In a recent battle fell a Secession colonel, the last remaining son of his mother, and she a widow.  That mother had sold eleven children of an old slave-mother, her servant.  That servant went to her and said,—­“Missis, we even now.  You sold all my children.  God took all yourn.  Not one to bury either of us. Now, I forgive you.”

In another battle fell the only son of another widow.  Young, beautiful, heroic, brought up by his mother in the sacred doctrines of human liberty, he gave his life an offering as to a holy cause.  He died.  No slave-woman came to tell his mother of God’s justice, for many slaves have reason to call her blessed.

Now we ask you, Would you change places with that Southern mother?  Would you not think it a great misfortune for a son or daughter to be brought into such a system?—­a worse one to become so perverted as to defend it?  Remember, then, that wishing success to this slavery-establishing effort is only wishing to the sons and daughters of the South all the curses that God has written against oppression. Mark our words! If we succeed, the children of these very men who are now fighting us will rise up to call us blessed.  Just as surely as there is a God who governs in the world, so surely all the laws of national prosperity follow in the train of equity; and if we succeed, we shall have delivered the children’s children of our misguided brethren from the wages of sin, which is always and everywhere death.

And now, Sisters of England, think it not strange, if we bring back the words of your letter, not in bitterness, but in deepest sadness, and lay them down at your door.  We say to you,—­Sisters, you have spoken well; we have heard you; we have heeded; we have striven in the cause, even unto death.  We have sealed our devotion by desolate hearth and darkened homestead,—­by the blood of sons, husbands, and brothers.  In many of our dwellings the very light of our lives has gone out; and yet we accept the life-long darkness as our own part in this great and awful expiation, by which the bonds of wickedness shall be loosed, and abiding peace established on the foundation of righteousness.  Sisters, what have you done, and what do you mean to do?

In view of the decline of the noble anti-slavery fire in England, in view of all the facts and admissions recited from your own papers, we beg leave in solemn sadness to return to you your own words:—­

“A common origin, a common faith, and, we sincerely believe, a common cause, urge us, at the present moment, to address you on the subject” of that fearful encouragement and support which is being afforded by England to a slave-holding Confederacy.

“We will not dwell on the ordinary topics,—­on the progress of civilization, on the advance of freedom everywhere, on the rights and requirements of the nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very seriously to reflect and to ask counsel of God how far such a state of things is in accordance with His Holy Word, the inalienable rights of immortal souls, and the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian religion.