"
"Now I desire to know," said Mr. North, "if we are never to pray in
public about slavery? Is it not the great subject before the country,
and are not all our interests in Church and State deeply involved in
it?"
"While we believe," said I, "that holding slaves is a sin, I take the
ground that praying for the Southerners is a false impeachment. When we
are rid of this error, we do not feel their need of being prayed for any
more than 'all men,' for whom Paul says, 'I will that men pray
everywhere,'--'lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting.' Our
'hands' must be 'holy' when we lift them up for 'all men,' including
Southerners; there must be no 'wrath' in our prayers,--which I am sorry
to say is too easily discerned in prayers against the South; and there
must be no 'doubting' in the petitioners whether their feelings and
motives are right before God. There is as much in the relation of
officers and crews in our merchant vessels, to say the least, to enlist
the prayers of ministers, as in slavery. But this relates to ourselves,
and has not the enchantment of a distant sin.
"You must bring yourself to believe, Mr. North, that Southern hearts are
in general as humane and cultivated as ours.
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