Page:A letter on "Uncle Tom's cabin" (1852).djvu/27

23 appease,—harsh state laws to obey, and, while obeying, to modify,—a degraded race to elevate,—and all this to be accomplished without the encouragement of his fellows in private society or at public meetings. These are indeed labors worthy of Hercules: but difficulties are the things that make life tolerable to many of us; and it cannot be said that we are left without plenty of them.

Your authoress is evidently vexed by the questions mankind are always knocking their heads against,—the origin of evil and the endurance of evil. Certainly, the faith in a beneficent Creator is sorely tried by what is daily to be seen in slave states; but I have always thought the uninterrupted and peaceful voyage of a slave-ship—some "Santa Trinidad," or "Maria de la Gloria"—the most wonderful problem in the whole world. On it goes, a thing beautifully constructed for its purpose,—hundreds of human beings packed in indescribable agony within it; the porpoises gambol around it; light breezes fan its sails; the water parts lovingly from its well-shaped bows, like the best affection of true-hearted women, "which clings not, nor is exigent": in truth, the powers of nature, sublimely indifferent to right or wrong. Epicurean