The wicked man, “spreading himself like the green bay tree,” would answer this question, as you have.  They, who “walk after their own lusts, saying, where is the promise of his coming—­for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation?” would answer it, as you have.  They, whose “heart is fully set in them to do evil, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,” would answer it, as you have.  But, however you or they may answer it, and although God may delay his “coming” and the execution of his “sentence,” it, nevertheless, remains true, that “it shall be well with them that fear God, but it shall not be well with the wicked.”

“Fifty years of prosperity!” On whose testimony do we learn, that the last “fifty years” have been “years of prosperity” to the South?—­on the testimony of oppressors or on that of the oppressed?—­on that of her two hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders—­for this is the sum total of the tyrants, who rule the South and rule this nation—­or on that of her two millions and three quarters of bleeding and crushed slaves?  It may well be, that those of the South, who “have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton and have nourished their hearts as in a day of slaughter,” should speak of “prosperity:”  but, before we admit, that the “prosperity,” of which they speak, is that of the South, instead of themselves merely, we must turn our weeping eyes to the “laborers, who have reaped down” their oppressors’ “fields without wages,” and the “cries” of whom “are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth;” and we must also take into the account the tears, and sweat, and groans, and blood, of the millions of similar laborers, whom, during the last “fifty years,” death has mercifully released from Southern bondage.  Talks the slaveholder of the “prosperity” of the South?  It is but his own “prosperity”—­and a “prosperity,” such as the wolf may boast, when gorging on the flock.

You say, that the people of the North would not think it “neighborly and friendly” if “the people of the slave states were to form societies, subsidize presses, make large pecuniary contributions, &c. to burn the beautiful capitals, destroy the productive manufactories, and sink the gallant ships of the northern states.”

Indeed, they would not!  But, if you were to go to such pains, and expense for the purpose of relieving our poor, doubling our wealth, and promoting the spiritual interests of both rich and poor—­then we should bless you for practising a benevolence towards us, so like that, which abolitionists practise towards you; and then our children, and children’s children, would bless your memories, even as your children and children’s children will, if southern slavery be peacefully abolished, bless our memories, and lament that their ancestors had been guilty of construing our love into hatred, and our purpose of naught but good into a purpose of unmingled evil.