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Show 24 UNCLB TOlofS CADIN: OR, ""'Why didn't you?" said :Miss Ophelia.;- "you ought not to put your hand to the plough, and look back." "0, well, things didn't go with me as I expected, and I got the despair of living that Solomon did. I suppose it was a necessary incident to wisdom in us both; but, some how or other, instead of being actor and regenerator in society, I became a piece of drift-wood, and have been floating and eddying about, ever since. Alfred scolds me, every time we meet; and he has the better of me, I grant,- for he really does something; his life is a logical result of his opinions, and mine is a contemptible non sequitur." "My dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of spending your probation 'J" "Satisfied! Was I not just telling you I despised it? But, then, to come back to this point,-wc were on this liberation business. I don't think my feelings about slavery arc peculiar. I £nd many men who, in their hearts, think of it just as I do. The lund groans under it; and, bad as it is for the slave, it is worse, if anything, for the master. It takes no spectacles to sec that a great class of vicious, improvident, degraded people, among us, are an evil to us, as well as to themselves. The capitalist and aristocrat of England cannot feel that as we do, because they do not mingle with the class they degrade as we do. They arc in our houses ; they arc the associates of our children, and they form their minds faster than we can; for they are a race that children always will cling to and assimila.te with. If Eva, now, was not more angel than ordinary, she would be ruined. W c might as well allow the small-pox to run among them, and think our children would not take it, as to let them be uninstructed and vicious, and think our children will not be affected by that. Yet our laws positively and utterly forbid any efficient LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY. 25 general educationa1 system, and they do it wisely, too; for, just begin and thoroughly educate one generation, and tho whole thing would be blown sky high. If we did not give them liberty, they would take it." "And what do you think will be the end of this?" said Miss Ophelia. "I don't know. One thing is certain,-that there is a. mustering among the masses, the world over ; and there is a dies irm corning on, sooner or later. 'fhc same thing is working in Europe, in England, and in this country. ~iy mother used to tell me of a millennium that was coming, when Christ should reign, and all men should be free and happy. And she taught me, when I was a boy, to pray, 'Thy kingdom come.' Sometimes I think all this sighing, and groaning, and stirrinrr amono- the dry bones foretells what she used to tell me wa~ comi~g. But who may abide the day of His appearing 1" " Augustine, sometimes I think you are not far from tho kingdom," said Miss Ophelia, laying down her knitting, and looking anxiously at her cousin. "Thank you for your good opinion; but it's up and down with me,- up to heaven's gate in theory, down in earth's dust in practice. But there's the ten-bell,- do let's go,and don't say, now, I haven't had one downright serious talk, for once in my life." At table, Marie alluded to the incident of Pruc. " I suppose you'll think, cousin/' she sa..icl, " that we are all barbarians." "I think that's a barbarous thing," said Miss Ophelia, "but I don't think you arc all barbarians." "'Vell, now," said Marie, :'I know it's impossible to get along with some of these creatures. They are so bad they VOL. II. 3 |
