"Here," said I, taking a newspaper-slip from my wallet, "is something which fairly made me weep. It is a picture of one of our poor, virtuous, honest New England homes, in which I would rather dwell and suffer, than be an 'oppressor' with my hundreds of slaves, and wealth counted by hundreds of thousands. A slave-holder, blessed be God, is not a synonyme of 'oppressor;' nor are the slaves as a matter of course 'oppressed.' Our people to a great extent think otherwise, and it is useful to see how we appear to others when this error leads us into folly. This little picture in the newspaper-slip gives us a transient look into an abode whose honest poverty and want are made more painful by evil-doing under the influence of fanaticism." I then read to my friends the following from a Southern paper;--I here omit the names which are given in full:-- "The touching letter which was found on the body of ---- ----, one of the insurgents, from his sister in ----, ----, has been published. The following paragraph in that letter is a suggestive one: "'Would you come home if you had the money to come with? Tell me what it would cost. Oh! I would be unspeakably happy if it were in my power to send you money, but we have been very poor this winter. I have not earned a half-dollar this winter. Mattie has had a very good place, where she has had seventy-five cents a week; she has not spent any of it in the family, only a very little for mother. Father has had very small pay, but I think he has more now; he is a watchman on the ---- ----, that runs from here to ----.' "Here, says the Southern editor, is a family, one of thousands of families in New England in similar circumstances, where one daughter thinks it a 'very good place' where she can get seventy-five cents a week; another has not earned a half-dollar during the winter, and all are 'very poor;' yet the son and brother goes off and deserts a mother and sisters thus situated,--a mother and sisters who, though poor, have evidently the most affectionate feelings and tender sensibilities,--for the purpose of liberating a class of people, not one of whom knows anything of the want or privation from which his own family is suffering, or who would not look without contempt upon such remuneration as seemed the height of good fortune to the destitute sisters and mother of this abolitionist. When we bear in mind the intelligence and sensibilities which characterize the wives and daughters of the poorest classes equally with the richest in New England, it is most amazing that men should overlook such misery at their own doors--nay, should forsake their own kith and kin who are suffering under it--the mother who bore them, the sisters who love them with all a sister's tender and solicitous love, and run off to emancipate the fattest, sleekest, most contented and unambitious race under heaven."