sustained by outside opinion, and many friends of the Gospel joined with
it in deploring the pusillanimity which yielded to the menaces of the
South. A crisis thence arose, which has not yet reached its height, and
the first fruits of which have been the foundation of a rival society in
Boston, to which adherents are gathering from all sides.

These are grave events, for they manifest the inmost revolutions of the
human soul. Would you know what will take place in political societies?
Begin by informing yourself about what is taking place in the
consciences of the public. Now it is evident that the public conscience
is in motion in the United States. The vast obstacles by which this
movement was trammelled have been surmounted on every side. I wish no
other proof of this than the deplorable fact of which I have just made
mention: the conduct of the Tract Society, the internal crisis which it
has experienced, the reprobation which it encounters, in Europe as in
America. Are not these palpable proofs of the too little known truth
that the great moral force which is struggling with American slavery is
the Gospel?

And how could it be otherwise? If we had not positive facts before our
eyes, if we did not know that one entire sect of Christians, the
Quakers, have devoted themselves, body and goods, to the service of poor
fugitive slaves, if we did not recognize the deep Puritan imprint in the
movement which has colonized Kansas, and in that which has borne Mr.
Lincoln to the presidency, should we not be forced to ask ourselves
whether it is possible that the Gospel remains a stranger to a struggle
undertaken for liberty? There exist, thank God, between liberty and the
Gospel, close, eternal, and indestructible relations. I know of one
species of freedom which contains the germ of all the rest--freedom of
soul; now what was it, if not the Gospel, that introduced this freedom