Inexorable Conscience holds his court.
With still, small voice, the plots of guilt alarms,
Bares his masked brow, his lifted hand disarms;
But wrapped in night, with terrors all his own,
He speaks in thunders when the deed is done;
Hear him, ye Senates, hear this truth sublime,—
He who allows oppression shares the crime.”
That night our prayer-meeting—which was no longer secret—was one of the happiest we ever enjoyed. I found that, like myself, all had heard of the proclamation, and we all reverently thanked God for it. Next to me was an old negro who had been taken prisoner in East Tennessee. He had originally been freed by his master, a wealthy Georgian planter. When this son of Africa prayed, he let himself out in all the power and exuberance of his strong but uneducated mind.
“O, good Lord!” cried he, “don’t let off de steam, but put on more steam, O, good Lord! and don’t put on de brakes; but run her right up to de fust of January! And den O, good, blessed Lord, my wife’ll be free! Tank God! glory! Amen! God send down de power! Amen, and amen!”
As this earnest freedman ceased prayer, I thought of my own white countrymen who were fighting to keep the slave enchained: