tion to the enjoyment of light and liberty? Are we to congratulate a highwayman and murderer, who has broken prison, upon the recovery of his natural rights? This would be to act over again the scene of the criminals condemned to the galleys, and their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic knight of the sorrowful countenance." The slave himself must change with his condition, or his enlargement and enfranchisement will be no blessing to him. To put him in possession of the immunities of a freeman, without imparting the moral qualifications that make liberty a blessing, were as unkind to him, as it is dangerous to the community.

To proclaim then in the ears of the slave his imaginary rights, his unalienable birth-right as a man, is to tantalize with hopes that can only disappoint, and instigate to crimes for which blood must atone. It is cruelty as well as madness. Its only effect must be, to destroy the peace of the present, while it furnishes no rational hope for the future; to annihilate the principles of subordination to their masters, while it provides no check to the wild license of anarchy. The propagators of these doctrines know not what they do. It is easy to pull down; difficult to build up. To kindle the conflagration is the work of a moment and of the meanest incendiary; to allay its fury may defy the skill of the prudent, and the labor of the strong. It will be easy to destroy in the minds of the slaves all reverence for the authority of their masters; to inspire them with feelings which ought not to be gratified, and to excite them to deeds of desperation. A few weak heads and misguided hearts are sufficient to this work. But who shall set limits to this license, once assumed? Who shall say to the proud waves of resistance, Thus far and no further shall ye come? Who shall inspire the slaves with fear towards God, with awe for the majesty of law, with affection to government, with duty to magistrates, with reverence to the ministers of religion, with respect for character and rank, when the sole principle of subordination in their hearts is destroyed?

But these bold agitators care not for consequences. They have settled their principles, and duty is theirs, results are God's.' If anarchy, if bloodshed, if a servile war more terrible than that which once depopulated Italy, if a new "reign of terror," by reason of which the old shall not be remembered, be the price of emancipation, let them come. Let all past and conceivable forms of horror be united and

mingled in one fierce conflagration, let it be perpetuated through ages, and the peace, the happiness and the hopes of successive generations be all cast into this "furnace of wrath," and yet it is all nothing in the estimation of these men, in comparison with the involuntary servitude of an hour. Well might the apostle say, "From such withdraw thyself." But is there then no remedy for slavery? Is it a providential and permanent relation of the civil state, and must the poor slave, as he pines amid the cane groves of a southern plantation, and faints under the sultry and bondage-loaden breezes, that sweep through them, or bleeds and sinks under the lash of the brutal taskmaster, be told that slavery is not a sin, that it is only one of the multiform varieties of the social state, that he must therefore humble himself to his condition, and submit to the ordination of heaven? By no means. This is not our doctrine. That permanency is predicable of any of the forms of the social state, we have expressly denied. They are all mutable, and subject to the checks and limitations of human convenience. In civil matters, whatever is expedient, is right; whatever is inexpedient is wrong. Slavery is sometimes expedient; it is then right. In all other cases it is wrong.

While then we hold that the mere relation, which is designated by the term slavery, is not in itself wrong, but is by circumstances sometimes made right; and while too with Paul, we would teach and exhort slaves not to despise their masters, but rather do them service; we are no apologists for injustice and oppression. With the advocates of perpetual bondage we have no sympathy. The domestic tyrant we abhor. Let the fiend incarnate, who tears the African from his home, and binds him, and casts him into the noisome prison of the slave-ship, and feeds him with the bread of affliction and the water of affliction, and exposes him in the market as a beast, and returns with the price of blood to renew his accursed traffic; be delivered over to the vengeance and reprobation, which are his due. The times of former ignorance, when such men as John Newton could remorselessly engage in this traffic, may perhaps have been winked at; but they are now past, and the slave-trader is indeed what the law pronounces him to be, a felon and a pirate, and richly merits the gibbet to which he is doomed, and the perpetual execration of mankind. The slave-holder too, who encourages that traffic, or who abuses the power with

which he is invested to oppress its unfortunate subjects, can receive no countenance from the principles we have endeavored to maintain. To him the relation which is negative in itself, becomes black with guilt. For the miserly inhumanity that visits the slave-market, and coolly selects its victim, and rudely tears asunder the ties of nature, and impresses on him the burning brand, and tasks him and tortures him in the mere wantonness of power, the English language, rich as it is in terms of execration, does not furnish epithets to express our deep abhorrence. It is unutterable. It lies too deep for words. It pervades the very substance of the soul. Whenever the image of the poor African, bleeding, chained, with his neck in the dust and the proud foot of the trampler upon it, comes up before the mind, we are ready to utter the wish of the poet;

"Could I embody and embosom now

That which is most within me,-could I wreak
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,
All that I would have sought, and all I seek,

Bear, feel, know, and yet breathe,-into one word,
And that one word were lightning, I would speak;

Yes, we would speak, and dart fierce light and scathing indignation into the black soul of the tyrant. We shall never quarrel with any man for denouncing wo on the hypocrites, who bind heavy burdens grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but deign not themselves so much as to touch them with one of their fingers. Let blighting wrath light on their heads. The principles of this discussion interpose no shield between the oppressor and vengeance. "Her red right hand" has long been "armed to plague" him ; and let her bolts come. Let inhumanity in all its dark and bloody forms, receive the reprobation it deserves. Let the evils of slavery be portrayed in all their horrid features. Let the habitations of cruelty be uncovered to the light of day. Let the intolerable light of an uncompromising public sentiment be poured in upon the darkness of tyranny and guilt. But let it be truly light, and not those "flames" from which

"No light, but rather darkness visible."

Let it be light which shall distinguish things that differ; which shall discriminate between misfortune and crime; which,

while it shall flash vengeance and remorse on the despicable petty tyrant, shall comfort and cheer the benevolent and Christian master, who does to others, even his slaves, as he would that they should do to him.

No progress towards ultimate and peaceful emancipation can be made in any other way. Indiscriminate invective will only provoke defiance; and while it will irritate and alienate the consciously innocent, will enable even the guilty to assume the attitude of the persecuted. Against such unrighteous abuse the innocent will make common cause with the guilty. Now, multitudes of the planters, who feel and deplore the evils of slavery, are with us, and will unite in every safe and feasible effort for its extinction. But let the principles of the abolitionists extensively prevail among us, let every slave-holder, whatever be his circumstances or his views, be denounced ipso facto as a felon and an enemy of God; and not only every advocate of perpetual bondage, but every friend of gradual and ultimate emancipation at the south will be against us. Instead of the God-speed with which we are now greeted by many a slave-holder in our efforts at gradual emancipation, we shall find only a line of "serried pikes" to oppose us on the borders. Indeed, the advocates of these doctrines do themselves tacitly confess that this would be the result. Else why do they preach their doctrines in New England? New Englanders are not the sinners. If such preaching is needed anywhere, it is at the South. Not a man now dares teach these doctrines south of the Potomac. If they become general in New England and the non-slaveholding States, the horrors of a civil war must be the inevitable result.

ARTICLE V.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A PURIFIED LITERATURE.

THE aspects of the present time are peculiar. They have no parallel in the history of man. We know, indeed, that present objects, and scenes just passing; objects and scenes in which we have a personal interest; assume, fre

quently, a factitious magnitude and importance. But here, there is no room for deception. If, in viewing the characteristics of the age, our first impressions have a deep and startling interest, the interest and the apprehension are but deepened by the maturest reflection.

The whole civilized world seems pervaded by a most extraordinary impulse. In government, in the social system, in politics, in morals, in religion itself, nothing seems stable and fixed. Every thing is turbid and revolutionary. Elements are at work, from which must spring, either an unknown beauty and order, or "confusion worse confounded." The human mind itself is unhinged. Principles sanctioned by the wisdom of ages, disappear in a moment, at a flight of specious eloquence, or the dash of a reckless pen. At a period when, more than ever before, the lights of experience are indispensable, thousands are busied only with new experiments; or bewildered with untried, or exploded theories.

When we turn our eyes to Europe, we behold a world of minds in a state of agitation; the great question of absolute or liberal government, much unsettled; and the path to freedom and enjoyment, if these objects are to be ultimately reached, lying, perhaps, through a sea of blood and suffering. In our own country, as we fondly hope, the grand point is set at rest; the season of danger past; and we please ourselves with the prospect of uninterrupted tranquillity; of interminable and unparalleled enjoyment. But who sees not that these day-dreams may prove as transient, as they are splendid? In the very luxuriance of our blessings and our hopes, are found the productive sources of danger. In our extended and flourishing republic, how many corruptions spring. How many conflicts of interest; and still severer conflicts of passion. How many stains deform the fair face of our country. How many maladies prey at her very heart. Who can tell that the mine is not already prepared, whose explosion will prove the wreck of our most valued enjoyments, and our dearest hopes?

In such a condition of things, to look for direction and safety, to any other wisdom and power than that which made, and which governs the world, would be something worse than folly. It would be atheism and madness. No nation on which the sun looks down, has equal reason with ours, to feel its dependence on the Sovereign of the universe; for none is so deeply indebted ; and none has so much to lose.