Thou sayest that the propriety of woman’s coming forward as a suppliant for a portion of her sex who are bound in cruel bondage, depends entirely on its _probable results_. I thought the disciples of Jesus were to walk by _faith_, _not_ by sight. Did Abraham reason as to the _probable results_ of his offering up Isaac? No! or he could not have raised his hand against the life of his son; because in Isaac, he had been told, his seed should be called,--that seed in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. O! when shall we learn that God is wiser than man--that his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts than our thoughts--and that ‘obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams?’ If we are always to _reason_ on the _probable results_ of performing our duty, I wonder what our Master meant by telling his disciples, that they must become like _little children_. I used to think he designed to inculcate the necessity of walking by faith, in childlike simplicity, docility and humility. But if we are to _reason_ as to the _probable results_ of obeying the injunctions to plead for the widow and the fatherless, and to deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, &c., then I do not know what he meant to teach. According to what thou sayest, the women of this country are not to be governed by principles of duty, but by the effect their petitions produce on the members of Congress, and by the opinions of these men. If they deem them ‘obtrusive, indecorous, and unwise,’ they must not be sent. If _thou_ canst consent to exchange the precepts of the Bible for the opinions of _such a body of men_ as now sit on the destinies of this nation, I cannot. What is this but _obeying man_ rather than God, and seeking the _praise of man_ rather than of God? As to our petitions increasing the evils of slavery, this is merely an opinion, the correctness or incorrectness of which remains to be proved. When I hear Senator Preston of South Carolina, saying, that ‘he regarded the concerted movement upon the District of Columbia as an attempt to storm the gates of the citadel--as throwing the bridge over the moat’--and declaring that ‘the South must resist the _danger_ in its inception, or it would _soon become irresistible_‘--I feel confident that petitions will effect the work of emancipation, _thy_ opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. And when I hear Francis W. Pickens, from the same State, saying in a speech delivered in Congress--‘Mr. Speaker, we cannot mistake all these things. The truth is, the moral power of the world is against us. It is idle to disguise it. We must, sooner or later, meet the great issue that is to be made on this subject. Deeply connected with this, is the movement to be made on the District of Columbia. If the power be asserted in Congress to interfere here, or any approach be made toward that end, _it will give a shock to our institutions_ and the country, the consequences of which no man can