Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/153

 a salutary lesson to many accustomed to indulge themselves in language of bitter denunciation: "This holy controversy must be one of principle, not of sectional bitterness. We must not suffer it to degenerate, in our hands, into a violent prejudice against the South; and to this end, we must keep continually before our minds the more amiable features and attractive qualities of those with whose principles we are obliged to conflict. If they say all manner of evil against us, we must reflect that we expose them to great temptation to do so, when we assail institutions to which they are bound by a thousand ties of interest and early association, and to whose evils habit has made them in a great degree insensible. The Apostle gives us this direction, in cases where we are called upon to deal with offending brethren, 'Consider thyself, lest thou also be tempted.' We may apply this to our own case, and consider that if we had been exposed to the temptations which surround our friends at the South, we might have felt, and thought, and acted as they do."

The wise, gentle, and Christian course pursued by this writer, together with the genius and power of her work itself, will be found, we believe, to have considerable effect, in the first place, in ameliorating the condition of the slaves: the softening of heart which it will produce in the breasts of hundreds and thousands in the slave-holding States, will be manifested in their kinder treatment of those who are still in their hands. It is probable, also, that the able manner in which she has set forth the evils of the system will result in some