because we do not feel, but because we feel more than we can express.
When that book was written, we had no hope except in God. We had no
expectation of reward save in the prayers of the poor. The surprising
enthusiasm which has been excited by the book all over Christendom is an
indication that God has a work to be done in the cause of emancipation.
The present aspect of things in the United States is discouraging. Every
change in society, every financial revolution, every political and
ecclesiastical movement, seems to pass and leave the African race
without help. Our only resource is prayer. God surely cannot will that
the unhappy condition of this portion of his children should continue
forever. There are some indications of a movement in the southern mind.
A leading southern paper lately declared editorially that slavery is
either right or wrong: if it is wrong, it is to be abandoned: if it is
right, it must be defended. The _Southern Press_, a paper established to
defend the slavery interest at the seat of government, has proposed that
the worst features of the system, such as the separation of families,
should be abandoned. But it is evident that with that restriction the
system could not exist. For instance, a man wants to buy a cook; but she
has a husband and seven children. Now, is he to buy a man and seven
children, for whom he has no use, for the sake of having a cook? Nothing
on the present occasion has been so grateful to our feelings as the
reference made by Dr. M'Neile to the Christian character of the book.
Incredible as it may seem to those who are without prejudice, it is
nevertheless a fact that this book was condemned by some religious
newspapers in the United States as anti-Christian, and its author
associated with infidels and disorganizers; and had not it been for the
decided expression of the mind of English Christians, and of Christendom
itself, on this point, there is reason to fear that the proslavery power
of the United States would have succeeded in putting the book under
foot. Therefore it is peculiarly gratifying that so full an indorsement