The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-02-24

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acter, Of your frmness-nay, obstinacy nay,
tubbornness-should permit yourself 10 fall q
prey to these adventures"
ri really do not see how | am their prey,
Uncle Billy, or why they should be adventu-
rers"
"0h Mark you are mean, dear Marx,
you want experience Of the world; and no
amount of moral or intellectual excellence will
stand you instead for that Nay, indeed good
ness will only make you the easier victim, and
talent the more useful tool to these specula-
torsn
Uncle, you wrong them! By the honor OF
my soul you do You have never seen or heard
but one side of the question, and therefore you
are bitterly prejudced."
"Prejudiced! Die prejudiced when every
body knows that am the most impartial per-
son in the world But moderation has its
martyrs also
"You certainly are prejudiced in this mat
ter yet how shall set you rghtf And why
should be surprised! Once, there was never
such scoHer "a was"
Eyes and that's Just what raises the hair off
my head with wonder! Your goOd-humored
satire and gay indulgence used to please me 80
much more than your uncle's naughty, scorn-
full. prosecuting resentment of these peoples
affronts You used to laugh and say to your
uncles. Your anger is inadequate to the Of
fence it is ungenerous. These objects of your
dispeasure are very harmless enthusiastic And
nowt All, Mark, call to mind the poet s
line
First endure then pity, thon embrace.
You began by enduring and you end by en-
bracing their doctrines. All, Marx! Mark
Mark how came il so I"
"Uncle, did you never hear Of a gay man or
woman Of the world-well enough In their
way-not sinners above all sinners, but with a
certain light, satirical way of treating serious
subjects, and a certain good -humored contempt
for those that entertained them-did you never
hear an instance of such a man or woman
going into q religious meeting TO SCOT, bat re-
tuning home TO prayl Well, very much akin
to that was my experience. Invent to the con-
vention in New York. just to fulfil promise
made to my friend Lauderdale, and next to
have laugh at them At the first meeting
well, am not going to give you report OF it
sufficient is it to tell you that the subject was
presented to my mind in a new and startling
aspect. | laughed, or rather tried to laugh, it
oif1
II wish to goodness you had taken it more
earnestly than to begin with laughing, to end
with initiating
@At the second meeting, there were some
still higher, purer souls, and more eloquent and
commanding tongues lips touched with FIRE,
whose words were flame consuming the wrong
principle, that shrivelled up before it. But
do not mean to become eloquent myself. This
is not the time or place, nor are you the audi
epce. 1t is enough to say that the speakers in
that meeting gave me the heartache and the
headache. and wished in my soul had never
entered their hall Yet nevertheless a fascna-
ton drew me there the third evening. And
then, whether the master minds of the cause
had said all they had to say for the time, or
whether they had not yet arrived upon the
scene of action, ! really cannot say-(for the
room was frightfully crowded, and not by
friends of the cause, as you will hear, but by
conspirators who had come there to break the
meeting up)-but certainly, after one short ad-
dress of thrilling eloquence and power-during
the progress of which felt myself to be par
ticipant in huge injustice, and at the close of
which was ready 70 make an irreyocable oath
to cleanse my life from the sin---up jumps a
fellow, with more zeal than knowledge, and
more deviltry, perfectly believe, than either,
and 40 defames me and my felow-citizens OF
the South, and so caricatures us az monsters of
atrocity, and so whirrs and rattles whips and
chains and gives about my ears and eyes, that
it was the cast of die whether should laugh
or swear. But before it was decided, a rcsolu-
ton was put and an amendment offered, and
two or three people rose and half n dozen be-
gan to speak, and everybody wanted to talk,
and nobOdy-but me-wanted to hear, and
there WAS confusion inside and gathering
mob outside, and in an incredibly short time
Al LII of nd hal
walls, and smashed windows, and the meeting
was broken up in row ; and my Celtic blood
boiled up and boiled over; and while laying
about me valiantly 10 defence of freedom OF
speech, L lost myself And when found my
self was lying with broken arm and broken
head in the watch house !"
"Good gracious, Mark what dishonor
What would my sister, what would my niece,
say to that?"
"They do not know it, and they need not"
"Well, really, one would have thought that
would have cured youW
My good uncle, it did-of indecision. One
is very apt to be confirmed to a cause in which
they have suffered somewhat. lay very i'll for
two weeks During that time was mlnistered
to by some excellent men, and ioomen also
persons whose disinterestedness, benevolence,
gentleness, and perfect sincerity, gave me such
deep and beautiful impression of the Christian
character as had never received from book or
pulpit-persons who had sacrificed fortune, po-
sition, friendships-aii, to a pure but despisod
cause II was the silent influence, even more
than the spoken words Of these which liked me
forever in my good purpose."
at may be true Mark, that there are such,
or it may only have seemed so to you. What
know il, that if there are such disinterested
souls in the cause, they are at best only the
instruments with which the party leaders work
for their own individual ends and selfish pur-
poses"
9" No. it is not so, nor could it be 80 wisdom
| aud goodness could not become the tools OF
sel6shness and worldlness"
"Now Mark, don't stand there and try to
dazzle your old uncle's intellect by fipe-sound-
| ing Joseph Surface sentiment! You must either
be biockhead or take me for one, when you
pretend to tell me that the teachers Of that
party are not a set Of selfseeking agitators,
whose motives range from the mere getting OF
daily bread up TO the getting of political
power; and who, if it fell easily in their way,
would as willingly reach their ends by entering
into the slave trade, as by agitating the ques-
ton of abolition
The hot blood crimsoned Mark Sutherland's
brow, and he answered, indignantly
You speak Of that Of which you know
nothing. You speak Of those whose -
"Ah! don't know nothisg?" interrupted
Mr. Boiling. Where is that Mr.. Grab, who
came down here as travelling preacher, and
took that opportunity Tor perhaps he was sent
on purpose, and paid TO do III to preach aboli-
ton to the poor whites and the blacks and to
do Satan knows what other mischief; and the
Lord knows what judgment would have fallen
on him from our incensed planters If he had
not been offered an asylum in the house Of your
cousin, Mrs. T'lden, who. being n sentimental,
compassionate young woman, and finding her
self the protsctress Of pale, persecuted young
preacher, began to court him, ~ widows vill
court: and 10, when oil her brothers and