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I will tell you what it is about it. A.B. C. F. M. It has been remarked that great mean are not always wise. It is still more true that worldly wisdom sometimes carries great men out of the path of simple straight forward truth & right. They become too nice to see that it is the best policy. Expediency is a great God. At meeting of the A.B.C.F.M. last Fall, the Great Men, Dr. Woods of Andover, Dea Beecher, Stowe & Anderson etc. big guns, were set to make a report on the great Slavery question, much agitating the country, & threatening to divide the Board. It was a great duty. They felt it. The interests of the country & the world were on them. They were Great men, mighty men; but their souls were not big enough They feared the face of man, trusted not in God, and bowed down to the God Expediency. They made a report. It was a master peice. It spake f Organic & inorganic sins; a cunning theory. To the Northern Man it was an Antislavery document: to the Southern Man it sanctioned Slavery in toto. It was designed to unite all parties, the plan apparently succeeded. The board were, it was said unanimous. The lesser lights dared not shine. But - the craven northerners dodged. They probably feared Expediency also. At any rate, out of some hundreds of Northern & Eastern men present, only a dozen or two signed the report. Moreover most of those who signed the report were immediately elected Corporate members of the Am Board, none of the others!
But the matter could not rest there, some thing cannot be covered up even by Leonard Woods D.D. et cum suo. Woods & Co doubtless thought their wisdom would be for "the greatest good of the greatest number." it was the very difficulty. They should have thought what is morally right, conform wisdom to that, not that to wisdom: and let Him whose right it is take care of the consequences. Do write to your Son I.S. Metcalf