"In my opinion, while the Union continues to be thus a curse it will be indissoluble; if it ever ceases to be a curse, it will be converted into a blessing. * * * * * "What possible reason have you to expect that those in church and state who have surrendered their consciences to the seductions of the Union will listen to your call and aid you in breaking a power which they glory in saving? While I believe you are doomed to disappointment, I nevertheless rejoice in every exposure of the demoralizing influence of the Union. I rejoice in such exposure, not as tending to bring about dissolution, but to render it unnecessary. When the people of the North cease to idolize the Union, they will cease to offer on its altar their rights and their duties. When released from their thraldom to the Slave Power, they will cease to place its minions in office. When no longer covetous of the votes and the trade of the South, they will no longer be bullied into all manner of wretchedness and all manner of insult by the idea and ever-repeated threats of dissolution. But when this happy time arrives, the Union will be converted from a curse into a blessing. Our divines, instead of vindicating cruelty and oppression, and denouncing as fanatics those who consider the will of God a higher law than an accursed act of Congress, will become preachers of righteousness. Democrats, seeing the Federal patronage wielded by the opponents of slavery, will, in the rapidity and extent of their conversion to truth and justice, eclipse all the marvels of New England revivals; and men who for years have been bowed to the earth by spinal weakness will as by miracle stand erect. When all this happens, the North will continue its Union with the South; and you yourselves will have no wish to see that Union severed. "At the close of the war, Washington, solicitous that the divine favour might rest on the new-born nation, publicly offered the prayer that God would dispose us all to do justice and love mercy. May the Union, when exerting an influence in accordance with this prayer, be indissoluble; but may God forbid that it may ever be saved by promoting, extending, and perpetuating injustice and cruelty, by invoking the wrath of Heaven, and becoming a proverb and a reproach among the nations of the earth." CHAPTER VIII. DEATH OF JUDGE JAY.--HIS POSITION AMONG ANTISLAVERY MEN.--HIS OTHER PUBLIC AND PHILANTHROPIC INTERESTS.--HIS PRIVATE LIFE.--HIS CHARACTER. Judge Jay was not destined to live to see the triumph of the antislavery cause and of the constitutional principles to which he had devoted his life. Several years of failing health preceded his death, which took place at Bedford, October the 14th, 1858.