Page:A Discourse on the True Nature of Freedom and Slavery.djvu/36

30 to work themselves in freely and rationally putting off an acknowledged evil. It is moreover our duty to help bear their political burden; and, in this, to share the self-sacrifice and the pecuniary or other loss of their evil's eradication. Nay, it is our privilege to be participants with them in that high national virtue which we verily believe is to be gained by this country in doing magnanimous justice to Africa. For we are sure that the evil of african slavery has been permitted, by Divine Providence, to exist in this country for that end, as we hope to show in the sequel of this discourse. And it is our duty, not only to help oar southern brethren to see this, if we can, but also to be co-operators with them in their noble work.

We are aware that our assertions are to some startling. Many think the permission of human slavery by a merciful divine providence is an inscrutable or inexplicable mystery. To some minds, indeed, it borders on blasphemy to say, that God could have connived at, by permitting, an evil so great, or a sin so heinous. But it is well to remember, that "God's ways are not as man's ways," and are always "equal"—however otherwise they may seem to short-sighted mortals. Not only is the Lord ever "from seeming evil still educing good;" but all real evil is permitted by him for no other purpose.