Farewell for the present. I remain thy friend, A. E. GRIMKÉ. LETTER V. CHRISTIAN CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. NEWBURYPORT, _7th mo. 8th, 1837_. DEAR FRIEND: As an Abolitionist, I thank thee for the portrait thou hast drawn of the character of those with whom I am associated. They deserve all thou hast said in their favor; and I will now endeavor to vindicate those ‘men of pure morals, of great honesty of purpose, of real benevolence and piety,’ from some objections thou hast urged against their measures. ‘Much evidence,’ thou sayest, ‘can be brought to prove that the character and measures of the Abolition Society are not either peaceful or christian in tendency, but that they are in their nature calculated to generate party spirit, denunciation, recrimination, and angry passion.’ Now I solemnly ask thee, whether the character and measures of our holy Redeemer did not produce exactly the same effects? Why did the Jews lead him to the brow of the hill, that they might cast him down headlong; why did they go about to kill him; why did they seek to lay hands on him, if the tendency of _his_ measures was so very _pacific_? Listen, too, to his own declaration: ‘I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword;’ the effects of which, he expressly said, would be to set the mother against her daughter, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. The rebukes which he uttered against sin were eminently calculated to produce ‘recriminations and angry passions,’ in all who were determined to _cleave_ to their sins; and they did produce them even against ‘him who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.’ He was called a wine-bibber, and a glutton, and Beelzebub, and was accused of casting out devils by the prince of the devils. Why, then, protest against our measures as _unchristian_, because they do not smooth the pillow of the poor sinner, and lull his conscience into fatal security? The truth is, the efforts of abolitionists have stirred up the _very same spirit_ which the efforts of _all thorough-going_ reformers have ever done; we consider it a certain proof that the truths we utter are sharper than any two edged sword, and that they are doing the work of conviction in the hearts of our enemies. If it be not so, I have greatly mistaken the character of Christianity. I consider it pre-eminently aggressive; it waits not to be assaulted, but moves on in all the majesty of Truth to _attack_ the strong holds of the kingdom of darkness, carries the war into the enemy’s camp, and throws its fiery darts into the midst of its embattled hosts. Thou seemest to think, on the contrary, that Christianity is just such a weak, dependent, puerile creature as thou hast described woman to be. In my opinion, thou hast robbed both the one and the other of all their true dignity and glory.