Ministers undoubtedly sometimes greatly injure their usefulness by their harshness of expression, and the want of a kind and conciliatory address. The abolition enterprise is often said to be “the cause of God,” and a “holy cause.” If so, it ought surely to be defended and sustained by “spiritual,” and not “carnal weapons.” And some of the advocates of the cause deeply feel this. William Ladd, the distinguished Advocate of Peace, in a letter addressed some months since to an Anti-slavery Meeting in Portsmouth, which he was invited to attend, says, “If I were present among you, I should say--let every thing be done in LOVE, not only to the poor down-trodden slave, but to his oppressor, and to the slaves of prejudice, ‘forbearing threatening.’ The chains of the slave may be melted off by the fire of love, but they cannot be severed by the sledge hammer of violence.” Many abolitionists, instead of manifesting the meek, mild and forbearing spirit of Him who, “when he was reviled not again,” have too often displayed the spirit of party politicians. But even some of the politicians of the day seem to be convinced of the impropriety of treating opponents with rudeness. After the close of a four weeks’ session of the Legislature of Rhode Island, in 1838, it was said, “Not an angry or offensive personality has been uttered by any member.” At an editorial convention held last season at Columbus, Ohio, the following resolutions were passed: _Resolved_, That in the opinion of this Convention, there is one plain standard of editorial propriety from which no man ought to depart, i. e. nothing should be esteemed justifiable in editorial intercourse, which would be clearly condemned in the intercourse of private gentlemen. And, therefore _Resolved_, That in the opinion of this Convention, in all editorial discussions concerning politics and other subjects of public disputation, all opprobrious epithets, offensive personal allusions, and harsh attacks on private reputation, ought to be carefully avoided. These testimonies are surely amply sufficient to show the impropriety of the course which I have disapproved, in the estimation of respectable, and wise, and good men. But I will add one more. Said an eminent missionary among the heathen, “Until a minister feels as our Saviour did on his last return to Jerusalem, when he wept as he said, ‘O that thou hadst known,’ &c., he is not in a fit state of mind to repeat a single denunciation from his master’s lips.”