Christian reader, pass not over these facts with a light heart. I beseech you to think upon them as a man and a christian ought. You love home, you esteem family relations the dearest and most sacred upon earth, and you would resist with all your power a tyranny which would invade your own family circle and carry away your children for the exclusive benefit of others. For humanity's sake let your sympathies go out in behalf of the millions of your fellow creatures who are deprived of all the blessings of family and home. Have you not a heart to bleed for those mothers whose children, in tender youth, are ruthlessly torn away from them for no higher object than the pecuniary advantage of their masters? J. G. Whittier, the "slave's poet," represents in mournful strains the Virginia slave mother's lament for her daughters, sold and gone to the far South. Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisesome insect stings, Where the fever demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air,-- Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters,-- Woe is me, my stolen daughters! Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. There no mother's eye is near them, There no mother's ear can hear them; Never, when the torturing lash Seams their back with many a gash, Shall a mother's kindness bless them, Or a mother's arms caress them. Gone, gone, &c. Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. O, when weary, sad, and slow, From the fields at night they go, Faint with toil, and racked with pain, To their cheerless homes again,-- There no brother's voice shall greet them, There no father's welcome meet them. Gone, gone, &c. Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. From the tree whose shadow lay On their childhood's place of play; From the cool spring where they drank; Rock and hill, and rivulet bank; From the solemn house of prayer, And the holy counsels there,-- Gone, gone, &c. Gone, gone, sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone; Toiling through the weary day, And at night the spoiler's prey. O, that they had earlier died, Sleeping calmly, side by side, Where the tyrant's power is o'er, And the fetter galls no more! Gone, gone, &c. Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. By the holy love He beareth, By the bruised reed He spareth, O, may He to whom alone All their cruel wrongs are known Still their hope and refuge prove, With a more than mother's love! Gone, gone, &c. CHAPTER V. Slavery Illustrated--Continued.