ALTO, King George’s Co., Va., Nov. 11th, 1859.
Do you read your
Bible, Mrs. Child? If you do, read there, “Woe unto you, hypocrites,” and take
to yourself with two-fold damnation that terrible sentence; for, rest assured,
in the day of judgment it shall be more tolerable for those thus scathed by the
awful denunciation of the Son of God, than for you. You would soothe with
sisterly and motherly care the hoary-headed murderer of Harper’s Ferry! A man
whose aim and intention was to incite the horrors of a servile war — to condemn
women of your own race, ere death closed their eyes on their sufferings from
violence and outrage, to see their husbands and fathers murdered, their
children butchered, the ground strewed with the brains of their babes. The
antecedents of Brown’s band proved them to have been the off-scourings of the
earth; and what would have been our fate had they found as many sympathizers in
Virginia as they seem to have in Massachusetts?
Now, compare
yourself with those your “ sympathy ” would devote to such ruthless ruin, and
say, on that “word of honor, which never has been broken,” would you stand by the bedside of an old
negro, dying of a hopeless disease, to alleviate his sufferings as far as human
aid could? Have you, ever watched the
last, lingering illness of a consumptive, to soothe, as far as in you lay, the
inevitable fate? Do you soften the
pangs of maternity in those around you by all the care and comfort you can
give? Do you grieve with those near you, even though their sorrows
resulted from their own misconduct? Did you
ever sit up until the “wee hours” to complete a. dress for a motherless child,
that she might appear on Christmas day in a new one, along with her more
fortunate companions? We do these and
more for our servants, and why? Because we endeavor to do our duty in that state of life it has pleased God to place us.
In his revealed word we read our duties to them – theirs to us are there also —
“Not only to the good and gentle, but to the froward.” – (Peter 2:18.) Go thou
and do likewise, and keep away from Charlestown. If the stories read in the public
prints be true, of the sufferings of the poor of the North, you need not go far
for objects of charity. “Thou hypocrite! take first the beam out of thine own
eye, then shalt thou see clearly to pull the mote out of thy neighbor’s.” But
if, indeed, you do lack objects of sympathy near you, go to Jefferson county,
to the family of George Turner, a noble, true-hearted man, whose devotion to
his friend (Col. Washington) causing him to risk his life, was shot down like a
dog. Or to that of old Beckham, whose grief at the murder of his negro
subordinate made him needlessly expose himself to the aim of the assassin
Brown. And when you can equal in deeds of love and charity to those around you, what is shown by nine-tenths
of the Virginia plantations, then by your “sympathy” whet the knives for our
throats, and kindle the torch that fires our homes. You reverence Brown for his clemency to his prisoners! Prisoners!
and how taken? Unsuspecting workmen, going to their daily duties; unarmed
gentlemen, taken from their beds at the dead hour of the night, by six men
doubly and trebly armed. Suppose he had hurt a hair of their heads, do you
suppose one of the band of desperadoes would have left the engine-house alive?
And did he not know that his treatment of them was his only hope of life then,
or of clemency afterward? Of course he did. The United States troops could not
have prevented him from being torn limb from limb.
I will add, in
conclusion, no Southerner ought, after your letter to Governor Wise and to
Brown, to read a line of your composition, or to touch a magazine which bears
your name in its lists of contributors; and in this we hope for the “sympathy,”
at least of those at the North who deserve the name of woman.
M. J. G. MASON.
SOURCES: The American Anti-Slavery Society, Correspondence
between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, p.
16-9;
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