because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit."

It is well known and often quoted that the holy apostle did all he could to
restore a slave to his master--one whom he had been the means of making
free in a spiritual sense. Yet he knew that God had made Onesimus a slave,
and, when he had fled from his master, Paul persuaded him to return and to
do his duty toward him. Open your Bible, Christian, and carefully read the
letter of Paul to Philemon, and contrast its spirit with the incendiary
publications of the Abolitionists of the present day. St. Paul was not a
fanatic, and therefore _could not be_ an Abolitionist. The Christian age
advanced and slavery continued, and we approach the time when our fathers
fled from persecution to the soil we now call our own, when they fought for
the liberty to which they felt they had a right. Our fathers fought for it,
and our mothers did more when they urged forth their husbands and sons, not
knowing whether the life-blood that was glowing with religion and
patriotism would not soon be dyeing the land that had been their refuge,
and where they fondly hoped they should find a happy home. Oh, glorious
parentage! Children of America, trace no farther back--say not the crest of
nobility once adorned thy father's breast, the gemmed coronet thy mother's
brow--stop here! it is enough that they earned for thee a home--a free, a
happy home. And what did they say to the slavery that existed then and had
been entailed upon them by the English government? Their opinions are
preserved among us--they were dictated by their position and
necessities--and they were wisely formed. In the North, slavery was
useless; nay, more, it was a drawback to the prosperity of that section of
the Union--it was dispensed with. In other sections, gradually, our people
have seen their condition would be more prosperous without slaves--they
have emancipated them. In the South, they are necessary: though an evil, it
is one that cannot be dispensed with; and here they have been retained, and
will be retained, unless God should manifest his will (which never yet has