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Show 90 THE MONTHLY OFFERING. earth. Woman's sphere, I am told, _is hom~. And '~hy i~ home instituted? Why are domestiC relatwns ordamed. These relations are for a day; they cease ,at the grave. And what is their great end 1 '~o nourish a love which will endure forever, to awaken umversal s~mpathy. Our ties to our parQnts are to bind us to the Umversal Parent. Our fraternal bonds to help us to see i!'- ~II men our brethren. Home is to be a nursery of Chnsttans; and what IS !he end of Christianity but to awaken in all s~uls the principles of universal justice and universal chanty. At home we are to learn to love our neighbor, our enemy, the stranger, the poor, the oppressed. If home do not train us to this, then it is woefully perverted. · If home counteract and quench the spirit of Christianity, than we must remember the Divine Teacher, who commands us to forsake father and mothor, brother and siste1, wife and child, for His sake and for the sake of his truth. If the walls of home ar~ the bulwarks of a narrow, clannish lnve, through which'the cry of human miseries and wrongs cannot penetrate, then it is mockery to talk of. thim sa~redness. D~mestic life is at J)resent too much m ho~llhty to the .spmt of Christ. A family should be a commun~ty of dea~ fnends, strengthenin"' one an.other for the serVIce. o~ thelf fellow creatures. Can we gtve the rtame of Chnsllan to most of our families? Can we give it to women, who have no thoug'lits, or sympathies for multitudes of their ?Wn sex, distant only two or three days' journey from thell' door•, and exposed to outrages, from which they wo?ld pray to have their own daughters snatched, though It were by death?'' "Having spoken of the individual, I proceed to speak ?f the duties of the Free States, in their political capac1ty, 10 regard to slavery,; and these may be reduced I? two ~e~ds, both of them necrative. The first is, to abstam as ng1dly from the use of p~litical power against slavery in the States where it is established, as from exercising it agamst slavery in fore.i"n communities. The sec.ond is, to free ourselves from aU obligation to use the powers of the national or EXTRACT F RO~I DR. CHANNING. 91 State governments in any manner whatever for the support of slavery. The first duty is clear. In regard to slaYery, the So~thPrn States stand on the ground of foreign commumlles. They are not subj ect or responsible to us more than these. No state-sovereignty can intermeddle with the institutions of another. We might as legitimately spread our legislation over the schools, churches, or persons of the South, ns over their slaves. And in regard to the general government, we know that it wa,s ' 'not intended to confer any power, direct or indirect, on the free, over the slave States. Any pretension io such power on the part of the North, would. have dissolYed immediately the convention which fratned the constitution. Anv act of the free States, when assembled, in Congress, for the abolition of slavery in other States, would be a violation of the national compact, and would be just cause of complaint. On this account, I cannot but regret the disposition of a part of our abolitioni s t~ to organize thems ~1 ves into a political party. Were it indeed their simple purpose to free the North from all obligation to give suppol't to slavery, I should agree with them in their end, though not in their means. By looking, as they do, to political ~rganization, as a means of putting down the institution in other States, they lay themselves open to reproach. . r know, indeed, that excellent men are engaged in this movement, and I acqu it them of all disposition to transcend the limits of the Federal Constitution. Dut it is to be fearea, that they may construe this instrument too literally; that, forgetting its spirit, they may seck to 11se its po,vcrs for purposes very reinote from its original design. Their failure is almost inevitable. By extending their agency beyond its true bounds, they ensure its defeat in its legitimate sphere: By assuming a poli\ical characte r, they lose the reputation of honest enthusiasts, and come to be consid ered as h.ypocriti~": l shkers after place and power. Should they, in opposHwn to a!\ probability, become a fonnidable party, they would unite the slaveholding States as one man; and the |