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From The Signal of Liberty
April 23, 1843
Under this head we gave last week an account of six fugitives who passed through this place, and received assistance from our hands--bound for Canada. We take great pleasure in announcing to our readers that they have all landed, as we intended they should, safe on British soil. When informed that they were beyond the grasp of their tyrannical masters, safe in the "Queen's dominions," they joined in singing a hymn of praise to God for their safe deliverance from American slavery. But some of our neighbors accuse us of being "worse than horse thieves," because we have given to the colored man a helping hand in his perilous journey. We are also held up as "transgressors of the law," and "having no regard for the civil authority." To all such we would say that we have transgressed no law of the United States, nor of the State in which we live. We have obeyed the promptings of humanity in the cause. We have pursued the rule of the Savior, and hope to have similar opportunities of "doing unto others as we would they should do unto us."--But a word with regard to the character of our accusers: they are not always the most law abiding people on the earth. So far as we can learn most of them are profane swearers--Sabbath breakers--rum-drinkers, and not unfrequently "drunkery" lenders, and if we have done any thing by which it is distinctly understood in the community that we do not belong to their company, and are not to be received into their association, we certainly feel compensated for all that we have suffered and done for the poor down trodden slave.--Should one inquire for the authority under which we act, while aiding the fugitive in his escape to the land of his choice, we most cheerfully point them to our law book--the best on earth--the Bible: Deut 23: 15, 19--"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee; He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him." Never. no never, while our lips can pronounce a word or our fingers use the quill, will we cease to plead the cause of our injured colored brother; and never, the Lord being our helper, shall he ever have occasion to say, "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not, sick and in prison, and ye visited me not,--a sound like this, coming from a miserable but innocent fellow being would grate upon our ear--pain in our breast, and sink us in infamy and woe, from which we pray the Lord to deliver us.