They told him that the current was so strong that it was death to all future usefulness to try to breast it.
Belton waved them away and cried out in impassioned tones: "On her soil I was born; on her bosom I was reared; into her arms I hope to fall in death; and I shall not from fear of losing popular favor desist from pointing out the natural sources from which her sins arise, so that when judgment is pronounced justice will not hesitate to stamp it with her righteous seal." "Remember your scars!" shouted one.
"Yes, I am scarred," returned Belton.

"I have been in the hands of an angry mob; I have dangled from a tree at the end of a rope; I have felt the murderous pistol drive cold lead into my flesh; I have been accounted dead and placed upon the dissecting table; I have felt the sharp surgical knife ripping my flesh apart when I was supposed to be dead; all of these hardships and more besides I have received at the hands of the South; but she has not and cannot drive truth from my bosom, and the truth shall I declare this day." Seeing that it was useless to attempt to deter him, Belton continued his speech without interruption: "There are many things in the message of our most worthy President that demand attention.

It was indeed an awful sin for the Anglo-Saxon to enslave the negro.

But in judging a people we must judge them according to the age in which they lived, and the influence that surrounded them.
"If David were on earth alive to-day and the ruler of an enlightened kingdom, he would be impeached forthwith, fined for adultery, imprisoned for bigamy, and hanged for murder.

Yet while not measuring up to the standard of morality of to-day, he was the man after God's own heart in his day and generation.
"If Abraham were here to-day he would be expelled from any church that had any regard for decency; and yet, he was the father of the faithful, for he walked according to the little light that struggled through the clouds and reached him.
"When slavery was introduced into America, it was the universal practice of mankind to enslave.