“But I am not in favor of stealing Africans from their native land to bring them here, even though it were certain that the majority of them would be converted to God.  We are not to do evil that good may come.  If Providence makes it plain that tribes of them shall be removed to new districts of our country, suitable measures can and will be devised for that purpose.  That they are better off here, even in slavery, than in their own land, under present circumstances, I do not see how any one can question; but that does not justify man-stealing.  I remember to have seen a letter from a Missionary in Africa, in which he says, speaking of the slaves and of the South, ’Would that all Africa were there; would that tribes of this unhappy people could be transferred to the privileges which the slaves at the South enjoy.  I would rather take my chance of a good or bad master, and be a slave at the South, than be as one of these heathen people.  In saying this, I refer both to this world and the next’.  I need not say, he is an enemy to the slave-trade.

“A missionary who had spent much time among the Zulu people, was appealed to by a zealous anti-slavery person to commiserate our slaves as being so much worse off than the Zulus.  ‘Madam,’ said he, ’if our Zulus were in the condition of your slaves, eternity would not be long enough to give thanks.’

“Mrs. North,” said I, “you will not impute it to mere gallantry when I appeal to you if we may not generally measure the refinement and elevation of society by the position of woman, and by the sentiments and manners of the other sex with regard to yours.  The deference, the delicate attentions, the gentleness, the refinement of behavior, in word and act, which you inspire, are both the means and the evidence of the highest cultivation.  In public and in private life, in assemblies, public conveyances, at table, around the evening lamp, in all the intercourse of the family, the susceptibility of impression, the restraints and the chastised utterances, in word and action, of husbands, fathers, brothers and friends, which are due to the presence of woman, are a correct gauge of civilization and refinement.”

“All right,” said Mr. North, bowing very politely to his wife.

“Nowhere,” said I, “do we see this more conspicuously than in Southern society.  Chivalry there seems to blend with the genial influences of Christianity, and together they give a tone and manner to Southern life which is peculiar.

“I am often struck with a Southern gentleman’s reverence, here at the North, for the female sex.  He is displeased at seeing daughters serving at table in boarding-houses kept by their worthy parents or widowed mothers.  We, indeed, respect a young woman who serves us in this manner, (if we reflect at all,) and we resent rudeness or an unfeeling mode of addressing those who are in such situations.  But the Southern gentleman goes further.  He has, perhaps, not been accustomed to see the daughter of