In what has preceded, we have endeavored to give a faint but true picture of slaveholding as it most generally exists. Though we have purposely left unmentioned many wrongs, we have abundantly supported our conclusion. If, as we have seen, every slave, as a man, has a natural, God-given right to be left free to seek after wisdom, to strive to become pure in heart, to cherish his affections, it is a great wrong deliberately and carefully to close against him all the avenues to knowledge, to refuse him even the rudiments imparted to the child that clings to our knees, to refuse him all moral and religious instruction, or give him such only as is calculated to make him contented with his lot, and more profitable to his oppressors. It is a great wrong--who can conceive a greater?--to deny to a whole race the sacredness of marriage, the blessings of home, the joys of brother and sister, of father and mother, and all the refining, ennobling influences of these relations. It is a great wrong, none can conceive a greater, than to trade in the bodies of men, to higgle in the market-place about the price of our brother, to traffic in our sister's flesh and bones as merchandise. Slaveholding, as it most generally exists, darkens the mind, deadens the soul, and brutalizes the affections, of its victims. It is carefully planned and deliberately executed murder of the soul. No human heart exists, unwarped by self-interest, that does not respond to the poor slave's call for help. We need no new revelation from Heaven, we need no book to tell us, that it would be wrong for any one to darken _our_ minds, to deaden _our_ souls, to brutalize _our_ affections. No more do we need, a new revelation from Heaven to convince us, that all men are brethren; that the slave who toils on the Louisiana plantation is no less our neighbor than the friend whom we have known and loved from boyhood; and that we should love the slaves as ourselves, not with that barren love which consists in saving their souls by imparting to them a still more barren creed, but that love which never wearies, and which sacrifices its own for another's good. CHAPTER X. SLAVEHOLDING ALWAYS WRONG. "No seeming of logic can ever convince the American people, that thousands of our slaveholding brethren are not excellent, humane, and even Christian men, fearing God, and keeping his commandments."--_Rev. Dr. Joel Parker._ It remains for us to consider the special cases in which slaveholding is thought by many to be right. All slaveholders are not actors in the cruel system which we have just described. There are in the Southern States, we are ready to believe, thousands who disregard the laws, who treat their slaves as humanely as is possible, who cultivate to a considerable extent their mental and moral faculties, and who would unite with us in condemning the barbarities we have been considering.