London, September 2, 1853.
"For your movement on behalf of the slave, I have profound respect. I assure you of my unfeigned sympathies and of my earnest prayers. In my view, you deserve the high esteem of all who love and serve God. Nothing would be deemed by me a greater honor than co-operation with you actively in your work of faith and your labor of love. With full consent of all that is within me, do I range myself among those who deem American slavery not a sad misfortune, but a heinous crime: a crime all the more heinous, because justified and even perpetrated by men who call themselves the servants of Christ.
"I am, madam, yours respectfully,
(signature) William Brock
The Frugality of Slaveholding.
There is nothing in the universe that can deserve the name or do the work of valid LAW but the commandment and the ordinance of the living God. All human enactments, adjudications and usages not founded on these, are of no legal force, and should be trampled under foot. The practice of slaveholding, for this reason, can never be legalized, and all legislative or judicial attempts to sustain it are rebellion against God, and treason against civil society. To teach otherwise, would be to set up other gods above Jehovah, to promulgate the fundamental principle of atheism, and proclaim war against the liberties of mankind.
