When we had well nigh given up in despair, we again directed our eyes to the dark picture of African slavery.  “Oh!” said we, to ourselves, “how it would soothe and tranquilize our troubled consciences, if we could but find worse sinners than ourselves.”  “We know that we are vile and depraved, but are not those slaveholders, a little worse than we are?” Anxiously and intensely we gazed on, but we were disappointed!  The picture was dark, to be sure; but we failed to observe all that we expected!  We then called for glasses that magnified a thousand fold, and again, and again, we surveyed the dark picture!  Ah! we saw something at last!  What was it?  Well, we either saw something, or, otherwise, we thought we saw something.  Chagrin and despair seized upon us, and we exclaimed in the bitter agonies of our souls, “merciful God, are we sinners above all sinners—­are there none, so vile as we are?” “But stop—­hold on,” (said we), “we are not done with negrodom yet—­we cannot let those rascally slaveholders off so lightly—­we will yet make it appear, that they are more wicked than ourselves—­or, at all events, we will not give them up yet.”  It was but seldom that we troubled the good old Bible, but as we were in a difficulty, we decided at once to consult her—­perchance she might talk about right on the subject of slavery.  After a long search we found the old book; brushed off the dust and opened it.  Well, now, we felt quite certain, that the Bible would tell us, that we were better Christians than slaveholders; for we had already succeeded in persuading ourselves, that we were not quite so bad as we imagined at the outset; and we moreover thought, that we got a glimpse of some thing dreadful about these Southern folks, but hardly knew what it was.  We then proceeded to examine the Bible.  “Where is it,” (said we), “that the Bible denounces these slaveholders, as the chief of sinners?” “Well, we don’t know, but we think it says something dreadful about them; but we don’t know where it is, or what it is.”  We searched, but searched in vain; almost ready to abuse the good Boob, because it refused to abuse slaveholders.  We then soliloquized in the following words.  “We don’t like these slaveholders—­never did—­nor did our fathers before us.  Our fathers told us that they were bad men—­that they were guilty of many horrible things; and that they were not good Christians, like the people out here North.”  We were, nevertheless, still oppressed by a load of guilt, and felt the insupportable gnawings of a guilty conscience.  We had oppressed the poor and robbed the widow and orphans!  We had defrauded our neighbor and slandered our brother!  We had lied to both God and man!  “Can it be possible,” (said we to ourselves), “that there are human beings living, who have been guilty of more abominable crimes?” “What is more odious?” “What could be more detestable?” “What could render a human being more obnoxious to eternal vengeance?” We were in this deplorable condition,