A. F. R. to Frederick Douglass, July 1, 1859

LETTERS FROM MASSACHUSETTS.---NO. III.

FRIEND DOUGLASS:—It is a glorious morning; life, and beauty, and fragrance are every where. It is the Christian Sabbath, the day on which, as some would persuade us, we are to shut every avenue to enjoyment, to turn away from every thing glad and beautiful, to forget the present, and think only of eternity and how we are to spend it. Bright, jubilant nature on such a morning as this gives the lie to such a sour and (if I may be allowed the word) selfish religion. What is such a morning made for but that we may enjoy it and be glad, and drinking in the harmony and beauty, grow ourselves to the harmonious and beautiful. The tired denizen of cities, longing for the clear, fragrant air, the green grass, and the lulling music of the quivering leaves—why should he not, on this one day in seven, lay aside the stiff restraints that have fettered him, and give himself up to nature and enjoyment? The Sabbath bells are chiming out the hour of devotion, and all respectable Christians are wending their way to the various churches to worship God, not to make vigorous efforts for the redemption of their brethren. The slave will hardly be remembered in one of those steepled houses; his case, to use the words of their ministers, is crowded aside by 'higher and holier objects.' What is our paltry psalm-singing to the great God of the universe? Our withholding cannot impoverish him, and our giving cannot make him rich; but our suffering brother, he needs our sympathy and our aid—to him we may be of use—and I conceive of nothing higher or holier than the undoing of the heavy burdens and letting the oppressed go free.

A large and elegant Catholic church is consecrated to-day in a neighboring town, and I am urged by a Catholic friend to go. I believe he thinks because I protest against the wrong done to the Catholic in obliging his children to read the Protestant Bible in the public schools, that therefore I should become

a Catholic myself if I should only hear a few sermons. I have promised, to please him, to read a book which he values highly, and which he hopes will convince me of the truth of his doctrine. He cannot understand the principle of justice and equality, which would give all alike equal rights and privileges, and that confidence in the omnipotence of truth that would never put a ga upon the greatest error.

Your paper lies before me, a small, unpretending sheet. It has not an array of great names, either as contributors to its columns or subscribers to its funds; but I fled on the second page, at the head of the Editorial department, these words—words that shall yet renovate the world—'All Rights for All.'—This doctrine is not recognized as true—nay, it is every where spoken against; here and there a voice is uplifted in its favor; but it rests upon the eternal principle of right, and it must triumph. It is working in the hearts of the community, and like the leaven hid in three measures of meal, it will continue to work until the whole is leavened. By 'All Rights for All,' we do not mean the rights of any particular class, to the exclusion of any other class; we do not mean the rights of the slave, and not the rights of the master; that would be only changing the victims, while the oppression would be let untouched. I believe, if we did but understand it, the interest of master and slave is identical; and it is just as really for the good of the master that he slave should be set at liberty, as it is for the benefit of the slave. I have no faith in this opposition of interests, apply it as you will God has made of one blood all nations of, the earth. Of one blood! Then are we one body suffers with it. The poorest and he meanest, unknown and uncared for, cannot suffer harm, but the wrong is felt from pole to pole all round the glove. The wrong may be unheeded and unredressed—nay, its very existence may be almost unknown—but its vibrations are felt, although unconsciously in every aching heart. This is the law of nature, (Heaven be thanked that it is so!) and we can not escape it; as well might one member

think to escape when there is fever raging in the blood.

By, "All Rights for All," we mean that every human being shall be left free to work out his own destiny; that he shall have a right to the full and entire development of all his powers and faculties; that all his hopes and longings shall be allowed to put forth their yearnings till they shall finally accomplish their fulfillment. I hope no one will think by this, that I mean that selfish, narrow policy which says 'every man for himself.' By no means. Every human soul is to follow its own instincts, (what else can it follow? if it goes any other way, it must be driven;) but every other human soul is to help it in its progress. If the foot halts, is not the hand instantly and instinctively put forth to aid it? How delicately the foot is brought down just touching the ends of the toes to the ground, while the strong grasp of the hand on any thing within reach, steadies the motion and supports the weight of the body[.] Just so, if we are indeed of one blood, the poor, the weak and the erring have a claim upon the rich, the strong and the good—not the claim of charity and mercy, but of justice and equity. The infant, when born into the world, has first a right to life; and the mother who should leave her babe to starve would be held to be a murderer as really as it she had plunged a dagger into its heart. It is not the claim of mercy, but of justice, that the child should be nourished, although it has no means of enforcing its demands. The hungry soul cries for bread, and, like the wailing of the infant, that cry proves that it has a right to be fed, even thought it be incapacitated by weakness, or poverty, or ignorance, or vice, even to put forth one effort to obtain that bread.

But I fear I am wearing you with my crudities; I am so apt, when I speak or write, to talk of truths which come to me dimly and half revealed, and which I have no words to express, that I am but seldom understood—

'When from the lips of truth one might breath

Shall, like a whirlwind scatter to the breeze

The whole dark pile of human mockeries;

Then shall the reign of mind commence on earth,

And starting fresh, as from a second birth,

Man, in the sunshine of the world's new spring,

Shall walk transparent, like some holy thing,

And gladdened earth shall, through its wide expanse,

Bask in the glories of her countenance.'

And it is beautiful, if a pro-slavery man did write it; and yet I don't believe it is quite true; human mockeries cannot be scattered, as by a whirlwind; slowly and little by little, truth shall triumph. We will labor and wait, patiently and hopefully, nothing doubting that in the end every wrong shall be righted.

A. F. R.