For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

LETTER FROM JOHN W. LEWIS.

ST. ALBANS, Vt., April 12th, 1854.

FRIEND DOUGLASS:—Bad, muddy roads, and
a worn-out body, is a sufficient excuse to one
to be at home for a little while. After
about eight months' driving and lecturing
among our Green Mountain towns and com
munities, I have betaken myself to Freedom's
battlement, where I can look over the field
of conflict. I see much to encourage and
much to awaken new zeal and devotion to
those heaven-born principles, which lay
at the foundation of human happiness.—
Vermont is so noted for anti-slavery charac
ter, that she is supposed to be a little ahead
of all her sister states in this great Ameri
can confederacy. True, she is too far from
the sea coast to be identified in the commer
cial interest of the nation—consequently,
she is not directly affected by the power of
cottonocracy. And yet she is Yankee all
over; and you know that where there is the
spirit of speculation, you will always find a
real live Yankee. Vermont grows her own
wool, and makes abundance of maple sugar.
One would think she would hold on to real,
genuine anti-slavery, independent of Louis
iana or the Carolinas. But practical inde
pendence, even among the Green Moun
tains, is a rare commodity. Vermont anti
slavery has always been too much polluted
by national political party expediency.—
You meet a Vermonter, and call him a pro
slavery aristocrat, he will appear as mad as
a March hare; then tell him that the pres
ent crisis demands stern, inflexible opposi
tion to American slavery, civilly, politically,
morally, and religiously, and you will at once
perceive Yankee ingenuity. "O," says he,
"I am as much opposed to slavery as any
body; but here is the trouble." Expediency
will always get a but in the way.

A distinguished Vermont clergyman said
last summer, addressing his audience, "I am
opposed to slavery; it is an evil; I would
be willing to see the poor black man free
and happy; but the God of Nature has put
into the heart of the white man a principle
of distinction. It is a natural instinct, as a
part of his human nature, so that he cannot
have a colored man as a brother." Mean,
servile, aristocracy would be ready to shout
Amen! to this, as a sentiment congenial to
its proscriptive character. Now, if what this
Divine says is true, than Peter's position was
false before Cornelius and his household;
and Gabriel mistook the character of God,
and the policy of his divine government,
when he announced to the world the doc
trine of peace and good will; and the an
gelic choir were premature in singing it.

Such sentiments at once eclipse the glory
of the advent of Christ, if true. But such
are some of the elements of modern theol
ogy, while under the monopoly of slavery in
fluence. Said another minister in this region,
"Our brethren are honest, notwithstanding
they are in an error, but they have so long
been in the habit of indulging in this spirit
of distinction; they must be allowed to go
to heaven in their own way; the attempt
to drive them from their position by any
truth, would be productive of greater evil
than letting their influence be where it is."

Now, if all this is true, then the gospel fails
in accomplishing its legitimate design. This
is not the theology of the popular religionists
of Vermont alone; it is the Christianity of the
popular current Christianity of the leading
sects of the nation. Often my heart grows
sick as I look at the mass of the community
greedily swallowing down the corrupted the
ology of sects that is every day destroying
their manhood, and making them the dupes
of bigotry. Now, sir, I am so sceptical, I
have no faith in nine-tenths of the preaching
that is called Gospel in this country. Men
and women, whose natural sumpathies have
led them on to the ground of humanity to
see the force of moral obligation, about as
much as the blind man under the healing
influence of Jesus Christ, when he saw men
as trees walking—are taught that they must
come into the church, then they must sub
mit to truth, (not shown that that truth is
striped of love to God's poor;) and in go
ing through the process of ecclesiastical in
itiation, they are made good Methodists, or
Baptists, or Presbyterians. It will require
more than a microscope view to discover a
particle of anti-slavery in them. The fact
is, God made them free, noble, magnanimous.
The church has made them cold-hearted, mis
anthropic, so far as it relates to the band
of universal brotherhood embracing all man
kind.

Stern old winter has left us. During the
month of March he was rather severe on us,
often shaking his white locks rather savagely
in a cold north-easter. But we are rid of
him now for the present. And now all na
ture is in a merry dance in gladsome delight,
under the genial rays of an April sun. Noth
ing can surpass the beauty of a Vermont sum
mer, in the opening and progress of spring
and summer. It is too beautiful for slave
hunting ground—although this State is in
close proximity with the Old Empire and
Bay States. It is said the soil of Vermont
was never trod by a slave owned in the State.
It would be a bad place for slavery. Our
Green Mountains would be to the slave
what old Scotland's were to Robert Bruce—
a safe fugitive's retreat.

By the way, we have had another stam
pede through our place, from old Virginia.
Two young men, hotly pursued, came to our
village. Our citizens, not having the fear
of the Fugitive Slave Law before their eyes,
did just as Christ, in Matt. 25th, 35th, and
36th, told them. They are now safe in Can
ada.

I am really glad to hear that the Western
Underground Railroad has so much busi
ness, as to turn a little in this direction.
I assure you, that we shall endeavor to
keep the Vermont road in good condition
for Southern travel.

Yours, as ever, for Freedom,

JOHN W. LEWIS