“Why?” said I.

“Simply because,” said she, “the New Testament would have sanctioned the practice of running off slaves.”

“Why, then,” said I, “does it not now equally countenance the ‘running’ of slaves back to their masters?”

“Please answer that for me, husband,” said Mrs. North.

He smiled, and rose to put some coal on the fire.  We waited for his words.

“Well,” said he, “I do not know but it is all right, provided the master be in each case a Philemon.”

“That is a good word,” said I.  “You show that the Bible has an ascendency in your mind.  You will be safe in following the Bible wherever it leads you, even into slave-holding, if it goes so far.  But I must now question you a little.  You may answer me or not, as you please.

“One day a black man appears at your door, and says, ’I have just escaped from the South.  I was owned by Rev. Professor A.B. of New Orleans.  I preferred liberty to slavery, and here I am.’  Would you shelter him, and encourage his remaining here, and, if necessary, send him to Canada?”

“What would you have me do?” said he.

“Take him in,” said I, “if you please, and give him some breakfast.  You would not object to this.  After breakfast you have family prayers.  ’Can you read, Nesimus?’ you inquire.  ’O yes, master; missis and the young missises taught us all to read.’  Your little boy hands him, with the rest, a Testament, and names the place of reading.  Strange to say, yesterday you finished ‘Titus,’ and the portion to be read in course is ‘Philemon!’”

“Almost a providence,” said Mrs. North.

“How would you feel, Mr. North?” said I.

“Why, feel?  How should I feel?” said he.  “You will answer for me, perhaps, and say, ’Read Philemon; pray; and then say, Come, Nesimus, I am going to send you back to Professor A.B.  I will write a letter to him, and pay your passage.’”

“What objection would you make to this?” said I.

He thought a moment, and in the meanwhile his shrewd wife said,—­

“Why, husband, do you hesitate?  Say this:  ’What!  I? and Bunker Hill within a day’s march of my house, and grandfather’s old sword over my library door?’”

“I am sick of hearing about Bunker Hill in this connection,” said he.  “Any one would think that it is one of the ‘sacred mountains’ in Holy Writ.”

“But,” said his wife, “If some of Paul’s ancestors had had Bunker Hill privileges and influences, do you think Paul would have written the Epistle to Philemon?  Unfortunate Apostle!  Say,” said his wife again, before he spoke, “that you believe in progress, that that epistle might have been right enough in its day, but that now ’we need an anti-slavery Bible and an anti-slavery God.’”

She made up a very expressive smile as she said it and stretched her work across her knee.

“Yes,” said I, “the Bible is antiquated!  God never gave a written revelation to be a perpetual guide to the end of time!  I can supersede the Epistle to Philemon:  Mrs. North, Hebrews; you, James; and another the whole of the Old Testament.”