Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1. Гарриет Бичер-Стоу

by it for a time, may be true. But it will work well in the long run. Good will ultimately come out of it. Stir is better than stagnancy. Irritation is better than apathy. Whence does it arise? From two sources. The conscience and the honor of the country have both been touched. Conscience winces under the touch. The provocation shows it to be ill at ease. The wound is painful, and it naturally awakens fretfulness and resentment. But by and by the angry excitement will subside, and the salutary conviction will remain and operate. The national honor, too, has been touched. Our friends across the wave boast, and with good reason, of the free principles of their constitution. They glory in their liberty. But they cannot fail to feel the inconsistency of their position, and the exposure of it to the world kindles on the cheek the blush of shame and the reddening fire of displeasure. Now, the blush has aright source. It is the blush of patriotism—it is for their country. But there is anger with the shame; for few things are more galling than to feel that to be wrong which you are unable to justify, and which, yet, you are not prepared to relinquish. [Loud applause.] On the whole, I cannot but regard the agitation which has been produced as an auspicious, rather than a discouraging omen. It was when the waters of the pool were troubled that their healing virtue was imparted. Let us then hope that the troubling of the waters by this ministering angel of mercy may impregnate them with a similar sanative influence, [the reverend doctor here pointed towards Mrs. Stowe, while the audience burst out with enthusiastic acclamations and waving of handkerchiefs,] and thus ultimately contribute to the healing of the ghastly wounds of the chain and the lash, and to the setting of the crushed and bowed down erect in the soundness and dignity of their true manhood. [Loud cheering.] Sorry we are that Mrs. Stowe should appear amongst us in a state of broken health and physical exhaustion. No one who looks at the Cabin and at the Key, and who knows aught of the effect of severe mental labor on the bodily frame, will marvel at this. We fondly trust, and earnestly pray, that her temporary sojourn among us may, by the divine blessing, recruit her strength, and contribute to the prolongation of a life so promising of benefit to suffering humanity, and to the glory of God. [Cheers.] Meanwhile she enjoys the happy consciousness that she is suffering in a good cause. A better there could not be. It is one which involves the well being, corporeal and mental, physical and spiritual, temporal and eternal, of degraded, plundered, oppressed, darkened, brutalized, perishing millions. And, while we delight in furnishing her for a time with a peaceful retreat from 'the wrath of men,' from the resentment of those who, did they but rightly know their own interests, would have smiled upon her, and blessed her. We trust she enjoys, and ever will enjoy, quietness and assurance of an infinitely higher order—the divine Master, whom she serves and seeks to honor; proving to her, in the terms of his own promise, 'a refuge from the storm, and a covert from the tempest.' [Enthusiastic cheering.] It may sound strangely, that, when assembled for the very purpose of denouncing 'property in man,' we should be putting in our claims for a share of property in woman. So, however, it is. We claim Mrs. Stowe as ours—[renewed, cheers]—not ours only, but still ours. She is British and European property as well as American. She is the property of the whole world of literature and the whole world of humanity. [Cheers.] Should our transatlantic friends repudiate the property, they may transfer their share—[laughter and cheers]—most gladly will we accept the transference."

      Professor Stowe, on rising to reply, was greeted with the most enthusiastic applause. He said that he appeared in the name of Mrs. Stowe, and in his own name, for the purpose of cordially thanking the people of Glasgow for the reception that had been given to them. But he could not find words to do it. Was it true that all this affectionate interest was merited? [Cheers.] He could not imagine any book capable of exciting such expressions of attachment; indeed he was inclined to believe it had not been written at all—he "'spected it grew." [Tremendous cheers.] Under the oppression of the fugitive slave law the book had sprung from the soil ready made. He regretted exceedingly that in consequence of the state of Mrs. Stowe's health, and in consequence of the great pressure of engagements on himself, their stay in this country would be necessarily short. But he hoped they would accept of the expression of thanks they offered, and their apology for not being in a condition to meet their kindness as they would desire. When they were about to set out from Andover, a friend of theirs expressed his astonishment that they should enter upon such a journey in the delicate state of Mrs. Stowe's health. The Scotch people, he doubted not, would be kind to them—they would kill them with kindness; and he feared it would be so. It was from Glasgow the idea of the invitation they had received had originated; and well might it originate in that city, for when had been the time that Glasgow was not in earnest on the subject of freedom? They had had hard struggles for liberty, and they had been successful, and the people in the United States were now struggling for the same privilege. But they labored under circumstances greatly different from those in Great Britain. Scotland had ever been distinguished for its love of freedom. [Great applause.] The religious denominations in the United States—to a great extent, give few and feeble expressions of disapprobation against the system of slavery. Two denominations had never been silent—the Old Scotch Seceders, or Covenanters, and the disciples of William Penn—not one of their number, in the United States, owns a slave. Not one can own a slave without being ejected from the society.1 In fact, the general feeling was against slavery; but to avoid trouble, the people hesitate to give publicity to their feelings. Were this done, slavery would soon come to an end. Great sacrifices are sometimes made by slaveholders to get rid of slavery. He went once to preach in the State of Ohio. He found there a little log house. Inside was a delicate woman, feeble and with white hands. She seemed wholly unaccustomed to work. Her husband had the same appearance of delicacy. They were very poor. How had they come into that state? They belonged to a slave State, where they had formerly possessed a little family of slaves. They had felt slavery to be wrong. They set them free, and with the remainder of their little property tried to get their living by farming; but like many similar cases, it had been one of martyrdom. The Professor then proceeded to make some very practical remarks on the character of the fugitive slave law, after which he said that the prosperity of Great Britain in a great measure resulted from the products of slave labor. American cotton was the chief support of the system. We must, both in Britain and America, get free-grown cotton, or slavery will not, at least for a long time to come, be abolished. What he would impress on the minds of Christians was unity in this great work. Let slaveholders be ever so much opposed to each other on other topics, they were unanimous in their endeavors to support slavery. But let the prayers of all Christians and the efforts of all Christians be united; and the system of oppression would speedily be destroyed forever.

      Public Meeting In Edinburgh—April 20

      The Lord Provost rose, and stated that a number of letters of apology had been received from parties who had been invited to take part in the meeting, but who had been unable to attend. Among these he might mention Professor Blackie, the Rev. Mr. Gilfillan, of Dundee, Rev. J. Begg, D.D., the Earl of Buchan, Dr. Candlish, and Sir W. Gibson Craig, all of whom expressed their regret that they could not be present. One of them, he observed, was from a gentleman who had long taken an interest in the antislavery cause,—Lord Cockburn,2—and his note was so warm, and sympathetic, and hearty on the subject about which they had met, that he could not resist the temptation of reading it. It proceeded, "I regret, that owing to my being obliged to be in Ayrshire, it will not be in my power to join you in the expression of respect and gratitude to Mrs. Stowe; she deserves all the honor that can be done her; she has done more for humanity than was ever accomplished before by a single book of fiction. [Cheers.] It did not require much to raise our British feeling against slavery, but by showing us what substantially are facts, and the necessary tendency of this evil in its most mitigated form, she has greatly strengthened the ground on which this feeling rests. Her work may have no immediate or present influence on the states of her own country that are now unhappily under the curse, and may indeed for a time aggravate its horrors; but it is a prodigious accession to the constantly accumulating mass of views and evidence, which by reason of its force must finally prevail." [Cheers.] The Lord Provost proceeded to say, that they had now assembled chiefly to do honor to their distinguished guest, Mrs. Stowe. [Applause.] They had met, however, also to express their interest in the cause which it had been the great effort of her life to promote—the abolition of slavery. They took advantage of her presence, and the effect which was produced on the public mind of this country, to reiterate

1

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.

2

This venerated, and erudite jurist, the friend and biographer of the celebrated Lord Jeffrey, has recently died.