An evil full of danger.

Can you repeat further?' said C. If I recollect, what follows is equally elegant, and impressive.'

I can imperfectly. I may perhaps do injustice to the author by some omissions or alterations, as I cannot promise that I shall give the precise original, in totidem verbis:

"Is this my country? this that happy land,
The wonder and the envy of the world?
O for a mantle to conceal her shame!
But why? when patriotism cannot hide
The ruin which her guilt will surely bring
If unrepented? for unless the God

Who poured his plagues on Egypt till she let
The oppress'd go free, and often pours his wrath

In earthquakes and tornadoes on the isles
Of Western India, laying waste their fields,
Dashing their mercenary ships ashore,
Tossing the isles themselves like floating wrecks,
And burying towns alive in one wide grave,
No sooner ope'd but closed, let judgment pass

For once untasted till the general doom,
Can it go well with us while we retain
This cursed thing?

"Will not some daring spirit, born to thoughts
Above his beast-like state, find out the truth
That Africans are 'men,' and catching fire
From freedom's altar raised before his eyes
With incense burning sweet, in others light
A kindred flame in secret, till a train
Kindled at once, deal death on every side?

"Cease, then, COLUMBIA-for thy safety, cease,

And for thine honor to proclaim the praise

Of thy fair shores of liberty and joy,

While thrice seven hundred thousand wretched slaves
Are held in thine own land!"""

The poetry is very good, my son, and in some respects the sentiment is appropriate. But there are various and weighty considerations connected with this subject which must not be lost sight of. The enormity of the slave-trade,

The evil must be removed.

we all admit, and I am by no means, even in view of all the peculiar circumstances in which we are placed, an advocate for perpetuating the relation which we find existing in a portion of our states: I confess, however, that I can neither say on the one hand that duty calls imperatively on all masters to throw up at once that legal claim to the services of the slave which the constitution recognizes; nor, on the other hand, that all has been done which ought to have been done for the amelioration of their condition and the ultimate extinction of the relation. The subject, I am constrained to acknowledge, is attended with much difficulty. In some future conversation I will express my views more fully in reference to the subject, at present simply adding that it is one of great, increasing, and solemn interest. We are a peculiar people; and as a nation have hitherto enjoyed unexampled prosperity. Our success, I doubt not, is to be attributed, under God, in a great measure to the fact that our institutions, since the Revolution, are based on the principle of moral rectitude and the equal rights of man. If we abide by our own professed declarations and principles, we may prosper still. But our prosperity will wane-our happiness will be of short duration, unless our practice be a consistent comment on our national declarations and professions. That moral debt which our ancestors contracted when being presented with the forbidden fruit, they took and ate, must be paid by us, their heirs, (I mean the debt we owe to Africa,) or I am satisfied that our country will yet feel the severe scourge of heaven! We must do what we can to redress the wrongs we have done, or our country is ruined! It will be of no avail that we have able statesmen, or a faithful administration, or that the physical strength and resources of our country are our boast, and that we pride ourselves on the valor of our armies and the gallantry of our navy without a sacred regard to the immutable principles of

Something must be done.

justice. We have before us the experience of ages-the philosophy of many an experiment and of many a failure, in the history of nations; and we must profit by the instructions of the past, if we would be successful and happy for any length of time: otherwise the period may arrive, when, ere we are aware, this giant republic will be broken, and scattered, and peeled. Happy should I be to see in every part of our beloved country a more strict regard to that sacred maxim, "RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTETH A NATION."'

I hope and trust, Pa,' said Caroline, that the kind Providence that has always watched over us for good, will incline the minds of this people to a right course, and avert from us all calamity.'

'I hope so. But the slave question is, I fear, pregnant with danger!

"You do not think, Pa, that danger is near?"

I know not at what moment the volcano may burst; but this we all know, that already we have heard its muttering, nor has it been without some transient irruptions. The Southampton tragedy cannot soon be forgotten; nor can we be blind to the exciting nature of the question in every part of the Union. The elements of destruction are indeed among us. Two millions of slaves, and three hundred thousand free blacks, with their rapid increase, in connexion with the diversity of feeling and sentiment which exist among ourselves, and the lack of sympathy for our situation among other nations, are, altogether, a tremendous evil. We live indeed in a peculiar age. Great changes are taking place in the earth. The ball of revolution is moved.

The age finds all within the vortex drawn,
The strength of current far too great to stem
By feigned indifference.

Something must be done.

And something must be done; for a crisis is near. The considerate feel this and acknowledge it. What can be done, or how a "consummation most devoutly to be wished," shall be effected, is an important, serious, solemn question.'

I should think, Pa, that there can be but one opinion as to the expediency of attending to the subject, and doing something effectual to remove the evil entirely from among us?'

'And I,' said Henry, 'should think there could be, amongst the discerning, but one opinion in respect to the advantages of colonization.'.

'In respect to the means most proper to be employed,' said Mr. L., there is a difference of opinion; but reflecting men generally, as I said before, are beginning to feel, more than ever, that something must be done. No one who looks at the subject with a candid eye can, it seems to me, doubt either the expediency of encouraging the colonization of our colored population in Africa, or the desirableness of the abolishment of slavery in our land. Connected with this subject are great questions, which I have said, involve great considerations, requiring the wisdom which is from above, and calling for a spirit of prayer, meekness, and great forbearance. Already are there thrown around it difficulties and embarrassment which ought to have been avoided, or rather I would say, ought never to have been created. A wrong spirit and unwise measures only increase the evil. So serious and alarming is it now, that very many are actually afraid to look the subject full in the face. What shall be done? is a question which they dare not meet, although all the while they fear that it will force itself upon us in a way that shall be most painful. I confess, for my own part, that I have sometimes apprehended that an issue may possibly come in a shape that shall demand tears of anguish for rivers of blood. May all that relates to this subject be wisely and kindly ordered by a good and merciful Providence.'

Self-preservation, a law of nature.-A change is taking place.

CONVERSATION VII.

"We are required to devise some means whereby the political evil which we have inherited may be corrected, and a foul, unseemly stain washed from our national escutcheon. Duty to the colored population of our coun try calls loudly for it-duty to ourselves demands it."-Gov. Vroom.

'I have been thinking much, through the day,' said Caroline, of our last conversation. Self-preservation, it is sometimes asserted as a maxim incontrovertible, is the first law of nature. It is a law, however, which appears to me to be very little regarded, or there could not, I think, be such apathy in respect to the dangers that surround us. Self-interest, I should think, would furnish to the southern people pressing motives to a right course, and that as far as practicable they would join in immediate and vigorous action for freeing our land finally from the very last remnant of slavery.'

6

The public are awakening to the importance of the subject,' replied Mr. L., and begin to feel more than formerly the urgency of the case. Every passing month, the cause of Africa's unhappy children, is finding new and ardent friends. The duty which we owe ourselves, our country, and the world, demands of us greater sympathy for that long neglected portion of our globe. The time, I trust, will come, when every band that chafes the limbs or the souls of our colored brethren will be loosed. A mighty change has taken place, and is still increasing. In this subject the non-slaveholding States as well as the South have and feel a deep interest.'

'In case of insurrection among the slaves of the South, I do not see that we should be in any danger, Pa?'

'We might not be in any personal danger, my son; but is not the South as well as the North our country; are not the