The Liberator

OUR OPPOSERS.

No doubt there are yet many excellent and truly christian people arrayed against us. And wherefore? Not because their views, or feelings, or principles, in reality, differ from our own; for they are the uncompromising friends of humanity, of liberty, and of Christ. But we, and our cause, are contemplated by them through a false medium. They either misinterpret our language, and misapprehend our object, or are ignorant of them both. They have not deliberately and fully examined either the condition of those who pine in servitude, or the doctrine of emancipation. They have incautiously given credence to the monstrous fabrications of our enemies. We have been made hideous, and caricatured so frightfully, as to justify those who do not know us in running away from our deformed portraits with all possible haste. The epithets commonly applied to us are these—'incendiaries,' fanatics,' 'madmen,' and others less charitable. Who would desire to keep company with such persons? As for myself, I know not how many shapes and colors I have assumed in the imagination of the public.

INSENSIBILITY. It is not excitement, but insensibility, that is to be deprecated, on the part of the people. The pestilence of slavery has so infected our land, as to need much thunder and lightning, and a strong tempest, to counteract its noisome putridity, and restore a pure and healthy atmosphere. This republic may be likened to a noble being who is covered with wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores, and who, because we have thrust our probe into the bone, is struggling furiously, and insisting that we have murderous designs upon his life. His amazing strength is cheering evidence that his disease is not unto death.

PROGRESS OF THE CAUSE. Although the opposition to our cause is powerful and virulent, yet the most prejudiced must confess that our labors are not in vain in the Lord. The good seed which so many have been sowing for years in various portions of this land, is bearing fruit—some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred fold. The infuriated slaveholders, and their northern abettors, are continually crying, in tones of desperation and terror, 'Let us alone'—but we shall not let them alone until they let their miserable victims alone—until they cease scourging, plundering and selling our poor enslaved brothers and sisters—until they repent, and forsake their sins, and turn to the living God. As they increase in stubborness and cruelty, so we must increase in zeal and activity.