“With What Measure Ye Mete.”
THERE was stationed at Cairo, at an early period of the war, a General noted for his antipathy to, and harsh treatment of, slaves. On one occasion, the soldiers of his camp gathered about the shore to witness the struggles of a negro who had been washed down the Ohio river, and was struggling toward them. Presently the negro gained the shore, and stood trembling and entirely naked before them. A white man shouted across the river, “That is my negro, send him here!” Some of the soldiers heard a voice which said, “I was naked, imprisoned, sick, and ye ministered unto me;” but the General heard it not: he sent the negro over in a boat, to his owner, who whipped him with a cowhide in sight of the camp. A month or so later, at the battle of Shiloh, that General was taken prisoner. In a Southern town, a lady was insulting him grossly, and he sneeringly turned his back upon her; whereupon the husband of the lady took a cowhide, and inflicted upon the defenceless Major General about as many stripes as he had seen fall upon the defenceless negro he had returned! When that General was exchanged, he celebrated the first night of his arrival at Washington by a glowing appeal for the immediate abolition of slavery. This whole nation has been going through exactly the same discipline with that General. God holds the balances of the universe in a hand that never trembles, and justice never fails but to our short vision. Every stripe we have ever brought upon the negro, or suffered to be inflicted upon him, has been felt on our own flesh. Every groan we have wrung from a negro’s heart will be sure to find its echo in some white breast, until at last our quivering lips cry “Justice to the negro,” as the only way of stopping the drain of our own heart’s blood.—Boston Commonwealth.