the loud and bitter denunciations of our anti-slavery preachers and politicians, calling themselves Christians, on the other? For they not only set themselves against the Word of God in this matter, condemning slavery as the "monster sin," the "sum of all villainies," but-strange to say-they do it in the very name of that Saviour whose whole line of conduct was the very opposite of their own!

Look next at the contrast afforded by the inspired Apostle of the Gentiles. He preaches to the slave, and tells him to be obedient to his master for Christ's sake, faithful and submissive, as a main branch of religious duty. He preaches to the master, and tells him to be just and equal to his slave, knowing that his Master is in heaven. He finds a fugitive slave, and converts him to the Gospel, and then sends him back again to his old home with a letter of kind recommendation. Why does St. Paul act thus? Why does he not counsel the fugitive to claim his right to freedom, and defend that right, if necessary, by the strong hand of violence, even unto death? Why does he not write to his disciple, Philemon, and rebuke him for the awful sin of holding a fellow-man in bondage, and charge it upon him, as a solemn duty, to emancipate his slaves, at the peril of his soul?

The answer is very plain. St. Paul was inspired, and knew the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, and was only intent on obeying it. And who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set aside the Word of God, and scorn the example of the divine Redeemer, and spurn the preaching and the conduct of the apostles, and invent for ourselves a "higher law" than those holy Scriptures which are given to us as a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths," in the darkness of a sinful and a polluted world? Who are we that virtually blot out the language of the sacred record, and dictate to the majesty of heaven what HE shall regard as sin and reward as duty? Who are we that are ready to trample on the doctrine of the Bible, and tear to shreds the

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Constitution of our country, and even plunge the land into the untold horrors of civil war, and yet boldly pray to the God of Israel to bless our very acts of rebellion against his own sovereign authority? Woe to our Union when the blind become the leaders of the blind! Woe to the man who dares to "strive against his Maker!"

Yet I do not mean to charge the numerous and respectable friends of this popular delusion with a willful or conscious opposition to the truth. They are seduced, doubtless, in the great majority of cases, by the feelings of a false philanthropy, which palliates, if it can not excuse, their dangerous error. Living far away from the Southern States, with no practical experience of the institution, and accustomed from their childhood to attach an inordinate value to their personal liberty, they are naturally disposed to compassionate the negro race, and to believe that the slave must be supremely wretched in his bondage. They are under no special inducement to "search the Scriptures" on this particular subject, nor are they in general, I am sorry to say, accustomed to study the Bible half as much as they read the newspapers, the novel, and the magazine. There they find many revolting pictures of slavery, and they do not pause to ask the question whether they are just and faithful. Perhaps a fugitive comes along, who has fled from his master, and who, in justification of himself, will usually give a very distorted statement of the facts, even if he does not invent them altogether. And these good and kind-hearted people believe it all implicitly, without ever remembering the rule about hearing both sides before we form our opinion. Of course, they sympathize warmly with the poor oppressed African, and are generously excited to hate the system of slavery with all their heart. Then the eloquent preacher chooses it for the favorite topic of his oratory. The theme is well adapted to rouse the feelings, and it is usually by no means difficult to interest and gratify the audience, when the supposed sins of

others, which they are under no temptation to commit, are made the object of censure. In due time, when the public mind is sufficiently heated, the politician lays hold of the subject, and makes the anti-slavery movement the watchword of party. And finally the Press follows in the wake of the leaders, and the fire is industriously fanned until it becomes a perfect blaze; while the admiring throng surround it with exultation, and fancy its lurid light to be from heaven, until the flames begin to threaten their own security.

Such has been the perilous course of our Northern sentiment on the subject of slavery. The great majority, in every community, are the creatures of habit, of association, and of impulse; and every allowance should be made for those errors which are committed in ignorance, under a generous sympathy for what they suppose to be the rights of man. I can not, however, make the same apology for those who are professionally pledged to understand and inculcate the doctrines of the Bible. On that class of our public instructors, the present perilous crisis of the nation casts a fearful responsibility. Solemly bound by their sacred office to preach the Word of God, and to follow Christ and his apostles, as the heralds of "peace and good will to men," they seem to me strangely regardless, on this important sub ject, of their highest obligations. But it is not for me to judge them. To their own Master, let them stand or fall.

I have promised, however, to notice the various objections which have been raised in the popular mind to the institution of Southern slavery, and to these I shall now proceed.

First on this list stand the propositions of the far-famed Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These statements are here called "self-evident truths." But with due respect to the cele

brated names which are appended to this document, I have never been able to comprehend that they are "truths" at all. In what respect are men 66 created equal," when every thoughtful person must be sensible that they are brought into the world with all imaginable difference in body, in mind, and in every characteristic of their social position? Notwithstanding mankind have all descended from one common parent, yet we see them divided into distinct races, so strongly marked, that infidel philosophers insist on the impossibility of their having the same ancestry. Where is the equality in body between the child born with the hereditary taint of scrofula or consumption, and the infant filled with health and vigor? Where is the equality in mind between one who is endowed with talent and genius, and another whose intellect borders on idiocy? Where is the equality in social position between the son of the Esquimaux or Hottentot, and the heir of the American statesman or British peer?

Neither am I able to admit that all men are endowed with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, because it is manifest that since "sin entered into the world, and death by sin," they are all alienated, forfeited and lost through the consequences of transgression. Life is alienated not only by the sentence of the law, but by innumerable forms of violence and accident. Liberty is alienated not only by imprisonment, but by the irresistible restraints of social bondage to the will, the temper, the prejudices, the customs, or the interests of others, so that there is hardly an individual to be found, even in the most favored community, who has really the liberty of word and action so confidently asserted as the unalienable right of all men. And as regards the "pursuit of happiness," alas! what multitudes. alienate their right to it, beyond recovery, not only in the cells of the penitentiary, but in the reckless indulgence of their appetites and passions, in the disgust arising from ill

chosen conjugal relations, in their associations with the profligate and the vile, in the pain and suffering of sickness and poverty as the results of vice, in the ruin of the gambler, the delirium of the drunkard, the despair of the suicide, and in every other form of moral contamination!

If it be said, however, that the equality and unalienable rights of all men, so strongly asserted by this famous Declaration, are only to be taken in a political sense, I am willing to concede that this may be the proper interpretation of its intended meaning, but I can not see how it removes the difficulty. The statement is that "all men are created equal,” and that "the CREATOR has endowed them with these unalienable rights." Certainly if the authors of this celebrated document designed to speak only of political rights and political equality, they should not have thus referred them to the act of creation; because it is perfectly obvious that since the beginning of human government, men have been created with all imaginable inequality, under slavery, under despotism, under aristocracy, under limited monarchy, under every conceivable form of political strife and political oppression. In no respect whatever, that I can discover, has the Almighty sent our race into the world with these imaginary rights and this fanciful equality. In his sight the whole world is sinful, rebellious, and lying under the just condemnation of his violated laws. Our original rights, whatever they might have been, are all forfeited and gone. And since the fall, mankind have no rights to claim at the hands of the Creator. Our whole dependence is on his mercy and compassion. And he dispenses these according to his sovereign will and pleasure, on no system of equality that any human eye can discover, and yet, as every Christian must believe, on the eternal principles of perfect benevolence, in union with impartial justice, and boundless knowledge, and wisdom that can not err.

Where, then, I ask, did the authors of the Declaration of