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Show 112 THE GOLDEN IIOUlt stained growths, \vith petals full blo,vn ; they arc ~ lavery and \Var: ncar Lhctn two fair white bud , whose names arc Liberty and Peace. Conu·adc , faint not, but watch and labor anu waiL, that those flame-leaved, sickening blo on1s 1nay clo c, as th y 1nn t, together ; and in that tnotncnt unfolding, the ·c ~nowy, healing ones shall rccoru that it 1~ Frccdo1n's noontide. ---- XVIII. TilE GOLDEN IIOUR. TnERE is an Oriental legend which relates that a poor man sat a thou and years before the gate of Paradise ; then, in his \vcurincss, he snatched. one hour's sleep. But in that hour the gate of pearl swung open, and the poor n1an a·woke just in tin1e to sec thcn1 close. Long has this country been sitting in <lust and rags before the barred gates of Liberation fron1 the cur c which i · upon her. In our miu~t reigned the infernal in titution ·which SCClUCd to preserve the Ucadlic 't blooddrops of all 'the tyrants the world ever sa;w. It crushed all heart and hope out of the black 1nan ; it laid waste his hotnc, and made the earth for hitn a great dcvil's masterpiece ; but it could not so \VTong him as it has wronged. the white man. From the white man it took THE GOLDEN IIOL'R. 113 the very marrow of honor. It. 1H \s rna d c it a life-long b.a tt. le to be a gentlPn1an in Lh ·t·, c0,"-.111 L~ l. J, .._ 'I avery . Ill- St.'ting that one shall be a coward an/u, a N cg.r o-11 0UJH1. 0 a od ! to sec our Pr . 'iueu t'.. OWll 1 t"t 11 . u. e wa ow1u o· in ~he very sewers of 'lavery with its black law~ unt1l one long for ·o1nc Tous ·aint to S""' Otl 1.g .0 111l· l lOl·S of black hearts, and fill .it 1vith black face . ! To sec Ohio, ruled by the vcr1nin who tro1nblc to take a OonfcdcraLc officer's -laYc or s\vord in he . . r O\Yn cap- Ital, stoning any man of con11non son 0 u" .n d conunon honesty who woulcl haYc her cro a stop lJc 1 I b yonc por c and wh.i ·key ! To co tbi: institution , aftc r t rcau,,1. ng under 1Ls feet the 1nilli on~ of black bodies and the souls of \Yhitcs in the South, n1arcbing on throuo·h the North, its brass collar on the necks of five l{cp;c cntati, ·cs of Massachu ·ctts,- a Republican Cabinet afraid to look it in tho eye ! .Ala · ! it i not four, but 11 arcr twenty-four, 1nillions of . ·lnxos we haYc in A1ncrica. But now has the Golden Ilour co1nc, and with a song fro1n every an gel, a . ·hrick fro1n every clcn1011 , the pearly portals of Librration arc prized open by Slavery's own 1nadncss, and A1ncrica is invited. to enter tho ble ·sod. land. Last year Rcpuulicans !tad. to be technical and ·kilful in proving oven a probability that at the boLto1n of th lJalloL-box a gateway of release \vonld eYer be found · ' to-day it r equires all the ingenuity of the Cabinet engi-neers not to free us. Their great prolJlen1 now is, how not to do it. II |