Page:Letters on the condition of the African race in the United States.djvu/22

20 league with these fiends, to hold up his dying head, he would not, and even refused to give him a "cup of cold water," until he had many times implored him for it. Old Mr. Gorsuch, who was thus murdered, had been a Christian for twenty-six years; and his views of eternity were so vivid, that his brother told me he could never be induced to inflict a mortal blow on any fellow-creature; he therefore fell an unresisting victim to the cruel wrath of these eighty black fiends. This abolition and negro mob, having, as they thought, murdered both father and son, went in pursuit of two other relatives, who had accompanied Mr. Gorsuch. They shot at these gentlemen so many times that one of them told me that his coat and hat were riddled with the shot; and both of them were so cruelly beaten, that they did not recover their health for many weeks. Their own ammunition got wet in the dew, and therefore was of little use to protect them against such fearful odds. Mr. Gorsuch's said fugitives were some twenty or twenty-two years of age, and they were to have had their freedom when they were twenty-eight years old. They ran away from their master, because they had stolen great quantities of his wheat, and sold it; and yet, as thieves, they were enticed away, and then stimulated to murder the master whose goods they had purloined. This, my brother, is the spirit of the abolitionists; and if such traitors to their country's laws, and the laws of God, if such murderers can escape, our government is entitled to no respect.

There scarcely ever was a time in the history of the world, when man did not enslave his fellow-man, and, probably, this will continue to be practised, more or less, until the glorious season of the millennium, "when the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and a little child shall lead them."

Why, oh why! does not the abolitionist, if he professes Christianity, see that his work is not of God? That to urge a slave to suspect, to hate, to fly from, and to murder the master, who has reared him up from infancy; who has given him everything necessary to life or godliness; who has protected him from every foe, even the foes of his own lazy and evil nature; who has watched over him in sickness, supported him in old age, and felt responsible about his being educated for happiness beyond the tomb;—I say, why do not these deluded enthusiasts see, that they are carrying out, not God's will, but that of the devil? They are surely doing evil, that good may come. Jesus Christ, our great Exemplar, who "went about doing good," and who yet lived in countries teeming with the most abject