[274] South? Having no longer any sins of their own to repent of, there was nothing left for them to do but to repent day and night of the wickedness of the South. There were allevations to this kind of repentence, which reduce its heroic dimensions. It was a vicarious transaction, which eluded altogether the crown of thorns for the angels of repentence, and plaited it exclusively for the brows of those whose sins they ransomed. They repented proudly. One might speculate, as to what might have been the effect upon their trivial task, had Canada possessed the power and disposition to play their part (with the unrestricted right to do so, which resided no longer in the North); had every wind from that further North borne the poisioned arrow of a hate which never slept. Is it the rule for men to be convinced by execration and imprecation? It were a severe tax upon credulity to be expected to believe that the benevolence which referred to slave-holders as ‘blood-hounds,’ and to their community as the ‘small-pox’ seriously desired to convert the sinners so approached. If missionaries thus approach the heathen, their rate of progress is accounted for. This was not the frame of mind wherewith to convert opinion, but was the frame of mind wherewith to persecute opinion.
