of safety,--the only means by which they can escape the just
judgments of God. The safety of immediate emancipation has been
proved by Buenos Ayres in 1816, Colombia in 1821, Guatemala in 1824,
Peru and Chili in 1828, Mexico in 1829, and especially on the 1st of
August, 1834, when 800,000 slaves were set free in a single day in
the British West India Islands; and thus far, not a single life has
been lost, not a drop of blood shed, in consequence of that
beneficent and righteous act. The consequences of holding slaves in
bondage, and refusing to emancipate them, have always been
disastrous. In our present exemption from slavery in the Free States,
we have no cause of boasting, but rather of deep humiliation. We are
all involved in the guilt, and must share in the punishment, unless
timely and thorough repentance avert the impending blow. To do this
effectually, information must be spread, the spirit of inquiry
aroused, the temple of God be purified, and "the book of law be read
in the ears of all the people," that thus the gross mistakes and
misapprehensions which everywhere exist on the subject of slavery and
its abolition may be corrected.

Of these mistakes, no one is more prevalent or more dangerous than
the one just mentioned, that insurrection, rapine and bloodshed are
the necessary consequences of immediate emancipation; and that the
only way to avert the evils and the curse of slavery, is to continue
in the sin for the present, promise future repentance, and in the
meantime, whilst we are preparing to get ready to begin to repent, do
every thing that in us lies to extinguish every good feeling, and
cultivate and bring into action every bad feeling of the human heart.
That such is the belief, and consequent practice, to an alarming
extent, throughout our country, and that such a course is impolitic,
because it is wicked and dangerous, because it is unjust, facts