committee the whole credit of this organization was due, and
he believed one of their number, the Rev. Mr. Ballantyne, would present
the offering that evening, and tell them all about it. He would not,
therefore, forestall what he would have to say on the subject. They were
also to have the pleasure of presenting Mrs. Stowe with an address from
the committee in this city, which would be presented by another reverend
friend, who would be introduced at the proper time. As there would be a
number of speakers to follow during the evening, his own remarks must
be exceedingly short; but he could not resist the temptation of saying
how happy he felt at being once more in the midst of a great meeting in
the city of Edinburgh, for the purpose of expressing their detestation
of the system of slavery. They could appeal to their brethren in the
United States with clean hands, because they had got rid of the
abomination themselves; they could therefore say to them, through their
friends who were now present, on their return home, and through the
press, which would carry their sentiments even to the slave states--they
could say to them that they had washed their own hands of the evil at
the largest pecuniary sacrifice that was ever made by any nation for the
promotion of any good cause. [Loud applause.] Some parties said that
they should not speak harshly of the Americans, because they were full
of prejudice with regard to the system which they had seen growing up
around them. He said so too with all his heart; he joined in the
sentiment that they should not speak harshly, but they might fairly
express their opinion of the system with which their American friends
were surrounded, and in which he thought all who supported it were
guilty participators. [Hear, hear!] They could denounce the wickedness,
they could tell them that they thought it was their duty to put an end
to it speedily. The cause of the abolition of slavery in our own
colonies long hung without any visible progress, notwithstanding the
efforts of many distinguished men, who did all they could to mitigate
some of its more prominent evils; and yet, so long as they never struck
at the root, the progress which they made was almost insensible. They
knew how many men had spent their energies, and some of them their
lives, in attempting to forward the cause; but how little effect was
produced for the first half of the present century! The city of
Edinburgh had always, he was glad to say, taken a deep interest in the
cause; it was one of the very first to take up the ground of total and
entire abolition. [Cheers.] A predecessor of his own in the civic chair
was so kind as to preside at a meeting held in Edinburgh twenty-three
years ago, in which a very decided step was proposed to be taken in
advance, and a resolution was moved by the then Dean of Faculty, to the
effect that on the following first of January, 1831, all the children
born of slave parents in our colonies were from that date to be declared
free. That was thought a great and most important movement by the
promoters of the cause. There were, however, parties at that crowded
meeting who thought that even this was a mere expedient--that it was a
mere pruning of the branches, leaving the whole system intact. One of
these was the late Dr. Andrew Thomson--[cheers]--who had the courage to
propose that the meeting should at once declare for total and immediate
abolition, which proposal was seconded by another excellent citizen, Mr.
Dickie. Dr. Thomson replied to some of the arguments which had been put
forward, to the effect that the total abolition might possibly occasion
bloodshed; and he said that, even if that did follow, it was no fault of
his, and that he still stuck to the principle, which he considered right
under any circumstances. The chairman, thereupon, threatened to leave
the chair on account of the unnecessarily strong language used, and when
the sentiments were reiterated by Mr. Dickie, he actually bolted, and
left the meeting, which was thrown into great confusion. A few days
afterwards, however, another meeting was held--one of the largest and
most effective that had been ever held in Edinburgh--at which were
present Mr. John Shank More in the chair, the Rev. Dr. Thomson, Rev. Dr
Gordon, Dr. Ritchie, Mr. Muirhead, the Rev. Mr. Buchanan of North Leith,
Mr. J. Wigham, Jr., Dr. Greville, &c. The Lord Provost proceeded to read
extracts from the speeches made at the meeting, showing that the
sentiments of the inhabitants of Edinburgh, so far back as 1830, as
uttered by some of its most distinguished men,--not violent agitators,
but ministers of the gospel, promoters of peace and order, and every
good and every benevolent purpose,--were in favor of the immediate and
total abolition of slavery in our colonies. He referred especially to
the speech of Dr. Andrew Thomson on this occasion, from which he read
the following extract: "But if the argument is forced upon me to
accomplish this great object, that there must be violence, let it come,
for it will soon pass away--let it come and rage its little hour, since
it is to be succeeded by lasting freedom, and prosperity, and happiness.
Give me the hurricane rather than the pestilence. Give me the hurricane,
with its thunders, and its lightnings, and its tempests--give me the
hurricane, with its partial and temporary devastations, awful though
they be--give me the hurricane, which brings along with it purifying,
and healthful, and salutary effects--give me the hurricane rather than
the noisome pestilence, whose path is never crossed, whose silence is
never disturbed, whose progress is never arrested by one sweeping blast
from the heavens--which walks peacefully and sullenly through the length
and breadth of the land, breathing poison into every heart, and carrying
havoc into every home--enervating all that is strong, defacing all that
is beautiful, and casting its blight over the fairest and happiest
scenes of human life--and which from day to day, and from year to year,
with intolerant and interminable malignity, sends its thousands and tens
of thousands of hapless victims into the ever-yawning and
never-satisfied grave!"--[Loud and long applause.] The experience which
they had had, that all the dangers, all the bloodshed and violence which
were threatened, were merely imaginary, and that none of these evils had
come upon them although slavery had been totally abolished by us,
should, he thought, be an encouragement to their American friends to go
home and tell their countrymen that in this great city the views now put
forward were advocated long ago--that the persons who now held them said
the same years ago of the disturbances and the evils which would arise
from pressing the question of immediate and total abolition--that the
same kind of arguments and the same predictions of evil were uttered in
England--and although she had not the experience, although she had not
the opportunity of pointing to the past, and saying the evil had not
come in such a case, still, even then, they were willing to face the
evil, to stick to the righteous principle, and to say, come what would,
justice must be done to the slave, and slavery must be wholly and
immediately abolished. [Cheers.] He had said so much on the question of
slavery, because he was very sure it would be much more agreeable to
their modest and retiring and distinguished guest that one should speak
about any other thing than about herself. Uncle Tom's Cabin needed no
recommendation from him. [Loud cheers.] It was the most extraordinary
book, he thought, that had ever been published; no book had ever got
into the same circulation; none had ever produced a tithe of the
impression which it had produced within a given time. It was worth all
the proslavery press of America put together. The horrors of slavery
were not merely described, but they were actually pictured to the eye.
They were seen and understood fully; formerly they were mere dim
visions, about which there was great difference of opinion; some saw
them as in a mist, and others more clearly; but now every body saw and
understood slavery. Every body in this great city, if they had a voice
in the matter, would be prepared to say that they wished slavery to be
utterly extinguished. [Loud cheers.]

PROFESSOR STOWE then rose, and was greeted with loud cheers. He begged
to read the following note from Mrs. Stowe, in acknowledgment of the
honor:--

"I accept these congratulations and honors, and this offering, which it
has pleased Scotland to bestow on me, not for any thing which I have
said or done, not as in any sense acknowledging that they are or can be
deserved, but with heartfelt, humble gratitude to God, as tokens of
mercy to a cause most sacred and most oppressed. In the name of a people
despised and rejected of men--in the name of men of sorrows acquainted
with grief, from whom the faces of all the great and powerful of the
earth have been hid--in the name of oppressed and suffering humanity, I
thank you. The offering given is the dearer to me, and the more hopeful,
that it is literally the penny offering, given by thousands on
thousands, a penny at a time. When, in travelling through your country,
aged men and women have met me with such fervent blessings, little
children gathered round me with such loving eyes--when honest hands,
hard with toil, have been stretched forth with such hearty welcome--when
I have seen how really it has come from the depths of the hearts of the
common people, and know, as I truly do, what prayers are going up with
it from the humblest homes of Scotland, I am encouraged. I believe it is
God who inspires this feeling, and I believe God never inspired it in
vain. I feel an assurance that the Lord hath looked down from heaven to
hear the groaning of the prisoner, and according to the greatness of his
power, to loose those that are appointed to die. In the human view,
nothing can be more hopeless than this cause; all the wealth, and all
the power, and all the worldly influence is against it. But here in
Scotland, need we tell the children of the Covenant, that the Lord on
high is mightier than all human power? Here, close by the spot where
your fathers signed that Covenant, in an hour when Scotland's cause was
equally poor and depressed--here, by the spot where holy martyrs sealed
it with their blood, it will neither seem extravagance nor enthusiasm to
say to the children of such parents, that for the support of this cause,
we look, not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are not
seen; to that God, who, in the face of all worldly power, gave liberty
to Scotland, in answer to your fathers' prayers. Our trust is in Jesus
Christ, and in the power of the Holy Ghost, and in the promise that he
shall reign till he hath put all things under his feet. There are those
faithless ones, who, standing at the grave of a buried humanity, tell us
that it is vain to hope for our brother, because he hath lain in the
grave three days already. We turn from them to the face of Him who has
said, 'Thy brother shall rise again.' There was a time when our great
High Priest, our Brother, yet our Lord, lay in the grave three days; and
the governors and powers of the earth made it as sure as they could,
seeding the stone and setting a watch. But a third day came, and an
earthquake, and an angel. So shall it be to the cause of the oppressed;
though now small and despised, we are watchers at the sepulchre, like
Mary and the trusting women; we can sit through the hours of darkness.
We are watching the sky for the golden streaks of dawning, and we
believe that the third day will surely come. For Christ our Lord, being
raised from the dead, dieth no more; and he has pledged his word that he
shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment on the
earth. He shall deliver the poor when He crieth, the needy, and him that
hath no helper. The night is far spent--the day is at hand. The
universal sighing of humanity in all countries, the whole creation
groaning and travailing in pain together--the earnest expectation of the
creature waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God--show that the
day is not distant when he will break every yoke, and let the oppressed
go free. And whatever we are able to do for this sacred cause, let us
cast it where the innumerable multitude of heaven cast their crowns, at
the feet of the Lamb, saying, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and
glory, and blessings.'"

The Rev. Professor then continued. "My Lord Provost, Ladies and
Gentlemen: This cause, to be successful, must be carried on in a
religious spirit, with a deep sense of our dependence on God, and with
that love for our fellow-men which the gospel requires. It is because I
think I have met this spirit since I reached the shores of Great
Britain, in those who have taken an interest in the cause, that I feel
encouraged to hope that the expression of your feeling will be effective
on the hearts of Christians on the other side of the Atlantic. There are
Christians there as sincere, as hearty, and as earnest, as any on the
face of the earth. They have looked at this subject, and been troubled;
they have hardly known what to do, and their hearts have been
discouraged. They have almost turned away their eyes from it, because
they have scarcely dared encounter it, the difficulties appeared to them
so great. Wrong cannot always receive the support of Christians; wrong
must be done away with; and what must be--what God requires to be--that
certainly will be. Now, in this age, man is every where beginning to
regard the sufferings of his fellow-man as his own. There is an interest
felt in man, as man, which was not felt in preceding ages. The
facilities of communication are bringing all nations in contact, and
whatever wrong exists in any part of the world, is every where felt.
There are wrongs and sufferings every where; but those to which we are
accustomed, we look upon with most indifference, because being
accustomed to them, we do not feel their enormity. You feel the
enormity of slavery more than we do, because you are not immediately
interested, and regard it at a distance. We regard some of the wrongs
that exist in the old world with more sensibility than you can regard
them, because we are not accustomed to them, and you are. Therefore, in
the spirit of Christian love, it belongs to Christian men to speak to
each other with great fidelity. It has been said that you know little or
nothing about slavery. O, happy men, that you are ignorant of its
enormities. [Hear, hear!] But you do know something about it. You know
as much about it as you know of the widow-burning in India, or the
cannibalism in the Fejee Islands, or any of those crimes and sorrows of
paganism, that induced you to send forth your missionaries. You know it
is a great wrong, and a terrible obstacle to the progress of the gospel;
and that is enough for you to know to induce you to act. You have as
much knowledge as ever induced a Christian community in any part of the
world to exert an influence in any other part of the world. Slavery is a
relic of paganism, of barbarism; it must be removed by Christianity; and
if the light of Christianity shines on it clearly, it certainly will
remove it. There are thousands of hearts in the United States that
rejoice in your help. Whatever expressions of impatience and petulance
you may hear, be assured that these expressions are not the heart of the
great body of the people. [Cheers.] A large proportion of that country
is free from slavery. There is an area of freedom ten times larger than
Great Britain in territory.[C] [Cheers.] But all the power over the
slave is in the hands of the slaveholder. You had a power over the
slaveholder by your national legislature; our national legislature has
no power over the slaveholder. All the legislation that can in that
country be brought to bear for the slave, is legislation by the
slaveholders themselves. There is where the difficulty lies. It is
altogether by persuasion, Christian counsel, Christian sympathy,
Christian earnestness, that any good can be effected for the slave. The
conscience of the people is against the system--the conscience of the
people, even in the slaveholding states; and if we can but get at the
conscience without exciting prejudice, it will tend greatly towards the
desired effect. But this appeal to the conscience must be
unintermittent, constant. Your hands must not be weary, your prayers
must not be discontinued; but every day and every hour should we be
doing something towards the object. It is sometimes said, Americans who
resist slavery are traitors to their country. No; those who would
support freedom are the only true friends of their country. Our fathers
never intended slavery to be identified with the government of the
United States; but in the temptations of commerce the evil was
overlooked; and how changed for the worse has become the public
sentiment even within the last thirty or forty years! The enormous
increase in the consumption of cotton has raised enormously the market
value of slaves, and arrayed both avarice and political ambition in
defence of slavery. Instruct the conscience, and produce free cotton,
and this will be like Cromwell's exhortation to his soldiers, '_Trust
in God, and keep your powder dry_.'" [Continued cheers.]

THE REV. DR. R. LEE then said: "I am quite sure that every individual
here responds cordially to those sentiments of respect and gratitude
towards our honored guest which have been so well expressed by the Lord
Provost and the other gentlemen who have addressed us. We think that
this lady has not only laid us under a great obligation by giving us one
of the most delightful books in the English language, but that she has
improved us as men and as Christians, that she has taught us the value
of our privileges, and made us more sensible than we were before of the
obligation which lies upon us to promote every good work. I have been
requested to say a few words on the degradation of American slavery; but
I feel, in the presence of the gentleman who last addressed you, and of
those who are still to address you, that it would be almost presumption
in me to enter on such a subject. It is impossible to speak or to think
of the subject of slavery without feeling that there is a double
degradation in the matter; for, in the first place, the slave is a man
made in the image of God--God's image cut in ebony, as old Thomas Fuller
quaintly but beautifully said; and what right have we to reduce him to
the image of a brute, and make property of him? We esteem drunkenness as
a sin. Why is it a sin? Because it reduces that which was made in the
image of God to the image of a brute. We say to the drunkard, 'You are
guilty of a sacrilege, because you reduce that which God made in his own
image "into the image of an irrational creature."' Slavery does the very
same. But there is not only a degradation committed as regards the
slave--there is a degradation also committed against himself by him who
makes him a slave, and who retains him in the position of a slave; for
is it not one of the most commonplace of truths that we cannot do a
wrong to a neighbor without doing a greater wrong to ourselves?--that we
cannot injure him without also injuring ourselves yet more? I observe
there is a certain class of writers in America who are fond of
representing the feeling of this country towards America as one of
jealousy, if not of hatred.. I think, my lord, that no American ever
travelled in this country without being conscious at once that this is a
total mistake--that this is a total misapprehension. I venture to say
that there is no nation on the face of the earth in which we feel half
so much interest, or towards which we feel the tenth part of the
affection, which we do towards our brethren in the United States of
America. And what is more than that--there is no nation towards which we
feel one half so much admiration, and for which we feel half so much
respect, as we do for the people of the United States of America.
[Cheers.] Why, sir, how can it be otherwise? How is it possible that it
should be the reverse? Are they not our bone and our flesh? and their
character, whatever it is, is it any thing more than our own, a little
exaggerated, perhaps? Their virtues and their vices, their faults and
their excellences, are just the virtues and the vices, the faults and
the excellences, of that old respectable freeholder, John Bull, from
whom they are descended. We are not much surprised that a nation which
are slaves themselves should make other men slaves. This cannot very
much surprise us: but we are both surprised and we are deeply grieved,
that a nation which has conceived so well the idea of freedom--a nation
which has preached the doctrines of freedom with such boldness and such
fulness--a nation which has so boldly and perfectly realized its idea of
freedom in every other respect--should in this only instance have sunk
so completely below its own idea, and forgetting the rights of one class
of their fellow-creatures, should have deprived them of freedom
altogether. I say that our grief and our disapprobation of this in the
case of our brethren in America arises very much from this, that in
other respects we admire them so much, we are sorry that so noble a
nation should allow a blot like this to remain upon its escutcheon. I am
not ignorant--nobody can be ignorant--of the great difficulties which
encompass the solution of this question in America. It is vain for us to
shut our eyes to it. There can be no doubt whatever that great
sacrifices will require to be made in order to get rid of this great
evil. But the Americans are a most ingenious people; they are full of
inventions of all sorts, from the invention of a machine for protecting
our feet from the water, to a machine for making ships go by means of
heated air; from the one to the other the whole field of discovery is
occupied by their inventive genius. There is not an article in common
use among us but bears some stamp of America. We rise in the morning,
and before we are dressed we have had half a dozen American articles in
our hands. And during the day, as we pass through the streets, articles
of American invention meet us every where. In short, the ingenuity of
the people is proclaimed all over the world. And there can be no doubt
that the moment this great, this ingenious people finds that slavery is
both an evil and a sin, their ingenuity will be successfully exerted in
discovering some invention for preventing its abolition from ruining
them altogether. [Cheers.] No doubt their ingenuity will be equal to the
occasion; and I may take the liberty of adding, that their ingenuity in
that case will find even a richer reward than it has done in those other
inventions which have done them so much honor, and been productive of so
much profit. I say, that sacrifices must be made; there can be no doubt
about that; but I would also observe, that the longer the evil is
permitted to continue, the greater and more tremendous will become the
sacrifice which will be needed to put an end to it; for all history
proves that a nation encumbered, with slavery is surrounded with danger.
[Applause.] Has the history of antiquity been written in vain? Does it
not teach us that not only domestic and social pollutions are the
inevitable results, but does it not teach us also that political
insecurity and political revolutions as certainly slumber beneath the
institution of slavery as fireworks at the basis of Mount Ætna?
[Cheers.] It cannot but be so. Men no more than steam can be compressed
without a tremendous revulsion; and let our brethren in America be sure
of this, that the longer the day of reckoning is put off by them, the
more tremendous at last that reckoning will Be." [Loud, applause.]

In regard to this meeting at Edinburgh, there was a ridiculous story
circulated and variously commented on in certain newspapers of the
United States, that _the American flag was there exhibited, insulted,
torn, and mutilated_. Certain religious papers took the lead in
propagating the slander, which, so for as I know or can learn, _had no
foundation_, unless it be that, in the arranging of the flag around its
staff, the stars might have been more distinctly visible than the
stripes. The walls were profusely adorned with drapery, and there were
numerous flags disposed in festoons. Truly a wonderful thing to make a
story of, and then parade it in the newspapers from Maine to Texas,
beginning in Philadelphia!

PUBLIC MEETING IN ABERDEEN--APRIL 21.

ADDRESS OF THE CITIZENS.

MRS H. BEECHER STOWE.

MADAM: The citizens of Aberdeen have much pleasure in embracing the
opportunity now afforded them of expressing at once their esteem for
yourself personally, and their interest in the cause of which you have
been the distinguished advocate.

While they would, not render a blind homage to mere genius, however
exalted, they consider genius such as yours, directed by Christian
principle, as that which, for the welfare of humanity, cannot be too
highly or too fervently honored.

Without depreciating the labors of the various advocates of slave
emancipation who have appeared from time to time on both sides of the
Atlantic, they may conscientiously award to you the praise of having
brought about the present universal and enthusiastic sentiment in regard
to the slavery which exists in America.

The galvanic battery may be arranged and charged, every plate, wire, and
fluid being in its appropriate place; but, until some hand shall bring
together the extremities of the conducting medium, in vain might we
expect to elicit the latent fire.

Every heart may throb with the feeling of benevolence, and every mind
respond to the sentiment that man, in regard to man, should be free and
equal; but it is the province of genius such as yours to give unity to
the universal, and find utterance for the felt.

When society has been prepared for some momentous movement or moral
reformation, so that the hidden thoughts of the people want only an
interpreter, the thinking community an organ, and suffering humanity a
champion, distinguished is the honor belonging to the individual in whom
all these requisites are found combined.

To you has been assigned by Providence the important task of educing the
latent emotions of humanity, and waking the music that slumbered in the
chords of the universal human heart, till it has pealed forth in one
deep far rolling and harmonious anthem, of which the heavenly burden is,
"Liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are
bound!"

The production of your accomplished pen, which has already called forth
such unqualified eulogy from almost every land where Anglo-Saxon
literature finds access, and created so sudden and fervent an excitement
on the momentous subject of American slavery, has nowhere been hailed
with a more cordial welcome, or produced more salutary effects, than in
the city of Aberdeen.

Though long ago imbued, with antislavery principles and interested in
the progress of liberty in every part of the world, our community, like
many others, required such information, suggestions, and appeals as your
valuable work contains in one great department of slavery, in order that
their interest might be turned into a specific direction, and their
principles reduced, to combined practical effort.

Already they have esteemed it a privilege to engage with some activity
in the promotion of the interests of the fugitive slave; and they shall
henceforth regard with a deeper interest than ever the movements of
their American brethren in this matter, until there exists among them no
slavery from which to flee.

While they participate in your abhorrence of slavery in the American
states, they trust they need scarcely assure you that they participate
also in your love for the American people.

It is in proportion as they love that nation, attached to them by so
many ties, that they lament the existence of a system which, so long as
it exists, must bring odium upon the national character, as it cannot
fail to enfeeble and impair their best social institutions.

They believe it to be a maxim that man cannot hold his fellow-man in
slavery without being himself to some extent enslaved. And of this the
censorship of the press, together with the expurgatorial indices of
various religious societies in the Southern States of America, furnish
ample corroboration.

It is hoped that your own nation may speedily be directed to recognize
you as its best friend, for having stood forth in the spirit of true
patriotism to advocate the claims of a large portion of your countrymen,
and to seek the removal of an evil which has done much to neutralize the
moral influence of your country's best (and otherwise free)
institutions.

Accept, then, from the community of Aberdeen their congratulations on
the high literary fame which you have by a single effort so deservedly
acquired, and their grateful acknowledgments for your advocacy of a
cause in which the best interests of humanity are involved.

Signed in name and by appointment of a public meeting of the citizens of
Aberdeen within the County Buildings, this 21st April, 1853, A.D.

GEO. HESSAY,

_Provost of Aberdeen_.

PUBLIC MEETING IN DUNDEE--APRIL 22.

MR. GILFILLAN, who was received with great applause, said he had been
intrusted by the Committee of the Ladies' Antislavery Association to
present the following address to Mrs. Stowe, which he would read to the
meeting:--

"MADAM: We, the ladies of the Dundee Antislavery Association, desire to
add our feeble voices to the acclamations of a world, conscious that
your fame and character need no testimony from us. We are less anxious
to honor you than to prove that our appreciation and respect are no less
sincere and no less profound than those of the millions in other places
and other lands, whom you have instructed, improved, delighted, and
thrilled. We beg permission to lay before you the expressions of a
gratitude and an enthusiasm in some measure commensurate with your
transcendent literary merit and moral worth. We congratulate you on the
success of the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of your genius, a success altogether
unparalleled, and in all probability never to be paralleled in the
history of literature. We congratulate you still more warmly on that
nobility and benevolence of nature which made you from childhood the
friend of the unhappy slave, and led you to accumulate unconsciously the
materials for the immortal tale of Uncle Tom's Cabin. We congratulate
you in having in that tale supported with matchless eloquence and pathos
the cause of the crushed, the forgotten, the injured, of those who had
no help of man at all, and who had even been blasphemously taught by
professed ministers of the gospel of mercy that Heaven too was opposed
to their liberation, and had blotted them out from the catalogue of man.
We recognize, too, with delight, the spirit of enlightened and
evangelical piety which breathes through your work, and serves to
confute the calumny that none but infidels are interested in the cause
of abolition--a calumny which cuts at Christianity with a yet sharper
edge than at abolition, but which you have proved to be a foul and
malignant falsehood. We congratulate you not only on the richness of the
laurels which you have won, but on the dignity, the meekness, and the
magnanimity with which these laurels have been worn. We hail in you our
most gifted sister in the great cause of liberty--we bid you warmly
welcome to our city, and we pray Almighty God, the God of the oppressed,
to pour his selectest blessings on your head, and to spare your
invaluable life, till yours, and ours, and others' efforts for the cause
of abolition are crowned with success, and till the shouts of a
universal jubilee shall proclaim that in all quarters of the globe the
African is free."

The address was handed to Mrs. Stowe amid great applause. MR. GILFILLAN
continued: "In addition to the address which I have now read, I have
been requested to add a few remarks; and in making these I cannot but
congratulate Dundee on the fact that Mrs. Stowe has visited it, and that
she has had a reception worthy of her distinguished merits. [Applause.]
It is not Dundee alone that is present here to-night: it is
Forfarshire, Fifeshire, and I may also add, Perthshire:--that are here
to do honor to themselves in doing honor to our illustrious guest.
[Cheers.] There are assembled here representatives of the general
feeling that boils in the whole land--not from our streets alone, but
from our country valleys--from our glens and our mountains O! I wish
that Mrs. Stowe would but spare time to go herself and study that
enthusiasm amid its own mountain recesses, amid the uplands and the
friths, and the wild solitudes of our own unconquered and unconquerable
land. She would see scenery there worthy of that pencil which has
painted so powerfully the glories of the Mississippi; ay, and she would
find her name known and reverenced in every hamlet, and see copies of
Uncle Tom's Cabin in the shepherd's shieling, beside Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress, the Life of Sir William Wallace, Rob Roy, and the Gaelic
Bible. I saw copies of it carried by travellers last autumn among the
gloomy grandeurs of Glencoe, and, as Coleridge once said when he saw
Thomson's Seasons lying in a Welsh wayside inn, 'That is true fame,' I
thought this was fame truer still. [Applause.] It is too late in the day
to criticize Uncle Tom's Cabin, or to speculate on its unprecedented
history--a history which seems absolutely magical. Why, you are reminded
of Aladdin's lamp, and of the palace that was reared by genii in one
night. Mrs. Stowe's genius has done a greater wonder than this--it has
reared in a marvellously short time a structure which, unlike that
Arabian fabric, is a reality, and shall last forever. [Applause.] She
must not be allowed, to depreciate herself, and to call her glorious
book a mere 'bubble.' Such a bubble there never was before. I wish we
had ten thousand such bubbles. [Applause.] If it had been a bubble it
would have broken long ago. 'Man,' says Jeremy Taylor, 'is a bubble.'
Yea, but he is an immortal one. And such an immortal bubble is Uncle
Tom's Cabin; it can only with man expire; and yet a year ago not ten
individuals in this vast assembly had ever heard of its author's name.
[Applause.] At its artistic merits we may well marvel--to find in a
small volume the descriptive power of a Scott, the humor of a Dickens,
the keen, observing glance of a Thackeray, the pathos of a Richardson or
Mackenzie, combined with qualities of earnestness, simplicity, humanity,
and womanhood peculiar to the author herself. But there are three things
which, strike me as peculiarly remarkable about Uncle Tom's Cabin: it is
the work of an American--of a woman--and of an evangelical Christian.
[Cheers.] We have long been accustomed to despise American literature--I
mean as compared with our own. I have heard eminent _litterateurs_ say,
'Pshaw! the Americans have no national literature.' It was thought that
they lived entirely on plunder--the plunder of poor slaves, and of poor
British authors. [Loud cheers.] Their own works, when, they came among
us, were treated either with contempt or with patronizing wonder--yes,
the 'Sketch Book' was a very good book to be an American's. To parody
two lines of Pope, we

  Admired such wisdom in a Yankee shape,
  And showed an Irving as they show an ape.'

[Loud cheers.] And yet, strange to tell, not only of late have we been
almost deluged with editions of new and excellent American writers, but
the most popular book of the century has appeared on the west side of
the Atlantic. Let us hear no more of the poverty of American brains, or
the barrenness of American literature. Had it produced only Uncle Tom's
Cabin, it had evaded contempt just as certainly as Don Quixote, had
there been no other product of the Spanish mind, would have rendered it
forever illustrious. It is the work of a woman, too! None but a woman
could have written it. There are in the human mind springs at once
delicate and deep, which only the female genius can understand, or the
female finger touch. Who but a female could have created the gentle Eva,
painted the capricious and selfish Marie St. Clair, or turned loose a
Topsy upon the wondering world? [Loud and continued cheering.] And it is
to my mind exceedingly delightful, and it must be humiliating to our
opponents, to remember that the severest stroke to American slavery has
been given by a woman's hand. [Loud cheers.] It was the smooth stone
from the brook which, sent from the hand of a youthful David, overthrew
Goliath of Gath; but I am less reminded of this than of another incident
in Scripture history. When the robber and oppressor of Israel,
Abimelech, who had slain his brethren, was rushing against a tower,
whither his enemies had fled, we are told that 'a certain woman cast a
piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull,'
and that he cried hastily to the young man, his armor-bearer, and said
unto him, 'Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman
slew him.' It is a parable of our present position. Mrs. Stowe has
thrown a piece of millstone, sharp and strong, at the skull of the giant
abomination of her country; he is reeling in his death pangs, and, in
the fury of his despair and shame, is crying, but crying in vain, 'Say
not, A woman slew me!' [Applause.] But the world shall say, 'A woman
slew him,' or, at least, 'gave him the first blow, and drove him to
despair and suicide.' [Cheers.] Lastly, it is the work of an evangelical
Christian; and the piety of the book has greatly contributed to its
power. It has forever wiped away the vile calumny, that all who love
their African brother hate their God and Savior. I look, indeed, on Mrs.
Stowe's volume, not only as a noble contribution to the cause of
emancipation, but to the general cause of Christianity. It is an olive
leaf in a dove's mouth, testifying that the waters of scepticism, which
have rolled more fearfully far in America than here,--and no wonder, if
the Christianity of America in general is a slaveholding, man-stealing,
soul-murdering Christianity--that they are abating, and that genuine
liberty and evangelical religion are soon to clasp hands, and to smile
in unison on the ransomed, regenerated, and truly 'United States.' [Loud
and reiterated applause.]"

ADDRESS OF THE STUDENTS OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY--APRIL 25.

This address is particularly gratifying on account of its recognition of
the use of intoxicating drinks as an evil analogous to slaveholding, and
to be eradicated by similar means. The two reforms are in all respects
similar movements, to be promoted in the same manner and with the same
spirit.

MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

MADAM: The Committee of the Glasgow University Abstainers' Society,
representing nearly one hundred students, embrace the opportunity which
you have so kindly afforded them, of expressing their high esteem for
you, and their appreciation of your noble efforts in behalf of the
oppressed. They cordially join in the welcome with which you have been
so justly received on these shores, and earnestly hope and pray that
your visit may be beneficial to your own health, and tend greatly to the
furtherance of Christian philanthropy.

The committee have had their previous convictions confirmed, and their
hearts deeply affected, by your vivid and faithful delineations of
slavery; and they desire to join with thousands on both sides of the
Atlantic, who offer fervent thanksgiving to God for having endowed you
with those rare gifts, which have qualified you for producing the
noblest testimony against slavery, next to the Bible, which the world
has ever received.

While giving all the praise to God, from whom cometh every good and
perfect gift, they may be excused for mentioning three characteristics
of your writings regarding slavery, which awakened their admiration--a
sensibility befitting the anguish of suffering millions; the graphic
power which presents to view the complex and hideous system, stripped of
all its deceitful disguises; and the moral courage that was required to
encounter the monster, and drag it forth to the gaze and the execration
of mankind.

The committee feel humbled in being called to confess and deplore, as
existing among ourselves, another species of slavery, not less ruinous
in its tendency, and not less criminal in the sight of God--we mean the
slavery by strong drink. We feel too much ashamed of the sad preëminence
which these nations have acquired in regard to this vice to take any
offence at the reproaches cast upon us from across the Atlantic. Such
smiting shall not break our head. We are anxious to profit by it. Yet
when it is used as an argument to justify slavery, or to silence our
respectful but earnest remonstrances, we take exception to the
parallelism on which these arguments are made to rest. We do not justify
our slavery. We do not try to defend it from the Scriptures. We do not
make laws to uphold it. The unhappy victims of our slavery have all
forged and riveted their own fetters. We implore them to forbear; but,
alas! in many cases without success. We invite them to be free, and
offer our best assistance to undo their bonds. When a fugitive slave
knocks at our door, escaping from a cruel master, we try to accost him
in the spirit or in the words of a well-known philanthropist, "Come in,
brother, and get warm, and get thy breakfast." And when distinguished
American philanthropists, who have done so much to undo the heavy
burdens in their own land, come over to assist us, we hail their advent
with rejoicing, and welcome them as benefactors. We are well aware that
a corresponding feeling would be manifested in the United States by a
portion, doubtless a large portion, of the population; but certainly not
by those who justify or palliate their own oppression by a reference to
our lamentable intemperance.

We rejoice, madam, to know that as abstainers we can claim an important
place, pot only in your sympathies, but in your literary labors. We
offer our hearty thanks for the valuable contributions you have already
furnished in that momentous cause, and for the efforts of that
distinguished family with which you are connected.

We bear our testimony to the mighty impulse imparted to the public mind
by the extensive circulation of those memorable sermons which your
honored father gave to Europe, as well as to America, more than
twenty-five years ago. It will be pleasing to him to know that the force
of his arguments is felt in British universities to the present time,
and that not only students in augmenting numbers, but learned
professors, acknowledge their cogency and yield to their power.

Permit us to add that a movement has already begun, in an influential
quarter in England, for the avowed purpose of combining the patriotism
and Christianity of these nations in a strenuous agitation for the
suppression, by the legislature, of the traffic in alcoholic drinks.

In conclusion, the committee have only further to express their cordial
thanks for your kindness in receiving their address, and their desire
and prayer that you may be long spared to glorify God, by promoting the
highest interests of man; that if it so please him, you may live to see
the glorious fruit of your labors here cm earth, and that hereafter you
may meet the blessed salutation, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one
of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

NORMAN S. KERR, _Secretary_.

STEWART BATES, _President_.

GLASGOW, 25th April, 1853.

LOUD MAYOR'S DINNER AT THE MANSION HOUSE, LONDON--MAY 2.

MR. JUSTICE TALFOURD,[D] having spoken of the literature of England and
America, alluded to two distinguished authors then present. The one was
a lady, who had shed a lustre on the literature of America, and whose
works were deeply engraven on every English heart. He spoke
particularly of the consecration of so much genius to so noble a
cause--the cause of humanity; and expressed the confident hope that the
great American people would see and remedy the wrongs so vividly
depicted. The learned judge, having paid an eloquent tribute to the
works of Mr. Charles Dickens, concluded by proposing "Mr. Charles
Dickens and the literature of the Anglo-Saxons."

Mr. CHARLES DICKENS returned thanks. In referring to Mrs. H.B. Stowe, he
observed that, in returning thanks, he could not forget he was in the
presence of a stranger who was the authoress of a noble book, with a
noble purpose. But he had no right to call her a stranger, for she would
find a welcome in every English home.

STAFFORD HOUSE RECEPTION--MAY 7.

The DUKE OF SUTHERLAND having introduced Mrs. Stowe to the assembly, the
following short address was read and presented to her by the EARL OF
SHAFTESBURY:--

"Madam: I am deputed by the Duchess of Sutherland, and the ladies of the
two committees appointed to conduct 'The Address from the Women of
England, to the Women of America on the Subject of Slavery,' to express
the high gratification they feel in your presence amongst them this day.

"The address, which has received considerably more than half a million
of the signatures of the women of Great Britain and Ireland, they have
already transmitted to the United States, consigning it to the care of
those whom you have nominated as fit and zealous persons to undertake
the charge in your absence.

"The earnest desire of these committees, and, indeed, we may say of the
whole kingdom, is to cultivate the most friendly and affectionate
relations between the two countries; and we cannot but believe that we
are fostering such a feeling when we avow our deep admiration of an
American lady who, blessed by the possession of vast genius and
intellectual powers, enjoys the still higher blessing, that she devotes
them to the glory of God and the temporal and eternal interests of the
human race."

The following is a copy of the address to which Lord Shaftesbury makes
reference:--

"_The affectionate and Christian Address of many thousands of Women of
Great Britain and Ireland to their Sisters, the Women of the United
States of America_.

"A common origin, a common faith, and, we sincerely believe, a common
cause, urge us at the present moment to address you on the subject of
that system of negro slavery which still prevails so extensively, and
even under kindly-disposed masters, with such frightful results, in many
of the vast regions of the western world.

"We will not dwell on the ordinary topics--on the progress of
civilization; on the advance of freedom every where; on the rights and
requirements of the nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very
seriously to reflect, and to ask counsel of God, how far such a state
of things is in accordance with his holy word, the inalienable rights of
immortal souls, and the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian
religion.

"We do not shut our eyes to the difficulties, nay, the dangers, that
might beset the immediate abolition of that long-established system; we
see and admit the necessity of preparation for so great an event; but in
speaking of indispensable preliminaries, we cannot be silent on those
laws of your country which, in direct contravention of God's own law,
instituted in the time of man's innocency, deny, in effect, to the slave
the sanctity of marriage, with all its joys, rights, and obligations;
which separate, at the will of the master, the wife from the husband,
and the children from the parents. Nor can we be silent on that awful
system which, either by statute or by custom, interdicts to any race of
men, or any portion of the human family, education in the truths of the
gospel, and the ordinances of Christianity.

"A remedy applied to these two evils alone would commence the
amelioration of their sad condition. We appeal to you, then, as sisters,
as wives, and as mothers, to raise your voices to your fellow-citizens,
and your prayers to God, for the removal of this affliction from the
Christian world. We do not say these things in a spirit of
self-complacency, as though our nation were free from the guilt it
perceives in others. We acknowledge with grief and shame our heavy share
in this great sin. We acknowledge that our forefathers introduced, nay,
compelled the adoption of slavery in those mighty colonies. We humbly
confess it before Almighty God; and it is because we so deeply feel, and
so unfeignedly avow, our own complicity, that we now venture to implore
your aid to wipe away our common crime, and our common dishonor."

CONGREGATIONAL UNION--MAY 13.

The REV. JOHN ANGELL JAMES said, "I will only for one moment revert to
the resolution.[E] It does equal honor to the head, and the heart, and
the pen of the man who drew it. Beautiful in language, Christian in
spirit, noble and generous in design, it is just such a resolution as I
shall be glad to see emanate from the Congregational body, and find its
way across the Atlantic to America. Sir, we speak most powerfully, when,
though we speak firmly, we speak in kindness; and there is nothing in
that resolution that can, by possibility, offend the most fastidious
taste of any individual present, or any individual in the world, who
takes the same views of the evil of slavery, in itself, as we do. [Hear,
hear!] I shall not trespass long upon the attention of this audience,
for we are all impatient to hear Professor Stowe speak in his own name,
and in the name of that distinguished lady whom it is his honor and his
happiness to call his wife. [Loud cheers.] His station and his
acquirements, his usefulness in America, his connection with our body,
his representation of the Pilgrim Fathers who bore the light of
Christianity to his own country, all make him welcome here. [Cheers.]
But he will not be surprised if it is not on his own account merely that
we give him welcome, but also on account of that distinguished woman to
whom so marked an allusion has already been made. To her, I am sure, we
shall tender no praise, except the praise that comes to her from a
higher source than ours; from One who has, by the testimony of her own
conscience, echoing the voice from above, said to her, 'Well done, good
and faithful servant.' Long, sir, may it be before the completion of the
sentence; before the welcome shall be given to her, when she shall hear
him say, 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' [Loud cheers.] But,
though we praise her not, or praise with chastened language, we would
say, Madam, we do thank you from the bottom of our hearts, [Hear, hear!
and immense cheering,] for rising up to vindicate our outraged humanity;
for rising up to expound the principles of our still nobler
Christianity. For my own part, it is not merely as an exposition of the
evils of slavery that makes me hail that wondrous volume to our country
and to the world; but it is the living exposition of the principles of
the gospel that it contains, and which will expound those principles to
many an individual who would not hear them from our lips, nor read them
from our pens. I maintain, that Uncle Tom is one of the most beautiful
imbodiments of the Christian religion that was ever presented in this
world. [Loud cheers.] And it is that which makes me take such delight in
it. I rejoice that she killed him. [Laughter and cheers.] He must die
under the slave lash--he must die, the martyr of slavery, and receive
the crown of martyrdom from both worlds for his testimony to the truth.
[Turning to Mrs. Stowe, Mr. James continued:] May the Lord God reward
you for what you have done; we cannot, madam--we cannot do it. [Cheers.]
We rejoice in the perfect assurance, in the full confidence, that the
arrow which is to pierce the system of slavery to the heart has been
shot, and shot by a female hand. Right home to the mark it will go.
[Cheers.] It is true, the monster may groan and struggle for a long
while yet; but die it will; die it must--under the potency of that book.
[Loud cheers.] It never can recover. It will be your satisfaction,
perhaps, in this world, madam, to see the reward of your labors. Heaven
grant that your life may be prolonged, until such time as you see the
reward of your labors in the striking off of the last fetter of the last
slave that still pollutes the soil of your beloved country. [Cheers.]
For beloved it is; and I should do dishonor to your patriotism if I did
not say it--beloved it is; and you are prepared to echo the sentiments,
by changing the terms, which we often hear in old England, and say,--

  'America! with all thy faults I love thee still!'

But still more intense will be my affection, and pure and devoted the
ardor of my patriotism, when this greatest of all thine ills, this
darkest of the blots upon thine escutcheon, shall be wiped out forever."
[Loud applause.]

The REV. PROFESSOR STOWE rose amid loud, and repeated cheers, and said,
"It is extremely painful for me to speak on the subject of American
slavery, and especially out of the borders of my own country. [Hear,
hear!] I hardly know whether painful or pleasurable emotions
predominate, when I look upon the audience to which I speak. I feel a
very near affinity to the Congregationalists of England, and especially
to the Congregationalists of London. [Cheers.] My ancestors were
residents of London; at least, from the time of Edward III.; they lived
in Cornhill and Leadenhall Street, and their bones lie buried in the old
church of St. Andrew Under-Shaft; and, in the year 1632, on account of
their nonconformity, they were obliged to seek refuge in the State of
Massachusetts; and I have always felt a love and a veneration for the
Congregational churches of England, more than for any other churches in
any foreign land. [Cheers.] I can only hope, that my conduct, as a
religious man and a minister of Christ, may not bring discredit upon my
ancestors, and upon the honorable origin which I claim. [Hear! and
cheers.] I wish to say, in the first place, that in the United States
the Congregational churches, as a body, are free from slavery. [Cheers.]
I do not think that there is a Congregational church in the United
States in which a member could openly hold a slave without subjecting
himself to discipline.[F] True, I have met with churches very deficient
in their duty on this subject, and I am afraid there are members of
Congregational churches who hold slaves secretly as security for debt in
the Southern States. At the last great Congregational Convention, held
in the city of Albany, the churches took a step on the subject of
slavery much in advance of any other great ecclesiastical body in the
country. I hope it is but the beginning of a series of measures that
will eventuate in the separation of this body from all connection with
slavery. [Hear, hear!] I am extensively acquainted with the United
States; I have lived in different sections of them; I am familiar with
people of all classes, and it is my solemn conviction, that nine tenths
of the people feel on the subject of slavery as you do;[G] [cheers;]
perhaps not so intensely, for familiarity with wrong deadens the
conscience; but their convictions are altogether as yours are; and in
the slaveholding states, and among slaveholders themselves, conscience
is against the system. [Cheers.] There is no legislative control of the
subject of slavery, except by slaveholding legislators themselves.
Congress has no right to do any thing in the premises. They violated the
constitution, as I believe, in passing the Fugitive Slave Act. [Cheers.]
I do not believe they had any right to pass it. [Hear, hear!] I stand
here not as the representative of any body whatever. I only represent
myself, and give you my individual convictions, that have been produced
by a long and painful connection with the subject. [Hear, hear!] As to
the resolution, I approve it entirely. Its sentiment and its spirit are
my own. [Cheers.] At the close of the revolutionary war, which separated
the colonies from the mother country, every state of the Union was a
slaveholding state; every colony was a slaveholding colony; and now we
have seventeen free states. [Cheers.] Slavery has been abolished in one
half of the original colonies, and it was declared that there should be
neither slavery nor the slave trade in any territory north and west of
the Ohio River; so that all that part is entirely free from actual
active participation in this curse, laying open a free territory that, I
think, must be ten times larger in extent than Great Britain. [Loud
cheers.] The State of Massachusetts was the first in which slavery
ceased. How did it cease? By an enactment of the legislature? Not at
all. They did not feel there was any necessity for such an enactment.
The Bill of Rights declared, that all men were born free, and that they
had an equal right to the pursuit of happiness and the acquisition of
property. In contradiction to that, there were slaves in every part of
Massachusetts; and some philanthropic individual advised a slave to
bring into court an action for wages against his master during all his
time of servitude. The action was brought, and the court decided that
the negro was entitled to wages during the whole period. [Cheers.] That
put an end to slavery in Massachusetts, and that decision ought to have
put an end to slavery in all states of the Union, because the law
applied to all. They abolished slavery in all the Northern States--in
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; and it was
expected that the whole of the states would follow the example. When I
was a child, I never heard a lisp in defence of slavery. [Hear, hear,
hear!] Every body condemned it; all looked upon it as a great curse, and
all regarded it as a temporary evil, which would soon melt away before
the advancing light of truth. [Hear, hear!] But still there was great
injustice done to those who had been slaves. Every body regarded the
colored race as a degraded race; they were looked upon as inferior; they
were not upon terms of social equality. The only thing approaching it
was, that the colored children attended the schools with the white
children, and took their places on the same forms; but in all other
respects they were excluded from the common advantages and privileges of
society. In the places of worship they were seated by themselves; and
that difference always existed till these discussions came up, and they
began to feel mortified at their situation; and hence, wherever they
could, they had worship by themselves, and began to build places of
worship for themselves; and now you will scarcely find a colored person
occupying a seat in our places of worship. This stain still remains, and
it is but a type of the feeling that has been generated by slavery. This
ought to be known and understood, and this is just one of the
out-croppings of that inward feeling that still is doing great injustice
to the colored race; but there are symptoms of even that giving way.

"I suppose you all remember Dr. Pennington--[cheers]--a colored minister
of great talent and excellence--[Hear, hear!]--though born a slave, and
for many years was a fugitive slave. [Hear, hear.] Dr. Pennington is a
member of the presbytery of New York; and within the last six months he
has been chosen moderator of that presbytery. [Loud cheers.] He has
presided in that capacity at the ordination of a minister to one of the
most respectable churches of that city. So far so good--we rejoice in
it, and we hope that the same sense of justice which has brought about
that change, so that a colored man can be moderator of a Presbytery in
the city of New York, will go on, till full justice is done to these
people, and until the grievous wrongs to which they have been subjected
will be entirely done away. [Cheers.] But still, what is the aspect
which the great American nation now presents to the Christian world?
Most sorry am I to say it; but it is just this--a Christian republic
upholding slavery--the only great nation on earth that does uphold it--a
great Christian republic, which, so far as the white people are
concerned, is the fairest and most prosperous nation on earth--that
great Christian republic using all the power of its government to secure
and to shield this horrible institution of negro slavery from
aggression; and there is no subject on which the government is so
sensitive--there is no institution which it manifests such a
determination to uphold. [Hear, hear!] And then the most melancholy fact
of all is, that the entire Christian church in that republic, with few
exceptions, are silent, or are apologists for this great wrong. [Hear,
hear!] It makes my heart bleed to think of it; and there are many
praying and weeping in secret places over this curse, whose voices are
not heard. There is such a pressure on the subject, it is so mixed up
with other things, that many sigh over it who know not what to say or
what to do in reference to it. And what kind of slavery is it? Is it
like the servitude under the Mosaic law, which is brought forward to
defend it? Nothing like it. Let me read you a little extract from a
correspondent of a New York paper, writing from Paris. I will read it,
because it is so graphic, and because I wish to show from what sources
you may best ascertain the real nature of American slavery. The
commercial newspapers, published by slaveholders, in slaveholding
states, will give you a far more graphic idea of what slavery actually
is, than you have from Uncle Tom's Cabin; for there the most horrible
features are softened. This writer says, 'And now a word on American
representatives abroad. I have already made my complaint of the troubles
brought on Americans here by that "incendiary" book of Mrs. Stowe's,
especially of the difficulty we have in making the French understand our
institutions. But there was one partially satisfactory way of answering
their questions, by saying that Uncle Tom's Cabin was a romance. And
this would have served the purpose pretty well, and spared our blushes
for the model republic, if the slaveholders themselves would only
withhold their testimony to the truth of what we were willing to let
pass as fiction. But they are worse than Mrs. Stowe herself, and their
writings are getting to be quoted here quite extensively. The _Moniteur_
of to-day, and another widely-circulated journal that lies on my table,
both contain extracts from those extremely incendiary periodicals, _The
National Intelligencer_, of February 11, and _The N.O. Picayune_, of
February 17. The first gives an auctioneer's advertisement of the sale
of "a negro boy of eighteen years, a negro girl aged sixteen, three
horses, saddles, bridles, wheelbarrows," &c. Then follows an account of
the sale, which reads very much like the description, in the dramatic
_feuilletons_ here, of a famous scene in the _Case de l'Oncle Tom_, as
played at the _Ambigu Comique_. The second extract is the advertisement
of "our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. M.C.G.," who presents his "respects
to the inhabitants of O. and the neighbouring parishes," and "informs
them that he keeps a fine pack of dogs trained to catch negroes," &c. It
is painful to think that there are men in our country who will write,
and that there are others found to publish, such tales as these about
our peculiar institution. I put it to Mr. G., if he thinks it is
patriotic. As a "fellow-citizen," and in his private relations, G. may
be an estimable man, for aught I know, a Christian and a scholar, and an
ornament to the social circles of O. and the neighboring parishes. But
as an author, G. becomes public property, and a fair theme for
criticism; and in that capacity, I say G. is publishing the shame of his
country. I call him G., without the prefatory Mister, not from any
personal disrespect, much as I am grieved at his course as a writer, but
because he is now breveted for immortality, and goes down to posterity,
like other immortals, without titular prefix.' [Cheers.] Now, here is
where you get the true features of slavery. What is the reason that the
churches, as a general thing, are silent--that some of them are
apologists, and that some, in the extreme Southern States, actually
defend slavery, and say it is a good institution, and sanctioned by
Scripture? It is simply this--the overwhelming power of the slave
system; and whence comes that overwhelming power? It comes from its
great influence in the commercial world. [Hear!] Until the time that
cotton became so extensively an article of export, there was not a word
said in defence of slavery, as far as I know, in the United States. In
1818, the Presbyterian General Assembly passed resolutions unanimously
on the subject of slavery, to which this resolution is mildness itself;
and not a man could be found to say one word against it. But cotton
became a most valuable article of export. In one form and another, it
became intimately associated with the commercial affairs of the whole
country. The northern manufacturers were intimately connected with this
cotton trade, and more than two thirds raised in the United States has
been sold in Great Britain; and it is this cotton trade that supports
the whole system. That you may rely upon. The sugar and rice, so far as
the United States are concerned, are but small interests. The system is
supported by this cotton trade, and within two days I have seen an
article written with vigor in the _Charleston Mercury_, a southern paper
of great influence, saying, that the slaveholders are becoming isolated,
by the force of public opinion, from the rest of the world. They are
beginning to be regarded as inhuman tyrants, and the slaves the victims
of their cruelty; but, says the writer, just so long as you take our
cotton, we shall have our slaves. Now, you are as really involved in
this matter as we are--[Hear, hear!]--and if you have no other right to
speak on the subject, you have a right to speak from being yourselves
very active participators in the wrong. You have a great deal of feeling
on the subject, honorable and generous feeling, I know--an earnest,
philanthropic, Christian feeling; but if you have nothing to do, that
feeling will all evaporate, and leave an apathy behind. Now, here is
something to be done. It may be a small beginning, but, as you go
forward, Providence will develop other plans, and the more you do, the
further you will see. I am happy to know that a beginning has been made.
There are indications that a way has been so opened in providence that
this exigency can be met. Within the last few years, the Chinese have
begun to emigrate to the western parts of the United States. They will
maintain themselves on small wages; and wherever they come into actual
competition with slave labor, it cannot compete with them. Very many of
the slaveholders have spoken of this as a very remarkable indication. If
slavery had been confined to the original slave states, as it was
intended, slavery could not have lived. It was the intention that it
should never go beyond those boundaries. Had this been the case, it
would increase the number of slaves so much that they would have been
valueless as articles of property. I must say this for America, that the
slaves increase in the slave states faster than the white people; and it
shows that their physical condition is better than was that of the
slaves at the West Indies, or in Cuba, where the number actually
diminished. We must have more slave territories to make our slaves
valuable, and there was the origin of that iniquitous Mexican war,
whereby was added the vast territory of Texas; and then it was the
intention to make California a slave state; but, I am happy to say, it
has been received into the Union as a free state, and God grant it may
continue so. [Hear, hear!] What has been the effect of this expansion of
slave territory? It has doubled the value of slaves. Since I can
remember, a strong slave man would sell for about four hundred or six
hundred dollars--that is, about one hundred pounds; but now, during the
present season, I have known instances in which a slave man has been
sold for two hundred and thirty pounds. There are more slaves raised in
Virginia and Maryland than they can use in those states in labor, and,
therefore, they sell them at one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred
pounds, as the case may be, for cash. All that Mrs. Tyler intimates in
that letter about slavery in America, and the impression it is
calculated and intended to convey, that they treat their slaves so well,
and do not separate their families, and so forth, is all mere humbug.
[Laughter and cheers.] It is well known that Virginia has more profit
from selling negroes than from any other source. The great sources of
profit are tobacco and negroes, and they derive more from the sale of
negroes than tobacco. You see the temptation this gives to avarice.
Suppose there is a man with no property, except fifteen or twenty negro
men, whom he can sell, each one for two hundred pounds, cash; and he has
as many negro women, whom he can sell for one hundred and fifty pounds,
cash, and the children for one hundred pounds each: here is a temptation
to avarice; and it is calculated to silence the voice of conscience; and
it is the expansion of the slave territory, and the immense mercantile
value of the cotton, that has brought so powerful an influence to bear
on the United States in favor of slavery. [Hear, hear.] Now, as to free
labor coming into competition with slave labor: You will see, that when
the price of slaves is so enormous, it requires an immense outlay to
stock a plantation. A good plantation would take two hundred, or three
hundred hands. Now, say for every hand employed on this plantation, the
man must pay on an average two hundred pounds, which is not exorbitant
at the present time. If he has to pay at this rate, what an immense
outlay of capital to begin with, and how great the interest on that sum
continually accumulating! And then there is the constant exposure to
loss. These plantation negroes are very careless of life, and often
cholera gets among them, and sweeps off twenty-five or thirty in a few
days; and then there is the underground railroad, and, with all the
precautions that can be taken, it continues to work. And now you see
what an immense risk, and exposure to loss, and a vast outlay of
capital, there is in connection with this system. But, if a man takes a
cotton farm, and can employ Chinese laborers, he can get them for one or
two shillings a day, and they will do the work as well, if not better
than negroes, and there is no outlay or risk. [Hear, hear!]. If good
cotton fields can be obtained, as they may in time, here is an opening
which will tend to weaken the slave system. If Christians will
investigate this subject, and if philanthropists generally will pursue
these inquiries in an honest spirit, it is not long before we shall see
a movement throughout the civilized world, and the upholders of slavery
will feel, where they feel most acutely--in their pockets. Until
something of this kind is done, I despair of accomplishing any great
amount of good by simple appeals to the conscience and right principle.
There are a few who will listen to conscience and a sense of right, but
there are unhappily only a few. I suppose, though you have good
Christians here, you have many who will put their consciences in their
pockets. [Hear, hear!] I have known cases of this kind. There was a
young lady in the State of Virginia who was left an orphan, and she had
no property except four negro slaves, who were of great commercial
value. She felt that slavery was wrong, and she could not hold them. She
gave them their freedom--[cheers]--and supported herself by teaching a
small school. [Cheers.] Now, notwithstanding all the unfavorable things
we see--notwithstanding the dark cloud that hangs over the country,
there are hopeful indications that God has not forgotten us, and that he
will carry on this work till it is accomplished. [Hear!] But it will be
a long while first, I fear; and we must pray, and labor, and persevere;
for he that perseveres to the end, and he only, receives the crown. Now,
there are very few in the United States who undertake to defend slavery,
and say it is right. But the great majority, even of professors of
religion, unite to shield it from aggression. 'It is the law of the
land,' they say, 'and we must submit to it.' It seems a strange doctrine
to come from the lips of the descendants of the Puritans, those who
resisted the law of the land because those laws were against their
conscience, and finally went over to that new world, in order that they
might enjoy the rights of conscience. How would it have been with the
primitive church if this doctrine had prevailed? There never would have
been any Christian church, for that was against the laws of the land. In
regard to the distribution of the Bible, in many states the laws
prohibit the teaching of slaves, and the distribution of the Bible is
not allowed among them. The American Bible Society does not itself take
the responsibility of this. It leaves the whole matter to the local
societies in the several states, and it is the local societies that take
the responsibility. Well, why should we obey the law of the land in
South Carolina on this subject, and disobey the law of the land in
Italy? But our missionary societies and Bible societies send Bibles to
other parts of the world, and never ask if it is contrary to the law of
these lands, and if it is, they push it all the more zealously. They
send Bibles to Italy and Spain, and yet the Bible is prohibited by those
governments. The American Tract Society and the American Sunday School
Union allow none of their issues to utter a syllable against slavery.
They expunge even from their European books every passage of this kind,
and excuse themselves by the law and the public sentiment. So are the
people taught. There has been a great deal said on the subject of
influence from abroad; but those who talk in that way interfered with
the persecution of the Madiai, and remonstrated with the Tuscan
government. We have had large meetings on the subject in New York, and
those who refuse the Bible to the slave took part in that meeting, and
did not seem to think there was any inconsistency in their conduct.

"The Christian church knows no distinction of nations. In that church
there is neither Greek nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but
all are one in Christ; and whatever affects one part of the body affects
the other, and the whole Christian church every where is bound to help,
and encourage, and rebuke, as the case may require. The Christian church
is every where bound to its corresponding branch in every other country;
and thus you have, not only a right, but it is your duty, to consider
the case of the American slave with just the same interest with which
you consider the cause of the native Hindoo, when you send out your
missionaries there, or with which you consider Madagascar; and to
express yourselves in a Christian spirit, and in a Christian way
continually, till you see that your admonitions have had a suitable
influence. I do not doubt what you say, that you will receive with great
pleasure men who come from the United States to promote the cause of
temperance, and you may have the opportunity of showing your sincerity
before long; and the manner in which you receive them will have a very
important bearing on the subject of slavery. [Cheers.] I have not the
least doubt you will hail with joy those who will come across the
Atlantic to advance and promote still more earnestly those noble
institutions, the ragged schools and the ragged churches. [Cheers.] The
men who want to do good at home are the men who do good abroad; and the
same spirit of Christian liberality that leads you to feel for the
American slave will lead you to care for your own poor, and those in
adverse circumstances in your own land, I would ask, Is it possible,
then, that admonition and reproof given in a Christian spirit, and by a
Christian heart, can fail to produce a right influence on a Christian
spirit and a Christian heart? I think the thing is utterly impossible;