[Footnote A: Since my return to the United States I have been informed
that the Freewill Baptist denomination have adopted the same rigid
principle of slavery exclusion that characterizes the Scotch Seceders
and the Quakers. Let this be known to their honor.]
[Footnote B: This venerated, and erudite jurist, the friend and
biographer of the celebrated Lord Jeffrey, has recently died.]
[Footnote C: This, alas! is no longer true. By the recent passage of the
infamous Nebraska bill, this whole region, with the exception of two
states already organized, is laid open to slavery. This faithless
measure was nobly resisted by a large and able minority in
Congress--honor to them.]
[Footnote D: This most learned and amiable judge recently died, while in
the very act of charging a jury.]
[Footnote E: This resolution, drawn and offered, I think, by my
hospitable friend, Mr. Binney, I have mislaid, and cannot find it. It
was, however, in character and spirit, just what Mr. James here declares
it to be.]
[Footnote F: I have been told since my return, that there are some
slaveholding Congregational churches in the south; but they have no
connection with our New England churches, and certainly are not
generally known as Congregationalists distinct from the Presbyterians.]
[Footnote G: This has always been supposed and claimed in the United
States. Now the time has come to test its truth. If there is this
antislavery feeling in nine tenths of the people, the impudent iniquity
of the Nebraska bill will call it forth.]
[Footnote H: Eight years ago I conscientiously approved and zealously
defended this course of the American Board. Subsequent events have
satisfied me, that, in the present circumstances of our country, making
concessions to slaveholders, however slightly, and with whatever
motives, even if not wrong in principle, is productive of no good. It
does but strengthen slavery, and makes its demands still more
exorbitant, and neutralizes the power of gospel truth.]
[Footnote I: This state of things is fast changing. Church members at
the south now defend slavery as right. This is a new thing.]
[Footnote J: When your chimney has smoked as long as ours, it will, may
be, need sweeping too.]
[Footnote K: Had I known all about New York and Boston which recent
examinations have developed, I should have answered very differently.
The fact is, that we in America can no longer congratulate ourselves on
not having a degraded and miserable class in our cities, and it will be
seen to be necessary for us to arouse to the very same efforts which,
have been so successfully making in England.]
[Footnote L: This idea is beautifully wrought out by Mrs. Jamieson in
her Characteristics of the Women of Shakspeare, to which, the author is
indebted for the suggestion.]
[Footnote M: James Russell Lowell's "Beaver Brook."]
[Footnote N: The hymns beginning with, these lines, "If human, kindness
meet return," and "Behold where, in a mortal form," are specimens.]