This text is part of:
[269]
and cruel deed.
He could devise no means to rescue the sufferer; and with an aching heart he was compelled to see him carried off into slavery, without being able to offer any other solace than an affectionate farewell.
The conduct of this base hypocrite proved that the warning presentiment against him had not been without foundation.
Grieved and indignant at the wrong he had done to a helpless and unoffending fellow-creature, Friend Hopper wrote to him as follows: ‘Yesterday, I visited the poor old man in prison, whom thou hast so perfidiously betrayed.
Gloomy and hopeless as his case is, I would prefer it to thine.
Thou hast received fifty dollars as the reward of thy treachery; but what good can it do thee?
Canst thou lay down thy head at night, without feeling the sharp goadings of a guilty conscience?
Canst thou ask forgiveness of thy sins of our Heavenly Father, whom thou hast so grievously insulted by thy hypocrisy?
Judas betrayed his master for thirty pieces of silver, and afterward hung himself.
Thou hast betrayed thy brother for fifty; and if thy conscience is not seared, as with hot iron, thy compunction must be great.
I feel no disposition to upbraid thee.
I have no doubt thy own heart does that sufficiently; for our beneficent Creator will not suffer any to be at ease in their sins.
Thy friend, I. T. H.’
The worthy old Quaker in New-Jersey was not
Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.