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No ruthless band of barbarians from benighted lands have found their way to this Christian domestic sanctuary,–no malignant spirit from below has been here to snatch the only type of Heaven that escaped his grasp six thousand years ago. “Think it not strange,” brother, “concerning this fiery trial as though some strange thing had happened to you.” This is only the legitimate working of the patriarchal system of government under which we live. Be calm,–this is all done according to law, and with as much kindness as the circumstances will permit. No stripes are inflicted, and no more force is exerted than is absolutely necessary to secure the object, and prevent a useless outcry; no ill-will is entertained toward the victims of these outrages,–it is only because the finances of the government are low, and must be replenished, and this is the most convenient, and perhaps at present the only practical, way of raising the money!

Now, my brother, what should you and I think of living under a government where such things were permitted by the laws? It would not reconcile us to the administration to be told, that such proceedings as I have supposed are of rare occurrence, and that the general character of the government is kind, that it dislikes exceedingly to sell its subjects, and especially that it has a great repugnance to separating husbands and wives, and breaking up of families, and does it only when severely pressed by pecuniary necessity. To your and my mind this would be altogether unsatisfactory; it would not change our opinion of the system. No matter if the heart-rending scene I have supposed were witnessed only once a year, or once in ten years,–I think we should loudly protest against a system which allowed the occurrence of it at all.

You will please, my dear sir, apply the foregoing illustration to the liabilities and actual workings of the slave system at the South, just so far as it is applicable, and no further. If there are any points in which the analogy fails, I will thank you to point them out to me in your next.

With much love and esteem,

I remain yours, most truly.

LETTER VI.

SACREDNESS OF THE MARRIAGE RELATION.–GOD ALONE CAN DISSOLVE IT.–THE “HIGHER LAW.”–SLAVERY SANCTIONS POLYGAMY AND ADULTERY.–RELATION OF PARENTS TO THEIR CHILDREN.–FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY ASSUMED.

MY DEAR CHRISTIAN BROTHER,–My objections to any system of government that interferes at will with the family relation, and forcibly separates husbands and wives, parents and children, do not arise chiefly from the personal wrongs and bitter woes inflicted upon its victims. A contemplation of these is calculated to affect our sensibilities, and excite the tender sympathies of our nature; but there is a more enlarged Christian view which forces itself upon us. If we could by some magic process allay the anguish of the stricken heart, and heal its wounds when the strongest ties of nature are rent asunder,–could we even obliterate the susceptibilities of the soul, destroy natural affection, and render man more callous than the brutes, so that he could be torn from his home and kindred with less pain than they,–in a moral point of view the case would be altered but little. As I have remarked in a previous letter, the marriage relation was instituted by God, and he made it indissoluble. “What God hath joined together let not man put asunder,” is the language of “holy writ;” and whoever, for any cause which God himself has not specified, breaks up this relation, encroaches upon God’s prerogative, and goes directly in face of his positive commands. Much has been said of late, seriously, sarcastically, and contemptuously, about a “higher law;” but notwithstanding the improper use often made of that term, there is an important sense in which you, and I, and every Christian recognize what that term implies. If, on any subject whatever, human enactments do obviously conflict with the enactments of God, then God’s law is the ” higher,” and must be obeyed. To deny this is worse than infidelity.