What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?—

The wealth of seas ?-the spoils of war?-
They sought a faith's pure shrine !

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod!

monster that springs into existence in the increasing consumption of tea and coffee. When men dashed from their lips the wine-cup, they felt sensibly the absence of the usual stimulus, and thoughtlessly deemed that health demanded a substitute. But the appetite was morbid and artificial; and true wisdom, instead of gratifying it with opium, tobacco, tea or

They have left unstained what there they found; coffee, would dictate the entire disuse of every unFreedom to worship God.

DIETETIC REFORM.

BY JAMES SELLERS, JR.

create most of the endless stir around us."

evident.

natural stimulant. The castor has supplanted the decanter, and is faithfully nursing an appetite which may gather such strength of importunity, that men shall forget their vows and fall back to their low estate of sensuality. Individual reform does not pause. If we cease to progress, we are gradually swept back by a strong current of animality to that abyss from which we have emerged. How important, then, is the relinquishment of those fiery condiments which foster every animal passion of our nature, and disturb the equable manifestation of the loftiest sentiments of the human soul.

“A few nerves hardly visible on the surface of the tongue, DR. W. E. CHANNING. It is not essential to our view of this subject, that we consider the perfection of the physical frame the sole object of life. Either they who discard the idea that soul and body are separate entities, or they who look upon the outward man as the mere taber- It cannot be expected that any partial reform shall nacle of the spirit, must upon proper scrutiny admit secure to us that exemption from the appeals of our the superior claims of this reform, or call in question lower nature which is the gift only of perfect obetruths which they have been wont to style self-dience. Subserviency to one appetite perpetually endangers the freedom of the noblest soul. The Science and general truth through all their stages sword of the warrior will not be sheathed before the of development have tended to confirm the intuitive-knife of the butcher: and men who look complaly-perceived fact of intimate relationship and de-cently upon the death-struggle of the lamb or the ox pendence between body and mind. And now, when will scarcely shrink from the gallows, or the murthe particular branches of Physiology, Anatomy, derous scenes of war. In the refined circles of sociand Phrenology are enveloped in clustering revela-ety how many freely partake of that flesh whose tions of the same great truth, the importance of the subject under consideration is becoming more distinct. Then as a mere instrument for superior mental conception and labor, the physical frame should be regulated with an eye to the highest degree of purity and perfection.

hideousness the cook has partially concealed; and
yet did necessity impose upon them the slaughter
and preparation of the carcase, would well nigh faint
at the bare thought of the task.
To such we sug-
gest that what we do by another is essentially the
act of our own hands-that the blade of the carving-
knife is dyed as deeply as that which opens the
vein of the struggling victim. It is said, by sensi-
tive ones, to be vulgar and indelicate to mention these
things. So said the slave-holder when reminded of
his lust and concubinage. But the true soul shrinks
not from the utterance of truth, however it may jar
upon the sensual ear. If the social arrangements
are such that we cannot see the work of our own
hands, some friendly arm is needed to withdraw the
veil which shrouds the action from the actor. In-
tellect recedes before the fattened herd, and morali-
ty grows faint beside the meat-block, while human

Yet, however evident this fact may be to the enquiring mind, few as yet have felt and acknowledged the defects of the present dietetic habits of the race. With all the apparent ignorance which prevails upon this vital matter, it is a little singular that the presentation of truth concerning it, almost invariably awakens at least a partial response in the breast of the hearer. Thus when the standard of abstinence from alcohol was reared in this wine-bibbing nation, despite the fact of its enthronement upon the dining table, the sideboard, in the dancing saloon, the select meeting, and even on the altar of the Church, the wine-cup was felt to be the den of a serpent as dead-sympathy sickens and dies upon the threshhold of ly in its sting, as sly in its approaches; and the the slaughter-house. How vain then will be our faithful note of warning from the earnest advocate appeals on behalf of defenceless humanity, when the of this cause, seemed to fall upon ears not entirely earth is deluged with the blood of the innocent vicinsensible to the presence of danger. The same re-tims of our lust and sensuality. To the purified mark is true of the kindred but more prevalent draughts of tea and coffee. These dishes daily steam upon the table of the veteran tee-totaler. And the Washingtonian, dealing his resistless blows upon the hydra-head of alcohol, fails to observe the double

palate it is a source of surprise that men do not turn from the revolting diet of animal flesh and secretions, to the sweet feast of fruits and grains, which Nature has lavished upon her great board around which we are all permitted to gather. What!—says

the high-liver-would you cut us off from the gener- | mass from a state of perpetual delving to one of comous pleasures of the table? Alas! he is indeed a parative leisure and freedom from toil. short-sighted epicure who lives to eat. Only he who takes his unleavened cake to keep warm the blood in his veins, knows ought of table-pleasures in their largest sense. His is an appetite that never palls-a debauch followed by no morning aches, and bringing no ghosts of misspent hours and squandered funds.

LETTER FROM C. C. BURLEIGH

To an Anti-Slavery Convention, for Eastern Pennsylvania, held at Norristown, Eig ith-n.on h 1, 1842.

importunate appeals, may reach the hearts and awak en the consciences of all. Douglas, as a living witness of the secrets of slavery's prison house, may speak that he doth know, and testify that he hath seen of its cruelties and abominations. He may reveal the foul hypocrisy and daring blasphemy of its priestly defenders; may show in his sarcastic imi. |tations, how, with sanctimonious looks and whining tones of pretended piety, they impiously charge upon God the making of one man to be a slave, and another to be a slave owner; and how, with cool effrontery, pointing to those physical and mental differences which slavery, and its hard toil and enforced ignorance on the one hand, and slaveholding luxury and pride on the other, have wrought, they call them tokens of His design, that one should serve and the other command; proofs of His wisdom and goodness in fitting each for the lot assigned him. And the tried old veteran, with his undimmed eye and unabated natural strength, his resolute look, and calm, determined manner, before which the blustering kidnapper and the self-important oppressor have so often quailed :—with his tales of oppression baffled, and freedom gained by many a flying bondman; with the scars of a hundred battles, and the wreaths of a hundred victories, in this glorious warfare; with his example of a half a century's active service in the holy cause, and his still faithful adherence to it through evil as well as good re

MONTPELIER, Seventh-month 28, 1842. Though, as you are well aware, I cannot be with you in person at your grand gathering in Norristown next week, yet neither can I consent to be wholly absent. Fain would I, that you and all my beloved fellow-laborers there assembled, should think of me not as now a stranger or a foreigner;-as one removed from among you, and belonging to another scene of action. Let me still be counted as one of you. Let my place be kept for me, as if I had but stepped aside for a moment, soon to be in it again. It is hardly needful to assure you that I shall be with you in spirit, and that, separated as we are for a time, I still feel a lively interest in whatever concerns our common cause, in that-so long my own-field of labor. So long! nay, still my own; for so I regard it, and look forward with glad anticipation to the time, as not far distant, when we shall be once more together; and, shoulder to shoulder in the same rank of the anti-slavery host, press forward in the arduous struggle wherein you have so often aided and cheered me on. My heart is with you now, and words cannot speak the joy it would give me to be at your meeting, to celebrate with you the glorious jubilee of the West India slave; to plan with you the future toils which are to win a still more glori-port, and in the face of opposition as bitter as sectaous jubilee for the captives of our own land; to kindle anew each other's zeal, infuse into each other's souls fresh energy and resolution, re-nerving them for the conflicts we have yet to meet; and once more unite with you in solemnly pledging to the cause, our time, our strength, our talents, our substance, and whatsoever it be wherewith the Lord our God has blessed us," as means for being co-workers with him in delivering the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor.

I know you need not my admonition, to remind you of your duty, nor my voice to arouse you to do it, nor my words of cheer to encourage you onward in the good work. Nor is it only because others will be there to stir you up to action, that you need no word from me. Not merely because Collins will be with you, and Douglas-a brand plucked from the burning-and the veteran Hopper. That these are to be present I am glad to hear. That they will help to pour into your souls new life, and awaken new activity, and animate you with a more devoted spirit of self-denial, and quicken your zeal and inspire you with a greater energy and perseverance, I rejoice to believe. Collins, with his vehement and scorching rebukes, may make pro-slavery writhe, may startle the indifferent, and goad the indolent to action; with his spirit-kindling battle-cry may give increased alacrity to those who have risen and girded them for the moral fight; and with his earnest,

|

rian bigotry can stir up-may show that persecution cannot bow the head which seventy winters could not blanch, nor the terror of excommunication chill the heart in which age could not freeze the kindly flow of warm philanthropy. But it was not the remembrance of these which led me to say you need no voice of mine to summon you to duty. The voice which calls you is louder than ever swelled up from human lips. It is pouring ever its thrilling tones into your ears, and into your souls-from the cotton field, from the rice swamp, from the sugar plantation, from the man-market of your nation's capital, from the desolate huts of the bereaved-bereaved by a stroke more terrible than death,-from the slaveship's hold, and from the dusty highway, where chained coffles drag wearily along their mournful march. It speaks in the clank of fetters, the crack of brandished whips, and the harsh words and angry oaths of drivers and overseers. It rings out from the auction hammer as it falls to sunder human hearts, and is heard in the auctioneer's call, "who bids" for imbruted manhood. All sounds of wo blend in that mighty voice;-all sighs of sorrow heaved by broken hearts; all cries of anguish in its many notes, from the infant's scream and mother's piercing shriek, as they are rudely torn apart, to that deep groan which speaks the strong man's agony at the loss of loved ones dearer than his life; whatever tells the still night air and the watching stars of

66

swells up from the freed Antilles," like the roar of pent-up seas bursting their rocky barriers; and tells a nation joy at the returning aniversary of its emancipation? What is it but another tone of that same voice, which bids you for very shame to suffer no longer in quiet "the free United States to cherish the slavery which a king has abolished?"What are the taunts flung at you from beyond the waters; from crowned despots and their minions, scorning a slaveholding republicanism; from pagans at their idol shrines, sneering at a heathenizing

unceasing voice, which will still roar, and shriek, and groan, and sigh, and wail, and entreat, and accuse, and condemn, till your brother's blood no longer gives it its startling tones and unearthly power? The earth which drunk that blood-which drinks it still, warm-dripping from the lash-sends up continually its accusing cry to heaven, The heaven which looked on with astonishment, hurls back its response from the black thunder-cloud, and writes it with quivering lightnings all over its broad expanse. The rivers, discolored with the crimson stain, sweep oceanward with indignant rush, pouring out their complaints in every ripple of the current as they dash along. The ocean flings them back with its loud voice of many waters, as his foam-crested bil

griefs which may not be spoken in the ear of man | not unmingled with tones of sorrow and accents of lest falling lashes should smother their attempted earnest entreaty, which urge us, if we can do no utterance; all tones of wild despair, all muttered more, at least to cast up a safe highway from the curses and half breathed prayers to God for ven- land of republican bondage to the home of freedom geance; every low whisper, passing round dark cir- under a monarch's protecting rule. And what tucles of midnight plotters in the forest's gloom, ri-multuous acclaim, even while you are yet assembled, pening their schemes of flight, or bloody retribution; all aspirations of that hope which gives the fugitive strength to his toil-worn limbs, courage to his fainting soul, speed to his flying steps; the stealthy foot-fall through slumbering villages or towns at midnight, and the rustle of dry leaves in solitary wood-paths; the bloodhound's bay, the rifle's sharp crack, and whizzing of the ball, the shout of savage exultation which hails its deadly aim, the bubbling rush of its victim's life stream from the fatal wound; all mingle in the ceaseless cry which bids you up to the rescue." In the lament, too, of Christianity? What, but variations of the same darkened minds and benighted souls, chained in ignorance by statute prohibitions, and doomed to heathenism by the usages of a Christain people, you hear the emphatic call for help. The enslaved consciences of millions, clanking their spiritual shackles, and demanding a release from their galling weight, appeal to your consciences, making them your accusers if you put forth no effort for their disenthralment. Sounds not that appeal in your ears like the death groan of starving souls, perishing for lack of that bread of life which should nourish them? The whole South land is lifting up its voice; not from living things alone, but the very stones are crying out of the walls of its dilapidated mansions and deserted sanctuaries, "wo to him that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city with ini-lows tumble in upon the trembling shore. And He quity;" and the beam out of the timber is answering them, accusing slavery of their too early decay and ruin; and calling on you as sharers in the common interest of the whole country, to drive out the abomination which maketh desolate, and bring in that builder of old waste places, that upraiser of the foundations of many generations, free industry. The once fruitful fields, now slavery-cursed with barrenness; the pine woods over-growing olden cultivations and echoing in their gloomy depths the howl of wolves returned after the lapse of a century," send up their call with all the earnestness of dying prosperity gasping hard for breath, and praying for renewed life. Nor from the South alone rises up the call to anti-slavery effort. From many a flying captive, wandering over the wide north, seeking shelter in the shadow of our liberty tree on our boasted free soil, and finding that the hand of "com promise" has pruned away its branches, till oppression's sun-stroke can smite him even here, and wither his blooming hopes; is pealing out a call for protection and deliverance;

"While from the dark Canadian woods,
The loud reply comes thundering out,
Above Niagara's boiling floods,

The rescued bondman's triumph shout;"

that sitteth on the circle of the heavens, that spread abroad the earth and stretched the clouds above it like the curtains of a tent, and channelled it with river courses, and scooped out the hollows for the seas, that makes them all the instruments of his will, when, by terrible things in righteousness, he would vindicate the honor of his violated laws, and avenge the cause of the helpless and injured poor, he is shaping into articulate sounds those thunders above, and that voice of the waters below, and, as it were, bending those lightning flashes into forms and characters which may be read-pealing upon your ears with the one, and blazing upon your dazzling eyes with the other, Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings." And I rejoice to know that you are not utterly unheedful of the call, but have banded yourselves together to work, by your united zeal and energy, the required deliverance; not by retaliating upon the evil-doer the evil he has done; not by washing out with his blood the blood-stain with which he has polluted the land; not by "phy sical resistance, the marshalling in arms, the hostile

encounter;" but by the opposition of moral puri- | shields him from the perils he must else have braved

by such a course? could he even have attempted it? If his labors are producing abundant fruit, it is because yours have broken and mellowed to some degree the soil, and diffused a more genial temperature throughout the moral atmosphere.

But I meant not to speak so long of what has been. It behooves us, rather, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before, to press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling. The little which has been done, may be hastily glanced at now and then, as encouragement to new exertion, but must not be dwelt upon as if it were the fulfilment of our duty; must not be permitted to hide from our eyes the vastly more which yet lies unaccomplished before And with you I am confident it will not. You have not just put on the harness of this Christian warfare, to boast yourseves as he that putteth it off, after the battle has been fought and the victory won.

us.

*

There is another subject on which my mind has dwelt much, and which I hope will claim some share of your attention. I mean the duty toward our brethern flying from oppression, which grows out of the recent decision of the Supreme Court.That we are verily guilty concerning our brother, so long as we consent to aid in re-enslaving him if he attempts to escape-so long as we leave unused any rightful means in our power to assist his self-deliv

ty to moral corruption, the destruction of error by the potency of truth, the overthrow of prejudice by the power of love, the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance:" thus conferring a blessing at once upon the oppressor and his victim. Not in vain have you enlisted in this holy war; holy, no less because of its weapons, than of its objects. Not in vain have you devoted your strength to this labor of love, spending it for the good of those from whom you look for no recompense. Not in vain have you encountered reproach and persecution-braved the wrath of the mob, suffered the loss of property by the outbreaks of lawless violence, endured personal indignities, and faced personal dangers. Not in vain, even if you could as yet see no fruits of your labor, so far as its direct purpose is concerned; even if no fetter had yet been broken, no blessing of them that were ready to perish, but are now set in safety from the reach of the destroyer, had yet come upon you. Your own consciousness bears witness that he, in whose service you are engaged, is no exactor of unrequited toil; that he does not even wait the finishing of the day's work, before he begins the payment of its wages. You have tasted the reward in the inward peace which obedience has produced; in the sweet satisfaction which flows from the exercise of kindly emotions, and the sacrifice of present personal indulgence and ease to the toils of benevolence, and in the pleasures of social intercouse, and a feeling of brotherly union in a common cause, height-erance, I need not so say to such an assembly as ened by the consideration of the nobleness of that cause; purified by the disinterestedness of that feeling. But this has not been your only reward. You have seen the work of the Lord prospering in your hands. He who sows the seed expects to wait long and patiently for the harvest, before its waving wealth shall cover the furrows, or its ripened sheaves shall crowd the barns. Yet, in your case the reaper seems already treading on the sower's heel, and the harvest of the last sown furrow supplies the seed for the next. A Birney, a Nelson, a Brisbane, and a Thome, are not the only trophies of past success, nor the only auxiliaries of future effort. Not the converted slaveholder alone, but the liberated slave also, is at once the witness of what has been done, and the helper in what is yet to do. Where, but for your efforts, would have been some of the voices which are now pleading, with the earnest eloquence of simple nature, for the deliverance of the enslaved, and moving the whole land with their strong appeals? To name no other-would Douglas be now rousing the country to a state of healthy agitation; would he be going from city to city, and town to town, and village to village, with his story of the captive's wrongs; awakening sympathy, enkindling zeal, and enlisting effort-if northern abolitionists had not prepared the public mind to receive him, and formed a public sentiment which

this letter is designed for. But what ought we to do, what can we do with the most effect, for the attainment of our fixed purpose? That we will never lift a finger to help the kidnapper, however strong the authority of statute, or constitution, or judicial decision with which he is clothed, I take for granted is our unanimous, undisguised determination. That we will do our best, by all means which the moral law condemns not, to baffle him and save the prey from his talons, I trust we are equally well agreed on, and equally open in avowing. Now, as we have the highest judicial authority of the nation for the doctrine that the federal government cannot require State officers to enforce its decrees, and that the several States may forbid all giving of aid by their official agents, to the re-capture of fugitive slaves, it seems to me that every free State owes it to its own character, to justice, to humanity, to pass an act at the earliest possible opportunity, imposing such prohibition; and that abolitionists everywhere ought to bestir themselves in this matter, and by pe. titions, and their personal influence, where they have any, with their representatives, and by whatever means are proper and lawful, endeavor to bring about so desirable an end. The South should be made to know that we are not only determined to hinder, as far as we can, her attempts to make effective for injustice a compromise which ought never to have