and prejudice. The man of the North will be less boastful and imperious, less self-satisfied and Pharisaical in his attitude toward the South. No offense is intended by the use of this word Pharisaical. Its application is not meant for all Northern men, for many have seen too much of the true light to indulge the spirit of self-complacency. I use the word because I know of no other that so truly expresses the spirit of many Northern men-of many, too, who hold high place and mold public opinion -in their long-indulged habit of looking upon the South as a sort of national Nazareth. I put it to their consciences whether they have not overmuch and over-often indulged the spirit and used the words of him who went not "down to his house justified:" "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, or even as this publican?"

I would not do the North injustice, nor would I claim overmuch for the South. Southern faults I do not deny; Northern excellencies I do not disparage. I know the faults of the Southern people better than men of the North know them, and I feel them more keenly, because, alas! part of them are my own.

If all of superiority they of the North claim be granted, (and they are superior to us in many things, though not in all,) and their theory of the evils of slavery be true--which I accept for the most part-then where is there occasion for boasting?

Had slavery been fastened on New England for generations, are the men of New England prepared to prove, beyond all question, that they would now be so much better than they think the South is? Should they not, in gratitude for deliverance from the curse of slavery long years before the South got its release, be less impatient with those who, according to their own view of the evils of slavery, could not be much better than they are? What would we think of the wisdom, to say nothing of his spirit, of a missionary who should begin his labors in a heathen land by not only proving idolatry to be a lie, but by denouncing the low estate of the people whom that idolatry had degraded? Have they ever considered fairly that, had the relations of the sections to slavery been changed, had the South been freed from slavery in 1790, and New England burdened with it till 1865, they might have been as deficient in the virtues of the best civilization as they believe that the South is, and the South might have excelled as they believe that they have excelled? In such a case, what would the golden rule require of the South?

When we of the South recognize, as we ought, the providence of God in the emancipation of the negroes, most gracious results will follow in us. The spirit of resignation to God's will in this matter will go further than any thing conceivable by me to reconcile us to the instrument employed by

that Providence. Such a spirit would go far to banish whatever "wrath and bitterness" there may be in us. It will broaden our views; it will lift us up to a higher plane of thought and sentiment and conduct.

When the negroes come to see, as I trust they may, that God set them free, only using men and their counsels as his instruments, then a new and holier feeling will come into their hearts. They cannot realize the solemn significance of their freedom so long as they forget their great Deliverer in their over consideration of the instrument he employed.

The emancipated negro can never have the right conscience in his freedom, can never realize in his inmost soul the responsibilities of his freedom, can never perform aright the duties of free citizenship, can never work out the divine plan of his destiny, until he sees clearly and feels profoundly that God, the Father and King of men, bestowed upon him this fearful but glorious gift of freedom.

CHAPTER VII.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

HAT Mr. Lincoln was truly opposed to slavery,

THA

and that he wished and sought its abolition, cannot be doubted. That he issued his Emancipation Proclamation simply or chiefly in the interests of the slaves, and in order to set them free, his own words deny. His grand aim was to save the Union," and he issued his proclamations to help in saving it. This subject is brought forward here only because it should, when fully understood, deepen and fix the conviction that God, and not man, gave freedom to the slaves.

In the "North American Review " for February, 1880, is an interesting and instructive article on the Emancipation Proclamation from the pen of President James C. Welling, who was, at the time it was issued, one of the editors of the "Intelligencer," Washington city, and whose opportunities for full information were complete. Commenting on this article in the "North American Review" for August, 1880, Mr. Richard H. Dana commends it very highly, and says: "It presents the subject with great ability and fullness of detail, and, as far as my

memory goes, it is the first article in an American periodical that has taken up the subject on principle."

Of the Proclamation itself President Welling says:

"The Emancipation Proclamation is the most signal fact in the administration of President Lincoln. It marks, indeed, the sharp and abrupt beginning of the Great Divide' which, since the upheaval produced by the late civil war, has separated the polity and politics of the ante-bellum period from the polity and politics of the post-bellum era. No other act has been so warmly praised on the one hand, or so warmly opposed on the other; and perhaps it has sometimes been equally misunderstood, in its real nature and bearing, by those who have praised it and by those who have denounced it. The domestic institution against which it was leveled having now passed as finally into the domain of history as the slavery of Greece and Rome, it would seem that the time has come when we can review this act of Mr. Lincoln's in the calm light of reason, without serious disturbance from the illusions of fancy or the distortions of prejudice."

In the latter part of August, 1862, Mr. Horace Greeley, editor of the "New York Tribune," wrote an editorial in his paper in which, as President Welling says, "assuming to utter the prayer of twenty millions, Mr. Greeley called on the President with