Surrounded as we are by the smoke and dust of the hottest conflict, we must keep all these considerations in mind, if we would avoid perplexity and doubt. Let us, from time to time, survey the field from a higher point of view, and take careful note of the divisions of the battle, and the nature of the ground on which the hosts are encamped. What do we discern, as we ascend the mount of vision and of difficulty? We perceive hatred and malignant opposition occupying the same post as when we first roused them from their apathy. We are ever contending with our old opponents, under new names, and with every change of name and pretext, some whom we have loved and trusted, are “carried away by their dissimulation.”[10] At the beginning, they were “as much Anti-Slavery as any one, but hated Mr. Garrison.” What are they now? Even “more Anti-Slavery than any one, but hate Mr. Garrison.” Through all their various phases of Colonizationists, American Unionists, Clerical Appellants, new organizationists, their moving spirit is the same;--hatred of the freedom that defies their control. Even while professing to be laboring for emancipation, they have always been careful to express their hatred of the _free spirit_ in which abolitionists carry on the enterprize. It must needs be so. There is eternal enmity between the spirit which prompts a man to strive for the mastery, and the spirit which calls no man master. It is an eternal truth, that he who wishes to rule, is unfit to serve. From this point of observation, we may notice not only the timidity and treachery of some, but the touching fidelity of others. A single individual was once exalted by our opponents into a symbol of faithfulness to liberty and humanity. Now, the whole associated host of a State are assailed with slander and contempt for a like fidelity. In this symbolic sense, an association is endowed by the enemies of truth and freedom with a notoriety and importance not its own. In every such case, we have a finger of Providence, pointing out to us the course we should pursue with respect to it. Identifying ourselves with it, we listen for the voices that have been wont to cheer the onset. The soul that is now silent is self-condemned.