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Show 126 it. While treated as property, he will have little encouragement to accumulate property, for it cannot be secure. While his wife and childmn may be exposed at auction, and carried, he knows not where, can he be expect.ed to feel and act as a husband and lather ? It is time, that this Chrietian and civilized country should no longer be dishonored by one of the worst usages of barbarism. Break up the slave-market, and one of the chief obstructions to emancipation will be removed. Let me only add, that religious instruction should go hand in hand with all other means for preparing the slave fm· freedom. The colored race are said to be peculiarly susceptible of the reliaious sentiment. If this be addressed wisely and0 powerfully, if the slave be brought to feel his relation and accountableness to God, and to comprebend the spirit of Christianity, he is fit for freedom. To accomplish this work, perhaps preaching should not be the only or chief _instrument. \Vere the whole colored populatiOn to be assembled into Sunday•schools, and were the wbites to become thei•· teachers, a new and interestin" relation would be formed between the races, and an influence be exerted which would do much to insure safety to the gift of freedom. In these remarks I have not intended to say that emancipation is an easy work, the work of a day, a good to be accomplished without sacrifices 127 and toil. T he colored man is, ind!!ed, singularly susceptible of improvement, in c.onsequence of the strength of bis propensities to imitation and sympathy. But all great changes in society have their dilTiculties and inconveniences, and demand patient labor. 1 ask for no precipitate measures, no violent chan"es. I ask only that the slaveholdinrr States would resolve conscientiously and in good faith to remove this greatest of moral evils and wrongs, and 1rould bring immediately to the work all their intelligence, vinue, and power. That its difficulties would yield before such energies, who can doubt? Our weakness for holy enterprises lies generally in our own reluctant wills. Breathe into men a fervent purpose, and you awaken powers before unknown. How soon would slavery disappear, were the obligation to remore it thoroughly understood and deeply felt! We are told that the slavelwlding States have recently prospered beyond all precedent. This accession to their wealth should be consecrated to the work of liberating their fellow-creatures. Not one indulrrence should be added to the it· modes of life, until tl;e cry of the oppressed has ceased from their fields, until the rights of every human being are restored. Government should devote itself to this as its great object. L egislatures should meet to free the slave .. T he church should rest not, day or night, ttll thts stain be wiped away. Let the delib- |