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Show Gilbert Haven. And now, my frientl~, let me say, in closing, if I have spoken aught that offend· your pre. ent judgment, weigh it carefully before you reject it. I have said only what I haYe thought, and prayed, and poken for year·. I hr.lieve no such in is laid at the door of any nation a i· laid upon us. I believe no such s uffe rin g~ are seen by the all-loving Omniscience in the wide earl h, as he sees in the brea. ts of multitude of powerless victims in the Southern shamble . I ha.Yc spoken in the intcre t of no party. Politics arc to sed on this wild and mighty ca that sweeps over the whole land, as fi shing boat off Newfoundland, '' 'Vhcn de cends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the Equinox." So are rocking all other gr(!at in te re~t· . The Church fears J1cr di solution; free labor, in its grand and lesser di vi:'ions, fears her de truction; the throe· of thi: gr •at birth of freedom and fraternity to the least among the races of men, make all cia scs and callin g::; to writhe. Yet there hall be no death of any vital force. Government, R('ligion, the Chnrch, the Gospel, free and varied indu try, all ~ hall live, and live a higher life for the ~tru ggl e through whieh they arc now pas'ing. I speak with no hardness to the slaxehulder. Some of tho::sc that I know, I esteem. All God has loved, and ha , giren his only-beloved Son, that thr.y, believing on him, might not peri ·h. J\fay they receive the g race of God in it fulne s, and let it lead them to give that which i ju t and equal to the lave, le::;t "the great and terrible day of the Lord come." 'Vould to God they would treat their fellow-citizen' in bondage a. our fathers treated theirs; declare Ia very in compatible with their con. titution., and that it cca::;c: henc1·forth to exi 'L in their midst. So ea -y, o peaceful j their way of duty in this matter. I have poken in no love or expectation of a murderous uprising, or of armed intervention to aid them in ri inrr. 0 Their rights I have defended. Their duty it is not for me to Gilbert Haven. 139 deeide. I have striven to remember them as bound with th '111. I have ccn them a · they arc to-day, . itting under vine. and fig-trees not their own, with every thing to molest aml make th >m afraid. I have . e n th m, a they· arc plodding in cofiles, or crowded in holds, on their dreadful march to their unknown fate. '\Vith bleed ing feet, and back~, and hearts, they are scourged from the mi erablc hut of their childhood, to the mi 'Crable grave of their early prime- from the dungeon of ice to the dungeon of fire. Thr.y have no right:-;, says the ·olcmn and supreme tribunal of the landno ri~hts which white men are bound to re. pcct. The hu - band has no right to his wife, which you are bound to re~pect; the maiden no right to her honor; the moth t' no right to her babe; the babe no right to it motlwr; the mind no righ t to culture; t.hc son l no right to its Sa.Yiour; no rigl1ts which wln'te men arc bound to r espect! l\fy God, what a decree! L et u: obey God rather than man, and hold in higher re~pect th 'ir natural and divine ri ght ~, for the Yery contempt and los tht·y suffe r, at the hands of those now ~O powerful and so cruel. Y ct let u, not be discouraged. Th i' drlugc of hell has heard a voice it will oh(')', , aying, ''Hitherto ·halt thou come hut no further, and here shall thy proud waves be ~tayl'(l." The very dilemma of the enptors of the e men is itself propttiOu -. They dare not hang them ; they dare not r clen e them. If they pardon John Brown it is saying to nll the world, " 'Ye are verily guilty. Any man may come among u , invite our laves to a sumc their freedom, gi\·c th em arms to defend that freedom, and even , lay those who seem to oppo ·e it, nnd yet we dare not hang him. \Vhy? B ecause we know he i · right, and we arc wrong." They can never defend their . ystcm ngain if John Brown is allowed to live. But if he die~, if he mount::; the scntfold for Freedom, which may Il cav<•n prevent, he will slay the monster which eems thus to slay him. lie will make the scaffold in this land as |