Part 23

Mr. F. Oh, no; go on, your strictures are quite amusing.

Mrs. G. Well, then, since we have taken the position of a reviewer, we must confess that the last effort of the great Daniel appears to us to be on an Act of Congress.

Mr. D. And at the Presidential chair.

Mrs. G. (Continuing.) It did not touch the merits of slavery at all. Webster knew the feelings of the constituents too well to attempt such a task. He therefore skilfully diverted their attention from his real issue, to the glorious Union, and its danger from agitators, and he thus carried with him the sympathies of many honest haters of oppression.

Mr. F. Well, sister, I do not know but you will prove that there is not an advocate for slavery on the face of the earth.

Mrs. G. Only such advocates as there is for robbery and war. Those who find it for their interest to practice these crimes condemn them in the abstract, or at most only apologize for them, as necessary and expedient, under peculiar circumstances.

Frank. (Laughing.) Why, mother, I shall certainly subscribe for your "North American Review," particularly if you fill the literary department as ably as you have the moral and political, to test which, let me propound a question? If the reward of the good be the charm of fiction, how do you account for the pleasure derived from tragedy, where the good are overwhelmed with the evil?

Mrs. G. (Smiling.) With great diffidence we reply to the query of our learned friend. The force of tragedy consists in its depicting evil so ruinous as to involve even the innocent in the catastrophe; the pleasure is derived, we think, from the failure of the mischievous design, and the merited retribution which falls upon the head of the plotters. In Romeo, "a scourge is laid upon the hate of the Montagues and Capulets, by which all are punished;" Hamlet's wicked uncle is justly served, drinking the poison tempered by himself; and Iago pulls down ruin upon himself no less than upon Cassio.

Frank. (Bowing playfully.) Your review meets my entire approbation, inasmuch as it confirms my doctrine, that theatres always give their verdict in favor of virtue.

Mr. D. "Casting out devils through Beelzebub."

Mrs. G. The artistic effect of every work of the imagination is wrought upon what critics call the "sympathetic emotion of virtue," and the decisions of this faculty, so far as we understand them, always correspond with what Christians believe concerning the "final restitution of all things."

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

Mr. D.

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

Mrs. G. The "sympathetic emotion of virtue," not having an object, never rises to passion, and therefore never produces action. Philosophers tell us that a thought of virtue passing often through the mind, without being wrought out into a fact, weakens the moral sense; thus people may read the best of books, and witness the finest exhibitions of moral beauty, and constantly retrograde in virtue. The dissolute characters of players, who continually utter the loftiest sentiments, and practice the lowest vices, are accounted for on this principle; and we ought to judge the theatre as we do slavery, by its demoralizing effect upon those engaged in it.

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

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

Mr. F. (Rising and pacing the room with great agitation.) Now, sister, you are going to introduce another absurdity! Do I practice the principles learned in the nursery? No, I do not! Do I believe "honesty is the best policy" and its kindred humbugs? Of course I don't! Show me the man who does? Do I follow the precepts of the sermon on the Mount? Not I! The man who should undertake to do so would make himself a perfect laughing-stock. I should like to see one of your northern hypocrites attempt it. Ha! ha! ha! "Lay not up treasure upon earth," and "take no thought for the morrow;" why, what else do people take thought for, either North or South? It is not what they shall eat, drink, or wear to-day, that worries them, but how they shall lay up something for themselves or their children hereafter. You silly women are always talking about righteousness, as if you really thought it could enter in human plans, but we men of the world, who have to wring the precious dollar from the hard hand of labor, know better! I tell you, Rebecca, I don't believe there is a business-man in your pious Quaker city even, who would dare acquaint his wife and daughters with all his little arrangements for amassing wealth. Ha! ha! ha! How the pretty things would stare at the tricks of the trade, and simper: "Is that right?" As though anybody thought business principles were gospel principles! As though they expected a man was going to love his neighbor as himself, when he was making a bargain with him! It provokes me to see you make yourself so ridiculous! You ought to know that every man acts on the principle, that "Wealth is the chief good;" and you ought to know, too, that there the slaveholders have the advantage of you entirely. They do right to work, and grind it out of the slaves on a large scale, and call Abraham and Moses to witness the patriarchal method, while your northern mercenaries scheme and speculate how they can turn a penny out of ignorance and poverty, and have not even the apology of a precedent for their meanness. Why, one of our generous southern planters is as far above one of your stingy shave-three-cents-on-a-yard-tradesmen, as Robin Hood is above a miserable tea-spoon burglar. The south sails under false colors, does it? What flag do your platform men give to the wind, I should like to know? What do they care for the Fugitive Slave Law? Half of them would help a runaway to Canada with as good a will as they'd eat their dinner. (Coming close and sitting down, so as to look fixedly in her face.) I'll tell you what, sister, the chivalry of the south responds to you northern Christians who prate so loud of brotherhood and charity, in the words of young Cancer to his mother--"Libenter tuis praeceptis obsequar, si te prius idem facientem videro."

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

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

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

Mr. D. (interrupting.) "A little more grape, Captain Bragg!"

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

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

CLOVER STREET SEM., November 10th, 1853.

A Time of Justice will Come

We are conscious of the odium that rests upon us. We feel that we are wronged; but we are not impatient for the righting of our wrongs. We bide our time. The men that shall come after us, will do us justice. The present generation of America cannot "judge righteous judgment," in the case of the uncompromising friends of freedom, religion, and law. They are so debauched and blinded by slavery, and by the perverse and low ideas of freedom, religion, and law, which it engenders, that they "call evil good, and good evil; put darkness for light, and light for darkness; put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." They have been living out the lie of slavery so long, and have been, thereby, deadening their consciences so long, as to be now well nigh incapable of perceiving the wide and everlasting distinctions between truth and falsehood.

GERRITT SMITH.