When men's minds are in this state, they are like the glass toy called a Rupert's bubble. A single scratch on the surface causes it to fly in pieces. The scratch on the surface of the slave system which caused it to rush into secession and civil war was the attempt of John Brown on Harper's Ferry. It seemed a trifle, but it indicated a great deal. It was the first drop of a coming storm. When one man was able to lay down his life, in a conflict with their system, with such courage and nobleness, in a cause not his own, a shudder ran through the whole South. To what might this grow? And so they said, "Let us cut ourselves wholly off from these dreadful fanaticisms, from these terrible dangers. Let us make a community of our own, and shut out from it entirely all antislavery opinion, and live only with those who think as we do." And so came the end. In reviewing Mr. Wilson's work, we have thus seen how it describes the gradual and simultaneous growth in the United States of two hostile powers,--one political, the other moral. The one continued to accumulate the outward forces which belong to the organization; the other, the inward forces which are associated with enthusiasm. The one added continually to its external strength by the passage of new laws, the addition of new territory, the more absolute control of parties, government, courts, the press, and the street. The other increased its power by accumulating an intenser conviction, a clearer knowledge, a firmer faith, and a more devoted consecration to its cause. The weapons of the one were force, adroitness, and worldly interest; those of the other, faith in God, in man, and in truth. Great truths draw to their side noble auxiliaries. So it was with the antislavery movement. The heroism, the romance, the eloquence, the best literature, the grandest forms of religion, the most generous and purest characters,--all were brought to it by a sure affinity. As Wordsworth said to Toussaint l'Ouverture, so it might be declared here:-- "Thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exaltations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind."