Oh, my
friend, when I think of what has been done these last few years, and
of what is now doing, I am lost in amazement. I have just, by way of
realizing it to myself, been reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin" again, and
when I read that book, scarred and seared and burned into with the
memories of an anguish and horror that can never be forgotten, and
think it is all over now, all past, and that now the questions debated
are simply of more or less time before granting legal suffrage to
those who so lately were held only as articles of merchandise,--when
this comes over me I think no private or individual sorrow can ever
make me wholly without comfort. If my faith in God's presence and
real, living power in the affairs of men ever grows dim, this makes it
impossible to doubt.
I have just had a sweet and lovely Christian letter from Garrison,
whose beautiful composure and thankfulness in his hour of victory are
as remarkable as his wonderful courage in the day of moral battle. His
note ends with the words, "And who but God is to be glorified?"
Garrison's attitude is far more exalted than that of Wendell Phillips.
He acknowledges the great deed done. He suspends his "Liberator" with
words of devout thanksgiving, and devotes himself unobtrusively to the
work yet to be accomplished for the freedmen; while Phillips seems
resolved to ignore the mighty work that has been done, because of the
inevitable shortcomings and imperfections that beset it still.
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