In the first place I will state, that I entertain very different views _now_, to what I did six months ago. I was among those who thought (and honestly too) that there was no more moral guilt attached to the holding our fellow beings in bondage, regarding them as property, than to the holding of a mule or an ox. It was natural enough for me to think so, for I had been trained from my very infancy to view the subject in no other light. I shall never forget my feelings when the subject was first hit upon in the Evangelist. I became angry, and was disposed to attribute sinister motives to all who were concerned in the matter. With some others, I determined to stop the paper forthwith. Though I made every effort to turn my mind away from the subject, my conscience in spite of me began to awake, and to be troubled. The word of God was resorted to, with the hope of finding something to bring peace and quietude, but all in vain. It was but adding fuel to the flame. I determined, let others do as they would, to meet the subject, to examine it in all its bearings, and to abide the result; and if it should be found that God regards slavery as an evil, and incompatible with the gospel, I would give it up. If not, I should be made wiser without incurring any harm by the investigation. In the very nature of God’s dealings with men, this subject must and will be agitated, until conviction shall be brought home to the heart and conscience of every man, and _slavery shall be banished from our land_. And woe be to him who wilfully closes his eyes, and stops his ears against the light of God’s truth.’ In 8th month of the same year, the same paper contained the following extract from another correspondent in North Carolina. ---- N. C. JULY 9, 1834. ‘Rev. and dear Sir--If I owe an apology for intruding on you, and introducing myself, I must find it in the fact, that I wish to bid you God speed in the good cause in which you are so heartily engaged. While so many at the North are opposing, I wish to cheer you by one voice from the South. If it is unpopular to plead the cause of the oppressed negro in New York, how dangerous to be known as his friend in the far South, where, as a correspondent in the Evangelist justly observes, a minister cannot enforce the law of love, without being suspected of favoring emancipation. I am glad the people with you are beginning to feel and to act. I pray God that you may go on with all the light and love of the gospel, and that the cry of ‘Let us alone,’ will not frighten you from your labor of love.’ James A. Thome, a Presbyterian clergyman, a native, and still a resident of Kentucky, said in a speech at New York, at the Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1834: