The Providence of God has brought our nation to a crisis of most solemn interest.

  A question is now pending in our National Legislature which is most vitally to affect the temporal and eternal interests, not only of ourselves, but of our children, and our children's children for ages yet unborn.—Through our nation it is to affect the interests of Liberty and Christianity throughout the whole world.

  Of the woes, the injustice and the misery of Slavery it is not needful to speak. There is but one feeling and one opinion on this among us all. I do not think there is a mother among us all who clasps her child to her breast who could ever be made to feel it right that that child should be a slave; not a mother among us all who would not rather lay that child in its grave.

  Nor can I believe that there is a woman so unchristian as to think it right to inflict on her neighbor's child what she would think worse than death were it inflicted on her own. I do not think there is a wife who would think it right that her husband should be sold to a trader, and worked all life without rights and without wages. I do not believe there is a husband who would think it right that his wife should be considered, by law, the property of another man, and not his own. I do not think there is a father or mother who would believe it right were they forbidden by law to teach their children to read. Id do not believe there is a brother who would think it right to have his sister held as property, with no legal defence for her personal honor, by any man living.

  All this is inherent in Slavery. It is not the abuse of Slavery, but the legal nature of it. And there is not a woman in the United, when the question is fairly put before her, who thinks these things are right.

  However ambition and the love of political power may blind the stronger sex, God has given to woman a deeper and a more immovable knowledge in those holier feelings which are peculiar to womanhood, and which guard the sacredness of the family state.

  But though our hearts have bled over this wrong, there have been many things tending to fetter our hands, to perplex our efforts, and to silence our voice. we have been told that to speak of it was an invasion of the rights of other States. We have been told of promises and of compacts, and the natural expression of feeling has in many cases been restrained by an appeal to those honorable sentiments which respect the keeping of engagements.

  The warm beatings of many hearts have been hushed, our yearning and sympathies have been repressed, because we have not known what to do; and many have come to turn a deaf ear to the whole tale of sorrow, because unwilling to harrow up the soul with feeling, were action was supposed to be impossible.

  But a time has now come when the subject is arising under quite another aspect.

  The question is not now. Shall the wrongs of Slavery exist, as they have, on their own territories? but shall we permit them to be extended over all the free territories of the United States? Shall the woes and miseries of Slavery be extended over a region of fair, free, unoccupied territory, near equal in extent to the whole of the Free States?

  Nor is this all; this is not the last that is expected or intended. Should this movement be submitted to in silence, should the North consent to this breach of solemn contract on the part of the South, there yet remains one more step to be apprehended, viz: the legalizing of Slavery throughout the free States. By the decision of the Supreme Court in the Louisiana case, it may be declared lawful for slave property to be held in the northern free States. Should this come to pass, it is nor more improbable that there may be, four years hence, slave depots in New York City, than it was, four years ago, that the South would propose a repeal of the "Missouri Compromise."

  Women of the Free States! the question is not, Shall we remonstrate with Slavery on its own soil? but are we willing to receive Slavery into the free states and territories of the Union?

  Shall the whole power of these United States go into the hands of Slavery? shall every State in it be thrown open as a slave State? This will be the final result and issue of the question which is not pending.—This is the fearful crisis at which we stand. And now, is there anything which the women of a country can do? Oh, women of the free States! what did your brave mothers do in the time of our revolutionary struggle? Did not liberty in these days feel the strong impulse of woman's heart?

  Never was there a great interest agitating the community when woman's influence was not felt for good or for evil. At the time when the struggle for the abolition of the slave trade was convulsing England, women contributed more than any other laborers to that great triumph of humanity. The women and children of England to a great extent refused to receive into their families the sugar raised by the suffering slaves.—Seventy thousand families refused the use of sugar, as a testimony to their abhorrence of the manner in which it was produced.—At the time women were unwearied in passing from house to house, distributing tracts and books, and presenting the subject in families. One lady alone called on and conversed in this way with more than two thousand families, and others were not behind her in their labours.

  The women all over England were associated in corresponding circles for prayer and for labor. Petitions to Government were gotten up and signed by women.

  During my recent visit in England I was called to the bedside of an aged mother in Israel, whose prayers and labors on earth are well nigh ended, but who had borne this sacred cause in her heart from the very commencement. I was never more impressed than when, raised in her bed, with quivering lips and streaming eyes, she lifted her hands solemnly in prayer to God that HE would bless the labors for the cause of the slave in America, and at least bring on the final abolition of Slavery through the world.

  Women of America! we do not know with what thrilling earnestness the hopes and the eyes of the world are fastened on our country, and with what intenseness they desire that we should take decided ground for universal liberty. This sacred desire is spread through the lower and working classes of other countries, as well as through those in higher ranks.

  When I was in England, although I distinctly stated that the raising of money was no part of my object, and, on account of the state of my health, declined to take any responsibility of that kind, yet money was actually pressed upon me unsolicited from the mere impulse to do something for this cause. Most affecting letters were received from poor working men and women, inclosing small sums in postage stamps, for this object.

  Nor has this feeling been confined to England alone; in France, Switzerland and Germany, there has been the same deep emotion. A lady in Stuttgard undertook to make a collection for an American Anti-Slavery fair, and while contributions from all ranks freely flowed in, a poor peasant and his wife in the neighborhood took down from the walls of their cottage two prints, probably the only superfluities they possessed on earth, and sent them to the collection.

  During my stay, I heard from Christians of all denominations how deeply their souls had been moved in prayer for America, in view of this evil. A Catholic lady from the old town of Orleans wrote of her intention to offer special supplications after the manner of her faith. In a circle of Protestant pastors and Christians in Switzerland, I heard the French language made eloquent in pleadings with God that America might have grace given her to right the cause of the oppressed.

  Why all this emotion if foreign lands! Is it not because the whole world has been looking towards America with hope, as a nation specially raised up by God to advance the cause of liberty and religion?

  There had been a universal expectation that the next step taken by America would surely be one which should have a tendency to right this great wrong. Those who are struggling for civil and religious freedom in Europe speak this word Slavery in sad whispers, as one names the fault of a revered friend. They can scarce believe the advertisements which American papers bring to them, of slave sales; of men, women and children traded like cattle. Scarcely can they trust their eyes when they red the laws of the slave States and the decisions of their Courts. The advocates of despotism hold these things up to them, and say, "See what becomes of republican liberty!" —Hitherto the answer has been, America is more than half free, and she certainly will, in time repudiate Slavery altogether.

  But what can they say now, if, just as the great struggle for human rights is commencing throughout Europe, America opens all her free territories to the most unmitigated despotism? This will be not merely betraying American liberty, but the cause of liberty throughout the world.

  And while all the nations are moved in view of this subject of American Slavery, shall we only be unmoved? Shall even the poor laboring man and woman of Europe be so pressed in view of the wrongs of the Slave as to inquire, what can we do? and we wives and mothers, and sisters of America, sit down content to do nothing in such a crisis as this?

  What, then, is the duty of American women at this time? The first duty is for each woman for herself, thoroughly to understand the subject, and to feel that as mother, wife, sister, or as member of society, she is bound to give her influence on the right side.

  In the second place, women can make exertions to get up petitions in their particular districts to our National Legislature. They can take measures to communicate information in their vicinity. They can employ lecturers to spread the subject before the people of their town or village. They can circulate the speeches of our members in Congress, and in many other ways secure a fell understanding of the present position of our country.

  Above all, it seems to be necessary and desirable that we should make this subject a matter of earnest prayer. The present crisis in the history of the world is one which calls upon all who believe in an Almighty Guardian and Ruler of Nations to betake themselves to His throne.

  A conflict is now commencing between the forces of liberty and despotism throughout the world. We, who are Christians, and believe in the sure word of prophecy, now that fearful convulsions and over-turnings are predicted before the coming of Him who is to rule the earth in righteousness. How important in this crisis that all who believe in prayer should retreat beneath the shadows of the Almighty.

  It is a melancholy but unavoidable result of such great encounters of principle that they always tend to degenerate into sectional and personal bitterness. It is this liability which forms one of the most solemn and affecting features of the crisis now presented. We are on the eve of a conflict which will try men's souls, and strain to their utmost tension the bond of brotherly union which bind this nation together.

  Let us pray that, in the agitation of this question between the North and the south, the war of principle may not become a mere sectional conflict, degenerating into the encounter of physical force. Let us raise our hearts to Him who has the power to restrain the wrath of man, that he will avert these consequences, which our sins as a nation have so justly deserved.

  Doubtless there are noble minds at the South who do not participate in the machinations of their political leaders, whose sense of honor and justice is outraged by this proposition, equally with our own.

  While, then, we seek to sustain the cause of free principle unwaveringly, let us hold it also to be our true office, as women, to moderate the acrimony of political contest, remembering that the slaveholder and the slave are alike our brethren whom the law of God commands us to love as ourselves.

  For the sake of both, for the sake of our dear children, for the sake of our common country, for the sake of outraged and struggling liberty throughout the world, let every woman of America now do her duty.