THE WORKS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, Volume VII. (of VII)

THE CONFLICT WITH SLAVERY, POLITICS AND REFORM, THE INNER LIFE and CRITICISM

By John Greenleaf Whittier

 CONTENTS:

 THE CONFLICT WITH SLAVERY JUSTICE AND EXPEDIENCY THE ABOLITIONISTS; THEIR SENTIMENTS AND OBJECTS LETTER TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL JOHN QUINCY ADAMS THE BIBLE AND SLAVERY WHAT IS SLAVERY DEMOCRAT AND SLAVERY THE TWO PROCESSIONS A CHAPTER OF HISTORY THOMAS CARLYLE ON THE SLAVE QUESTION FORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY THE LESSON AND OUR DUTY CHARLES SUMNER AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1872 THE CENSURE OF SUMNER THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION OF 1833 KANSAS WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON ANTI-SLAVERY ANNIVERSARY RESPONSE TO THE CELEBRATION OF MY EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

 REFORM AND POLITICS. UTOPIAN SCHEMES AND POLITICAL THEORISTS PECULIAR INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS LORD ASHLEY AND THE THIEVES WOMAN SUFFRAGE ITALIAN UNITY INDIAN CIVILIZATION READING FOR THE BLIND THE INDIAN QUESTION THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OUR DUMB RELATIONS INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN

 THE INNER LIFE. THE AGENCY OF EVIL HAMLET AMONG THE GRAVES SWEDENBORG THE BETTER LAND DORA GREENWELL THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS JOHN WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL THE OLD WAY HAVERFORD COLLEGE

 CRITICISM. EVANGELINE MIRTH AND MEDICINE FAME AND GLORY FANATICISM THE POETRY OF THE NORTH

THE CONFLICT WITH SLAVERY

JUSTICE AND EXPEDIENCY

OR, SLAVERY CONSIDERED WITH A VIEW TO ITS RIGHTFUL AND EFFECTUAL REMEDY, ABOLITION. 

 (1833. )

 "There is a law above all the enactments of human codes, the same throughout the world, the same in all time, --such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of wealth and power and knowledge, to another all unutterable woes; such as it is at this day: it is the law written by the finger of God upon the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy that man can hold property in man. " --LORD BROUGHAM. 

IT may be inquired of me why I seek to agitate the subject of Slavery inNew England, where we all acknowledge it to be an evil. Because such anacknowledgment is not enough on our part. It is doing no more than theslave-master and the slave-trader. "We have found, " says James Monroe, in his speech on the subject before the Virginia Convention, "that thisevil has preyed upon the very vitals of the Union; and has beenprejudicial to all the states in which it has existed. " All the statesin their several Constitutions and declarations of rights have made asimilar statement. And what has been the consequence of this generalbelief in the evil of human servitude? Has it sapped the foundations ofthe infamous system? No. Has it decreased the number of its victims?Quite the contrary. Unaccompanied by philanthropic action, it has beenin a moral point of view worthless, a thing without vitality, sightless, soulless, dead. 

But it may be said that the miserable victims of the system have oursympathies. Sympathy the sympathy of the Priest and the Levite, lookingon, and acknowledging, but holding itself aloof from mortal suffering. Can such hollow sympathy reach the broken of heart, and does the blessingof those who are ready to perish answer it? Does it hold back the lashfrom the slave, or sweeten his bitter bread? One's heart and soul arebecoming weary of this sympathy, this heartless mockery of feeling; sickof the common cant of hypocrisy, wreathing the artificial flowers ofsentiment over unutterable pollution and unimaginable wrong. It iswhite-washing the sepulchre to make us forget its horrible deposit. Itis scattering flowers around the charnel-house and over the yet festeringgrave to turn away our thoughts "from the dead men's bones and alluncleanness, " the pollution and loathsomeness below. 

No! let the truth on this subject, undisguised, naked, terrible as it is, stand out before us. Let us no longer seek to cover it; let us no longerstrive to forget it; let us no more dare to palliate it. It is better tomeet it here with repentance than at the bar of God. The cry of theoppressed, of the millions who have perished among us as the bruteperisheth, shut out from the glad tidings of salvation, has gone therebefore us, to Him who as a father pitieth all His children. Their bloodis upon us as a nation; woe unto us, if we repent not, as a nation, indust and ashes. Woe unto us if we say in our hearts, "The Lord shall notsee, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see?"

But it may be urged that New England has no participation in slavery, andis not responsible for its wickedness. 

Why are we thus willing to believe a lie? New England not responsible!Bound by the United States constitution to protect the slave-holder inhis sins, and yet not responsible! Joining hands with crime, covenantingwith oppression, leaguing with pollution, and yet not responsible!Palliating the evil, hiding the evil, voting for the evil, do we notparticipate in it?

 (Messrs. Harvey of New Hampshire, Mallary of Vermont, and Ripley of Maine, voted in the Congress of 1829 against the consideration of a Resolution for inquiring into the expediency of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. )

Members of one confederacy, children of one family, the curse and theshame, the sin against our brother, and the sin against our God, all theiniquity of slavery which is revealed to man, and all which crieth in theear, or is manifested to the eye of Jehovah, will assuredly be visitedupon all our people. Why, then, should we stretch out our hands towardsour Southern brethren, and like the Pharisee thank God we are not likethem? For so long as we practically recognize the infernal principlethat "man can hold property in man, " God will not hold us guiltless. Solong as we take counsel of the world's policy instead of the justice ofheaven, so long as we follow a mistaken political expediency inopposition to the express commands of God, so long will the wrongs of theslaves rise like a cloud of witnesses against us at the inevitable bar. 

Slavery is protected by the constitutional compact, by the standing army, by the militia of the free states. 

 (J. Q. Adams is the only member of Congress who has ventured to speak plainly of this protection. See also his very able Report from the minority of the Committee on Manufactures. In his speech during the last session, upon the bill of the Committee of Ways and Means, after discussing the constitutional protection of slavery, he says: "But that same interest is further protected by the Laws of the United States. It was protected by the existence of a standing army. If the States of this Union were all free republican States, and none of them possessed any of the machinery of which he had spoken, and if another portion of the Union were not exposed to another danger, from their vicinity to the tribes of Indian savages, he believed it would be difficult to prove to the House any such thing as the necessity of a standing army. What in fact was the occupation of the army? It had been protecting this very same interest. It had been doing so ever since the army existed. Of what use to the district of Plymouth (which he there represented) was the standing army of the United States? Of not one dollar's use, and never had been. ")

Let us not forget that should the slaves, goaded by wrongs unendurable, rise in desperation, and pour the torrent of their brutal revenge overthe beautiful Carolinas, or the consecrated soil of Virginia, New Englandwould be called upon to arrest the progress of rebellion, --to tread outwith the armed heel of her soldiery that spirit of freedom, which knowsno distinction of cast or color; which has been kindled in the heart ofthe black as well as in that of the white. 

And what is this system which we are thus protecting and upholding? Asystem which holds two millions of God's creatures in bondage, whichleaves one million females without any protection save their own feeblestrength, and which makes even the exercise of that strength inresistance to outrage punishable with death! which considers rational, immortal beings as articles of traffic, vendible commodities, merchantable property, --which recognizes no social obligations, nonatural relations, --which tears without scruple the infant from themother, the wife from the husband, the parent from the child. In thestrong but just language of another: "It is the full measure of pure, unmixed, unsophisticated wickedness; and scorning all competition orcomparison, it stands without a rival in the secure, undisputedpossession of its detestable preeminence. "

So fearful an evil should have its remedies. The following are among themany which have been from time to time proposed:--

1. Placing the slaves in the condition of the serfs of Poland andRussia, fixed to the soil, and without the right on the part of themaster to sell or remove them. This was intended as a preliminary tocomplete emancipation at some remote period, but it is impossible toperceive either its justice or expediency. 

2. Gradual abolition, an indefinite term, but which is understood toimply the draining away drop by drop, of the great ocean of wrong;plucking off at long intervals some, straggling branches of the moralUpas; holding out to unborn generations the shadow of a hope which thepresent may never feel gradually ceasing to do evil; gradually refrainingfrom robbery, lust, and murder: in brief, obeying a short-sighted andcriminal policy rather than the commands of God. 

3. Abstinence on the part of the people of the free states from the useof the known products of slave labor, in order to render that laborprofitless. Beyond a doubt the example of conscientious individuals mayhave a salutary effect upon the minds of some of the slave-holders; I butso long as our confederacy exists, a commercial intercourse with slavestates and a consumption of their products cannot be avoided. 

 (The following is a recorded statement of the venerated Sir William Jones: "Let sugar be as cheap as it may, it is better to eat none, better to eat aloes and colloquintida, than violate a primary law impressed on every heart not imbruted with avarice; than rob one human creature of those eternal rights of which no law on earth can justly deprive him. ")

4. Colonization. The exclusive object of the American Colonization Society, according tothe second article of its constitution, is to colonize the free people ofcolor residing among us, in Africa or such other place as Congress maydirect. Steadily adhering to this object it has nothing to do withslavery; and I allude to it as a remedy only because some of its friendshave in view an eventual abolition or an amelioration of the evil. 

Let facts speak. The Colonization Society was organized in 1817. It hastwo hundred and eighteen auxiliary societies. The legislatures offourteen states have recommended it. Contributions have poured into itstreasury from every quarter of the United States. Addresses in its favorhave been heard from all our pulpits. It has been in operation sixteenyears. During this period nearly one million human beings have died inslavery: and the number of slaves has increased more than half a million, or in round numbers, 550, 000

The Colonization Society has been busily engaged all this while inconveying the slaves to Africa; in other words, abolishing slavery. Inthis very charitable occupation it has carried away of manumitted slaves613

Balance against the society . . . . 549, 387!

But enough of its abolition tendency. What has it done for amelioration?Witness the newly enacted laws of some of the slave states, laws bloodyas the code of Draco, violating the laws of Cod and the unalienablerights of His children?--(It will be seen that the society approves ofthese laws. )--But why talk of amelioration? Amelioration of what? ofsin, of crime unutterable, of a system of wrong and outrage horrible inthe eye of God Why seek to mark the line of a selfish policy, a carnalexpediency between the criminality of hell and that repentance and itsfruits enjoined of heaven?

For the principles and views of the society we must look to its ownstatements and admissions; to its Annual Reports; to those of itsauxiliaries; to the speeches and writings of its advocates; and to itsorgan, the African Repository. 

1. It excuses slavery and apologizes for slaveholders. 

Proof. "Slavery is an evil entailed upon the present generation ofslave-holders, which they must suffer, whether they will or not!" "Theexistence of slavery among us, though not at all to be objected to ourSouthern brethren as a fault, " etc? "It (the society) condemns no manbecause he is a slave-holder. " "Recognizing the constitutional andlegitimate existence of slavery, it seeks not to interfere, eitherdirectly or indirectly, with the rights it creates. Acknowledging thenecessity by which its present continuance and the rigorous provisionsfor its maintenance are justified, " etc. "They (the Abolitionists)confound the misfortunes of one generation with the crimes of another, and would sacrifice both individual and public good to an unsubstantialtheory of the rights of man. "

2. It pledges itself not to oppose the system of slavery. 

Proof. "Our society and the friends of colonization wish to bedistinctly understood upon this point. From the beginning they havedisavowed, and they do yet disavow, that their object is the emancipationof slaves. "--(Speech of James S. Green, Esq. , First Annual Report of theNew Jersey Colonization Society. )

"This institution proposes to do good by a single specific course ofmeasures. Its direct and specific purpose is not the abolition ofslavery, or the relief of pauperism, or the extension of commerce andcivilization, or the enlargement of science, or the conversion of theheathen. The single object which its constitution prescribes, and towhich all its efforts are necessarily directed, is African colonizationfrom America. It proposes only to afford facilities for the voluntaryemigration of free people of color from this country to the country oftheir fathers. "

"It is no abolition society; it addresses as yet arguments to no master, and disavows with horror the idea of offering temptations to any slave. It denies the design of attempting emancipation, either partial orgeneral. "

"The Colonization Society, as such, have renounced wholly the name andthe characteristics of abolitionists. On this point they have beenunjustly and injuriously slandered. Into their accounts the subject ofemancipation does not enter at all. "

"From its origin, and throughout the whole period of its existence, ithas constantly disclaimed all intention of interfering, in the smallestdegree, with the rights of property, or the object of emancipation, gradual or immediate. " . . . "The society presents to the Americanpublic no project of emancipation. "--( Mr. Clay's Speech, Idem, vol. Vi. Pp. 13, 17. )

"The emancipation of slaves or the amelioration of their condition, withthe moral, intellectual, and political improvement of people of colorwithin the United States, are subjects foreign to the powers of thissociety. "

"The society, as a society, recognizes no principles in reference to theslave system. It says nothing, and proposes to do nothing, respectingit. " . . . "So far as we can ascertain, the supporters of thecolonization policy generally believe that slavery is in this country aconstitptional and legitimate system, which they have no inclination, interest, nor ability to disturb. "

3. It regards God's rational creatures as property. 

Proof. "We hold their slaves, as we hold their other property, sacred. "

"It is equally plain and undeniable that the society, in the prosecutionof this work, has never interfered or evinced even a disposition tointerfere in any way with the rights of proprietors of slaves. "

"To the slave-holder, who has charged upon them the wicked design ofinterfering with the rights of property under the specious pretext ofremoving a vicious and dangerous free population, they address themselvesin a tone of conciliation and sympathy. We know your rights, say they, and we respect them. "

4. It boasts that its measures are calculated to perpetuate the detestedsystem of slavery, to remove the fears of the slave-holder, and increasethe value of his stock of human beings. 

Proof. "They (the Southern slave-holders) will contribute moreeffectually to the continuance and strength of this system (slavery) byremoving those now free than by any or all other methods which canpossibly be devised. "

"So far from being connected with the abolition of slavery, the measureproposed would be one of the greatest securities to enable the master tokeep in possession his own property. "--(Speech of John Randolph at thefirst meeting of the Colonization Society. )

"The tendency of the scheme, and one of its objects, is to secure slave-holders, and the whole Southern country, against certain evilconsequences growing out of the present threefold mixture of ourpopulation. "

"There was but one way (to avert danger), but that might be madeeffectual, fortunately. It was to provide and keep open a drain for theexcess beyond the occasions of profitable employment. Mr. Archer hadbeen stating the case in the supposition, that after the present class offree blacks had been exhausted, by the operation of the plan he wasrecommending, others would be supplied for its action, in the proportionof the excess of colored population it would be necessary to throw off, by the process of voluntary manumission or sale. This effect must resultinevitably from the depreciating value of the slaves, ensuing theirdisproportionate multiplication. The depreciation would be relieved andretarded at the same time by the process. The two operations would aidreciprocally, and sustain each other, and both be in the highest degreebeneficial. It was on the ground of interest, therefore, the mostindisputable pecuniary interest, that he addressed himself to the peopleand legislatures of the slave-holding states. "

"The slave-holder, who is in danger of having his slaves contaminated bytheir free friends of color, will not only be relieved from this danger, but the value of his slave will be enhanced. "

5. It denies the power of Christian love to overcome an unholy prejudiceagainst a portion of our fellow-creatures. 

Proof. "The managers consider it clear that causes exist and areoperating to prevent their (the blacks) improvement and elevation to anyconsiderable extent as a class, in this country, which are fixed, notonly beyond the control of the friends of humanity, but of any humanpower. Christianity will not do for them here what it will do for themin Africa. This is not the fault of the colored man, nor Christianity;but an ordination of Providence, and no more to be changed than the lawsof Nature!"--(Last Annual Report of the American Colonization Society. )

"The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society--prejudiceswhich neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, nor religionitself, can subdue--mark the people of color, whether bond or free, asthe subjects of a degradation inevitable and incurable. The African inthis country belongs by birth to the very lowest station in society, andfrom that station he can never rise, be his talents, his enterprise, hisvirtues what they may. . . . They constitute a class by themselves, aclass out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which nonecan be depressed. "

"Is it not wise, then, for the free people of color and their friends toadmit, what cannot reasonably be doubted, that the people of color must, in this country, remain for ages, probably forever, a separate andinferior caste, weighed down by causes, powerful, universal, inevitable;which neither legislation nor Christianity can remove?"

6. It opposes strenuously the education of the blacks in this country asuseless as well as dangerous. 

Proof. "If the free colored people were generally taught to read itmight be an inducement to them to remain in this country (that is, intheir native country). We would offer then no such inducement. "--(Southern Religious Telegraph, February 19, 1831. )

"The public safety of our brethren at the South requires them (theslaves) to be kept ignorant and uninstructed. "

"It is the business of the free (their safety requires it) to keep theslaves in ignorance. But a few days ago a proposition was made in thelegislature of Georgia to allow them so much instruction as to enablethem to read the Bible; which was promptly rejected by a largemajority. "--(Proceedings of New York State Colonization Society at itssecond anniversary. )

E. B. Caldwell, the first Secretary of the American Colonization Society, in his speech at its formation, recommended them to be kept "in thelowest state of ignorance and degradation, for (says he) the nearer youbring them to the condition of brutes, the better chance do you give themof possessing their apathy. "

My limits will not admit of a more extended examination. To thedocuments from whence the above extracts have been made I would call theattention of every real friend of humanity. I seek to do theColonization Society no injustice, but I wish the public generally tounderstand its character. 

The tendency of the society to abolish the slave-trade by means of itsAfrican colony has been strenuously urged by its friends. But thefallacy of this is now admitted by all: witness the following from thereports of the society itself:--

"Some appalling facts in regard to the slave-trade have come to theknowledge of the Board of Managers during the last year. Withundiminished atrocity and activity is this odious traffic now carried onall along the African coast. Slave factories are established in theimmediate vicinity of the colony; and at the Gallinas (between Liberiaand Sierra Leone) not less than nine hundred slaves were shipped duringthe last summer, in the space of three weeks. "

April 6, 1832, the House of Commons of England ordered the printing of adocument entitled "Slave-Trade, Sierra Leone, " containing officialevidence of the fact that the pirates engaged in the African slave-tradeare supplied from the stores of Sierra Leone and Liberia with sucharticles as the infernal traffic demands! An able English writer on thesubject of Colonization thus notices this astounding fact:--

"And here it may be well to observe, that as long as negro slavery lasts, all colonies on the African coast, of whatever description, must tend tosupport it, because, in all commerce, the supply is more or lessproportioned to the demand. The demand exists in negro slavery; thesupply arises from the African slave-trade. And what greater conveniencecould the African slave-traders desire than shops well stored along thecoast with the very articles which their trade demands. That the Africanslave-traders do get thus supplied at Sierra Leone and Liberia is matterof official evidence; and we know, from the nature of human things, thatthey will get so supplied, in defiance of all law or precaution, as longas the demand calls for the supply, and there are free shops stored withall they want at hand. The shopkeeper, however honest, would find itimpossible always to distinguish between the African slave-trader or hisagents and other dealers. And how many shopkeepers are there anywherethat would be over scrupulous in questioning a customer with a fullpurse?"

But we are told that the Colonization Society is to civilize andevangelize Africa. 

"Each emigrant, " says Henry Clay, the ablest advocate which the societyhas yet found, "is a missionary, carrying with him credentials in theholy cause of civilization, religion, and free institutions. "

Beautiful and heart-cheering idea! But stay who are these emigrants, these missionaries?

The free people of color. "They, and they only, " says the AfricanRepository, the society's organ, "are qualified for colonizing Africa. "

What are their qualifications? Let the society answer in its own words:--Free blacks are a greater nuisance than even slaves themselves. "--(African Repository, vol. Ii. P. 328. )

"A horde of miserable people--the objects of universal suspicion--subsisting by plunder. "

"An anomalous race of beings the most debased upon earth. "--(AfricanRepository, vol. Vii. P. 230. )

"Of all classes of our population the most vicious is that of the freecolored. "--(Tenth Annual Report of the Colonization Society. )

I might go on to quote still further from the "credentials" which thefree people of color are to carry with them to Liberia. But I forbear. 

I come now to the only practicable, the only just scheme of emancipation:Immediate abolition of slavery; an immediate acknowledgment of the greattruth, that man cannot hold property in man; an immediate surrender ofbaneful prejudice to Christian love; an immediate practical obedience tothe command of Jesus Christ: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do untoyou, do ye even so to them. "

A correct understanding of what is meant by immediate abolition mustconvince every candid mind that it is neither visionary nor dangerous;that it involves no disastrous consequences of bloodshed and desolation;but, on the, contrary, that it is a safe, practicable, efficient remedyfor the evils of the slave system. 

The term immediate is used in contrast with that of gradual. Earnestlyas I wish it, I do not expect, no one expects, that the tremendous systemof oppression can be instantaneously overthrown. The terrible andunrebukable indignation of a free people has not yet been sufficientlyconcentrated against it. The friends of abolition have not forgotten thepeculiar organization of our confederacy, the delicate division of powerbetween the states and the general government. They see the manyobstacles in their pathway; but they know that public opinion canovercome them all. They ask no aid of physical coercion. They seek toobtain their object not with the weapons of violence and blood, but withthose of reason and truth, prayer to God, and entreaty to man. 

They seek to impress indelibly upon every human heart the true doctrinesof the rights of man; to establish now and forever this great andfundamental truth of human liberty, that man cannot hold property in hisbrother; for they believe that the general admission of this truth willutterly destroy the system of slavery, based as that system is upon adenial or disregard of it. To make use of the clear exposition of aneminent advocate of immediate abolition, our plan of emancipation issimply this: "To promulgate the true doctrine of human rights in highplaces and low places, and all places where there are human beings; towhisper it in chimney corners, and to proclaim it from the house-tops, yea, from the mountain-tops; to pour it out like water from the pulpitand the press; to raise it up with all the food of the inner man, frominfancy to gray hairs; to give 'line upon line, and precept uponprecept, ' till it forms one of the foundation principles and partsindestructible of the public soul. Let those who contemn this planrenounce, if they have not done it already, the gospel plan of convertingthe world; let them renounce every plan of moral reformation, and everyplan whatsoever, which does not terminate in the gratification of theirown animal natures. "

The friends of emancipation would urge in the first instance an immediateabolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the Territoriesof Florida and Arkansas. 

The number of slaves in these portions of the country, coming under thedirect jurisdiction of the general government, is as follows:--

 District of Columbia ..... 6, 119 Territory of Arkansas .... 4, 576 Territory of Florida .... 15, 501

 Total 26, 196

Here, then, are twenty-six thousand human beings, fashioned in the imageof God, the fitted temples of His Holy Spirit, held by the government inthe abhorrent chains of slavery. The power to emancipate them is clear. It is indisputable. It does not depend upon the twenty-five slave votesin Congress. It lies with the free states. Their duty is before them:in the fear of God, and not of man let them perform it. 

Let them at once strike off the grievous fetters. Let them declare thatman shall no longer hold his fellow-man in bondage, a beast of burden, anarticle of traffic, within the governmental domain. God and truth andeternal justice demand this. The very reputation of our fathers, thehonor of our land, every principle of liberty, humanity, expediency, demand it. A sacred regard to free principles originated ourindependence, not the paltry amount of practical evil complained of. Andalthough our fathers left their great work unfinished, it is our duty tofollow out their principles. Short of liberty and equality we cannotstop without doing injustice to their memories. If our fathers intendedthat slavery should be perpetual, that our practice should forever givethe lie to our professions, why is the great constitutional compact soguardedly silent on the subject of human servitude? If state necessitydemanded this perpetual violation of the laws of God and the rights ofman, this continual solecism in a government of freedom, why is it notmet as a necessity, incurable and inevitable, and formally and distinctlyrecognized as a settled part of our social system? State necessity, thatimperial tyrant, seeks no disguise. In the language of Sheridan, "Whathe does, he dares avow, and avowing, scorns any other justification thanthe great motives which placed the iron sceptre in his grasp. "

Can it be possible that our fathers felt this state necessity strong uponthem? No; for they left open the door for emancipation, they left us thelight of their pure principles of liberty, they framed the great charterof American rights, without employing a term in its structure to which inaftertimes of universal freedom the enemies of our country could pointwith accusation or reproach. 

What, then, is our duty?

To give effect to the spirit of our Constitution; to plant ourselves uponthe great declaration and declare in the face of all the world thatpolitical, religious, and legal hypocrisy shall no longer cover as withloathsome leprosy the features of American freedom; to loose at once thebands of wickedness; to undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed gofree. 

We have indeed been authoritatively told in Congress and elsewhere thatour brethren of the South and West will brook no further agitation of thesubject of slavery. What then! shall we heed the unrighteousprohibition? No; by our duty as Christians, as politicians, by our dutyto ourselves, to our neighbor, and to God, we are called upon to agitatethis subject; to give slavery no resting-place under the hallowed aegisof a government of freedom; to tear it root and branch, with all itsfruits of abomination, at least from the soil of the national domain. The slave-holder may mock us; the representatives of property, merchandise, vendible commodities, may threaten us; still our duty isimperative; the spirit of the Constitution should be maintained withinthe exclusive jurisdiction of the government. If we cannot "provide forthe general welfare, " if we cannot "guarantee to each of the states arepublican form of government, " let us at least no longer legislate for afree nation within view of the falling whip, and within hearing of theexecrations of the task-master and the prayer of his slave!

I deny the right of the slave-holder to impose silence on his brother ofthe North in reference to slavery. What! compelled to maintain thesystem, to keep up the standing army which protects it, and yet be deniedthe poor privilege of remonstrance! Ready, at the summons of the masterto put down the insurrections of his slaves, the outbreaking of thatrevenge which is now, and has been, in all nations, and all times, theinevitable consequence of oppression and wrong, and yet like automata toact but not speak! Are we to be denied even the right of a slave, theright to murmur?

I am not unaware that my remarks may be regarded by many as dangerous andexceptionable; that I may be regarded as a fanatic for quoting thelanguage of eternal truth, and denounced as an incendiary formaintaining, in the spirit as well as the letter, the doctrines ofAmerican Independence. But if such are the consequences of a simpleperformance of duty, I shall not regard them. If my feeble appeal butreaches the hearts of any who are now slumbering in iniquity; if it shallhave power given it to shake down one stone from that foul temple wherethe blood of human victims is offered to the Moloch of slavery; if underProvidence it can break one fetter from off the image of God, and enableone suffering African

"To feelThe weight of human misery less, and glideUngroaning to the tomb, "

I shall not have written in vain; my conscience will be satisfied. 

Far be it from me to cast new bitterness into the gall and wormwoodwaters of sectional prejudice. No; I desire peace, the peace ofuniversal love, of catholic sympathy, the peace of a common interest, acommon feeling, a common humanity. But so long as slavery is tolerated, no such peace can exist. Liberty and slavery cannot dwell in harmonytogether. There will be a perpetual "war in the members" of thepolitical Mezentius between the living and the dead. God and man haveplaced between them an everlasting barrier, an eternal separation. Nomatter under what name or law or compact their union is attempted, theordination of Providence has forbidden it, and it cannot stand. Peace!there can be no peace between justice and oppression, between robbery andrighteousness, truth and falsehood, freedom and slavery. 

The slave-holding states are not free. The name of liberty is there, butthe spirit is wanting. They do not partake of its invaluable blessings. Wherever slavery exists to any considerable extent, with the exception ofsome recently settled portions of the country, and which have not yetfelt in a great degree the baneful and deteriorating influences of slavelabor, we hear at this moment the cry of suffering. We are told ofgrass-grown streets, of crumbling mansions, of beggared planters andbarren plantations, of fear from without, of terror within. The oncefertile fields are wasted and tenantless, for the curse of slavery, theimprovidence of that labor whose hire has been kept back by fraud, hasbeen there, poisoning the very earth beyond the reviving influence of theearly and the latter rain. A moral mildew mingles with and blasts theeconomy of nature. It is as if the finger of the everlasting God hadwritten upon the soil of the slave-holder the language of Hisdispleasure. 

Let, then, the slave-holding states consult their present interest bybeginning without delay the work of emancipation. If they fear not, andmock at the fiery indignation of Him, to whom vengeance belongeth, lettemporal interest persuade them. They know, they must know, that thepresent state of things cannot long continue. Mind is the sameeverywhere, no matter what may be the complexion of the frame which itanimates: there is a love of liberty which the scourge cannot eradicate, a hatred of oppression which centuries of degradation cannot extinguish. The slave will become conscious sooner or later of his brute strength, his physical superiority, and will exert it. His torch will be at thethreshold and his knife at the throat of the planter. Horrible andindiscriminate will be his vengeance. Where, then, will be the pride, the beauty, and the chivalry of the South? The smoke of her torment willrise upward like a thick cloud visible over the whole earth. 

 "Belie the negro's powers: in headlong will, Christian, thy brother thou shalt find him still. Belie his virtues: since his wrongs began, His follies and his crimes have stamped him man. "

Let the cause of insurrection be removed, then, as speedily as possible. Cease to oppress. "Let him that stole steal no more. " Let the laborerhave his hire. Bind him no longer by the cords of slavery, but withthose of kindness and brotherly love. Watch over him for his good. Prayfor him; instruct him; pour light into the darkness of his mind. 

Let this be done, and the horrible fears which now haunt the slumbers ofthe slave-holder will depart. Conscience will take down its racks andgibbets, and his soul will be at peace. His lands will no longerdisappoint his hopes. Free labor will renovate them. 

Historical facts; the nature of the human mind; the demonstrated truthsof political economy; the analysis of cause and effect, all concur inestablishing:

1. That immediate abolition is a safe and just and peaceful remedy forthe evils of the slave system. 

2. That free labor, its necessary consequence, is more productive, andmore advantageous to the planter than slave labor. 

In proof of the first proposition it is only necessary to state theundeniable fact that immediate emancipation, whether by an individual ora community, has in no instance been attended with violence and disorderon the part of the emancipated; but that on the contrary it has promotedcheerfulness, industry, and laudable ambition in the place of sullendiscontent, indolence, and despair. 

The case of St. Domingo is in point. Blood was indeed shed on thatisland like water, but it was not in consequence of emancipation. It wasshed in the civil war which preceded it, and in the iniquitous attempt torestore the slave system in 1801. It flowed on the sanguine altar ofslavery, not on the pure and peaceful one of emancipation. No; there, asin all the world and in all time, the violence of oppression engenderedviolence on the part of the oppressed, and vengeance followed only uponthe iron footsteps of wrong. When, where, did justice to the injuredwaken their hate and vengeance? When, where, did love and kindness andsympathy irritate and madden the persecuted, the broken-hearted, thefoully wronged?

In September, 1793, the Commissioner of the French National Conventionissued his proclamation giving immediate freedom to all the slaves of St. Domingo. Did the slaves baptize their freedom in blood? Did they fightlike unchained desperadoes because they had been made free? Did theymurder their emancipators? No; they acted, as human beings must act, under similar circumstances, by a law as irresistible as those of theuniverse: kindness disarmed them, justice conciliated them, freedomennobled them. No tumult followed this wide and instantaneousemancipation. It cost not one drop of blood; it abated not one tittle ofthe wealth or the industry of the island. Colonel Malenfant, a slaveproprietor residing at the time on the island, states that after thepublic act of abolition, the negroes remained perfectly quiet; they hadobtained all they asked for, liberty, and they continued to work upon allthe plantations. --(Malenfant in Memoirs for a History of St. Domingo byGeneral Lecroix, 1819. )

"There were estates, " he says, "which had neither owners nor managersresident upon them, yet upon these estates, though abandoned, the negroescontinued their labors where there were any, even inferior, agents toguide them; and on those estates where no white men were left to directthem, they betook themselves to the planting of provisions; but upon allthe plantations where the whites resided the blacks continued to labor asquietly as before. " Colonel Malenfant says that when many of hisneighbors, proprietors or managers, were in prison, the negroes of theirplantations came to him to beg him to direct them in their work. "If youwill take care not to talk to them of the restoration of slavery, buttalk to them of freedom, you may with this word chain them down to theirlabor. How did Toussaint succeed? How did I succeed before his time inthe plain of the Cul-de-Sac on the plantation of Gouraud, during morethan eight months after liberty had been granted to the slaves? Letthose who knew me at that time, let the blacks themselves be asked. Theywill all reply that not a single negro upon that plantation, consistingof more than four hundred and fifty laborers, refused to work; and yetthis plantation was thought to be under the worst discipline and theslaves the most idle of any in the plain. I inspired the same activityinto three other plantations of which I had the management. If all thenegroes had come from Africa within six months, if they had the love ofindependence that the Indians have, I should own that force must beemployed; but ninety-nine out of a hundred of the blacks are aware thatwithout labor they cannot procure the things that are necessary for them;that there is no other method of satisfying their wants and their tastes. They know that they must work, they wish to do so, and they will do so. "

This is strong testimony. In 1796, three years after the act ofemancipation, we are told that the colony was flourishing underToussaint, that the whites lived happily and peaceably on their estates, and the blacks continued to work for them. Up to 1801 the same happystate of things continued. The colony went on as by enchantment;cultivation made day by day a perceptible progress, under therecuperative energies of free labor. 

In 1801 General Vincent, a proprietor of estates in the island, was sentby Toussaint to Paris for the purpose of laying before the Directory thenew Constitution which had been adopted at St. Domingo. He reachedFrance just after the peace of Amiens, when Napoleon was fitting out hisill-starred armament for the insane purpose of restoring slavery in theisland. General Vincent remonstrated solemnly and earnestly against anexpedition so preposterous, so cruel and unnecessary; undertaken at amoment when all was peace and quietness in the colony, when theproprietors were in peaceful possession of their estates, whencultivation was making a rapid progress, and the blacks were industriousand happy beyond example. He begged that this beautiful state of thingsmight not be reversed. The remonstrance was not regarded, and theexpedition proceeded. Its issue is well known. Threatened once morewith the horrors of slavery, the peaceful and quiet laborer becametransformed into a demon of ferocity. The plough-share and the pruning-hook gave way to the pike and the dagger. The white invaders were drivenback by the sword and the pestilence; and then, and not till then, wasthe property of the planters seized upon by the excited and infuriatedblacks. 

In 1804 Dessalines was proclaimed Emperor of Hayti. The black troopswere in a great measure disbanded, and they immediately returned to thecultivation of the plantations. From that period up to the present therehas been no want of industry among the inhabitants. 

Mr. Harvey, who during the reign of Christophe resided at Cape Francois, in describing the character and condition of the inhabitants, says "Itwas an interesting sight to behold this class of the Haytiens, now inpossession of their freedom, coming in groups to the market nearest whichthey resided, bringing the produce of their industry there for sale; andafterwards returning, carrying back the necessary articles of livingwhich the disposal of their commodities had enabled them to purchase; allevidently cheerful and happy. Nor could it fail to occur to the mindthat their present condition furnished the most satisfactory answer tothat objection to the general emancipation of slaves founded on theiralleged unfitness to value and improve the benefits of liberty. . . . As they would not suffer, so they do not require, the attendance of oneacting in the capacity of a driver with the instrument of punishment inhis hand. As far as I had an opportunity of ascertaining from what fellunder my own observation, and from what I gathered from other Europeanresidents, I am persuaded of one general fact, which on account of itsimportance I shall state in the most explicit terms, namely, that theHaytiens employed in cultivating the plantations, as well as the rest ofthe population, perform as much work in a given time as they wereaccustomed to do during their subjection to the French. And if we mayjudge of their future improvement by the change which has been alreadyeffected, it may be reasonably anticipated that Hayti will erelongcontain a population not inferior in their industry to that of anycivilized nation in the world. . . . Every man had some calling tooccupy his attention; instances of idleness or intemperance were of rareoccurrence; the most perfect subordination prevailed, and all appearedcontented and happy. A foreigner would have found it difficult topersuade himself, on his first entering the place, that the people he nowbeheld so submissive, industrious, and contented, were the same peoplewho a few years before had escaped from the shackles of slavery. "

The present condition of Hayti may be judged of from the following well-authenticated facts its population is more than 700, 000, its resourcesample, its prosperity and happiness general, its crimes few, its laborcrowned with abundance, with no paupers save the decrepit and aged, itspeople hospitable, respectful, orderly, and contented. 

The manumitted slaves, who to the number of two thousand were settled inNova Scotia by the British Government at the close of the RevolutionaryWar, "led a harmless life, and gained the character of an honest, industrious people from their white neighbors. " Of the free laborers ofTrinidad we have the same report. At the Cape of Good Hope, threethousand negroes received their freedom, and with scarce a singleexception betook themselves to laborious employments. 

But we have yet stronger evidence. The total abolishment of slavery inthe southern republics has proved beyond dispute the safety and utilityof immediate abolition. The departed Bolivar indeed deserves hisglorious title of Liberator, for he began his career of freedom bystriking off the fetters of his own slaves, seven hundred in number. 

In an official letter from the Mexican Envoy of the British Government, dated Mexico, March, 1826, and addressed 'to the Right Hon. GeorgeCanning, the superiority of free over slave labor is clearly demonstratedby the following facts:--

2. It is now carried on exclusively by the labor of free blacks. 

3. It was formerly wholly sustained by the forced labor of slaves, purchased at Vera Cruz at $300 to $400 each. 

4. Abolition in this section was effected not by governmentalinterference, not even from motives of humanity, but from an irresistibleconviction on the part of the planters that their pecuniary interestdemanded it. 

5. The result has proved the entire correctness of this conviction; andthe planters would now be as unwilling as the blacks themselves to returnto the old system. 

Let our Southern brethren imitate this example. It is in vain, in theface of facts like these, to talk of the necessity of maintaining theabominable system, operating as it does like a double curse upon plantersand slaves. Heaven and earth deny its necessity. It is as necessary asother robberies, and no more. 

Yes, putting aside altogether the righteous law of the living God--thesame yesterday, to-day, and forever--and shutting out the clearestpolitical truths ever taught by man, still, in human policy selfishexpediency would demand of the planter the immediate emancipation of hisslaves. 

Because slave labor is the labor of mere machines; a mechanical impulseof body and limb, with which the mind of the laborer has no sympathy, andfrom which it constantly and loathingly revolts. 

Because slave labor deprives the master altogether of the incalculablebenefit of the negro's will. That does not cooperate with the forcedtoil of the body. This is but the necessary consequence of all laborwhich does not benefit the laborer. It is a just remark of that profoundpolitical economist, Adam Smith, that "a slave can have no other interestthan to eat and waste as much, and work as little, as he can. "

To my mind, in the wasteful and blighting influences of slave labor thereis a solemn and warning moral. 

They seem the evidence of the displeasure of Him who created man afterHis own image, at the unnatural attempt to govern the bones and sinews, the bodies and souls, of one portion of His children by the caprice, theavarice, the lusts of another; at that utter violation of the design ofHis merciful Providence, whereby the entire dependence of millions of Hisrational creatures is made to centre upon the will, the existence, theability, of their fellow-mortals, instead of resting under the shadow ofHis own Infinite Power and exceeding love. 

I shall offer a few more facts and observations on this point. 

1. A distinguished scientific gentleman, Mr. Coulomb, the superintendentof several military works in the French West Indies, gives it as hisopinion, that the slaves do not perform more than one third of the laborwhich they would do, provided they were urged by their own interests andinclinations instead of brute force. 

2. A plantation in Barbadoes in 1780 was cultivated by two hundred andeighty-eight slaves ninety men, eighty-two women, fifty-six boys, andsixty girls. In three years and three months there were on thisplantation fifty-seven deaths, and only fifteen births. A change wasthen made in the government of the slaves. The use of the whip wasdenied; all severe and arbitrary punishments were abolished; the laborersreceived wages, and their offences were all tried by a sort of negrocourt established among themselves: in short, they were practically free. Under this system, in four years and three months there were forty-fourbirths, and but forty-one deaths; and the annual net produce of theplantation was more than three times what it had been before. --(EnglishQuarterly Magazine and Review, April, 1832. )

3. The following evidence was adduced by Pitt in the British Parliament, April, 1792. The assembly of Grenada had themselves stated, "that thoughthe negroes were allowed only the afternoon of one day in a week, theywould do as much work in that afternoon, when employed for their ownbenefit, as in the whole day when employed in their master's service. ""Now after this confession, " said Mr. Pitt, "the house might burn all itscalculations relative to the negro population. A negro, if he worked forhimself, could no doubt do double work. By an improvement, then, in themode of labor, the work in the islands could be doubled. "

4. "In coffee districts it is usual for the master to hire his peopleafter they have done the regular task for the day, at a rate varying from10d. To 15. 8d. For every extra bushel which they pluck from the trees;and many, almost all, are found eager to earn their wages. "

5. In a report made by the commandant of Castries for the government ofSt. Lucia, in 1822, it is stated, in proof of the intimacy between theslaves and the free blacks, that "many small plantations of the latter, and occupied by only one man and his wife, are better cultivated and havemore land in cultivation than those of the proprietors of many slaves, and that the labor on them is performed by runaway slaves;" thus clearlyproving that even runaway slaves, under the all-depressing fears ofdiscovery and oppression, labor well, because the fruits of their laborare immediately their own. 

Let us look at this subject from another point of view. The large sum ofmoney necessary for stocking a plantation with slaves has an inevitabletendency to place the agriculture of a slave-holding communityexclusively in the hands of the wealthy, a tendency at war with practicalrepublicanism and conflicting with the best maxims of political economy. 

Two hundred slaves at $200 per head would cost in the outset $40, 000. Compare this enormous outlay for the labor of a single plantation withthe beautiful system of free labor as exhibited in New England, whereevery young laborer, with health and ordinary prudence, may acquire byhis labor on the farms of others, in a few years, a farm of his own, andthe stock necessary for its proper cultivation; where on a hard andunthankful soil independence and competence may be attained by all. 

Free labor is perfectly in accordance with the spirit of ourinstitutions; slave labor is a relic of a barbarous, despotic age. Theone, like the firmament of heaven, is the equal diffusion of similarlights, manifest, harmonious, regular; the other is the fierypredominance of some disastrous star, hiding all lesser luminaries aroundit in one consuming glare. 

Emancipation would reform this evil. The planter would no longer beunder the necessity of a heavy expenditure for slaves. He would only paya very moderate price for his labor; a price, indeed, far less than thecost of the maintenance of a promiscuous gang of slaves, which thepresent system requires. 

In an old plantation of three hundred slaves, not more than one hundredeffective laborers will be found. Children, the old and superannuated, the sick and decrepit, the idle and incorrigibly vicious, will be foundto constitute two thirds of the whole number. The remaining thirdperform only about one third as much work as the same number of freelaborers. 

Now disburden the master of this heavy load of maintenance; let himemploy free able, industrious laborers only, those who feel conscious ofa personal interest in the fruits of their labor, and who does not seethat such a system would be vastly more safe and economical than thepresent?

The slave states are learning this truth by fatal experience. Most ofthem are silently writhing under the great curse. Virginia has utteredher complaints aloud. As yet, however, nothing has been done even there, save a small annual appropriation for the purpose of colonizing the freecolored inhabitants of the state. Is this a remedy?

But it may be said that Virginia will ultimately liberate her slaves oncondition of their colonization in Africa, peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary. 

Well, admitting that Virginia may be able and willing at some remoteperiod to rid herself of the evil by commuting the punishment of herunoffending colored people from slavery to exile, will her fearful remedyapply to some of the other slaveholding states?

It is a fact, strongly insisted upon by our Southern brethren as a reasonfor the perpetuation of slavery, that their climate and peculiaragriculture will not admit of hard labor on the part of the whites; thatamidst the fatal malaria of the rice plantations the white man is almostannually visited by the country fever; that few of the white overseers ofthese plantations reach the middle period of ordinary life; that theowners are compelled to fly from their estates as the hot seasonapproaches, without being able to return until the first frosts havefallen. But we are told that the slaves remain there, at their work, mid-leg in putrid water, breathing the noisome atmosphere, loaded withcontagion, and underneath the scorching fervor of a terrible sun; thatthey indeed suffer; but, that their habits, constitutions, and their longpractice enable them to labor, surrounded by such destructive influences, with comparative safety. 

The conclusive answer, therefore, to those who in reality cherish thevisionary hope of colonizing all the colored people of the United Statesin Africa or elsewhere, is this single, all-important fact: The labor ofthe blacks will not and cannot be dispensed with by the planter of theSouth. 

To what remedy, then, can the friends of humanity betake themselves butto that of emancipation?

And nothing but a strong, unequivocal expression of public sentiment isneeded to carry into effect this remedy, so far as the general governmentis concerned. 

And when the voice of all the non-slave-holding states shall be heard onthis question, a voice of expostulation, rebuke, entreaty--when the fulllight of truth shall break through the night of prejudice, and reveal allthe foul abominations of slavery, will Delaware still cling to the cursewhich is wasting her moral strength, and still rivet the fetters upon herthree or four thousand slaves? Let Delaware begin the work, and Marylandand Virginia must follow; the example will be contagious; and the greatobject of universal emancipation will be attained. Freemen, Christians, lovers of truth and justice Why stand ye idle? Ours is a government ofopinion, and slavery is interwoven with it. Change the current ofopinion, and slavery will be swept away. Let the awful sovereignty ofthe people, a power which is limited only by the sovereignty of Heaven, arise and pronounce judgment against the crying iniquity. Let eachindividual remember that upon himself rests a portion of thatsovereignty; a part of the tremendous responsibility of its exercise. The burning, withering concentration of public opinion upon the slavesystem is alone needed for its total annihilation. God has given us thepower to overthrow it; a power peaceful, yet mighty, benevolent, yeteffectual, "awful without severity, " a moral strength equal to theemergency. 

"How does it happen, " inquires an able writer, "that whenever duty is namedwe begin to hear of the weakness of human nature? That same nature whichoutruns the whirlwind in the chase of gain, which rages like a maniac atthe trumpet call of glory, which laughs danger and death to scorn whenits least passion is awakened, becomes weak as childhood when reminded ofthe claims of duty. " But let no one hope to find an excuse in hypocrisy. The humblest individual of the community in one way or another possessesinfluence; and upon him as well as upon the proudest rests theresponsibility of its rightful exercise and proper direction. Theoverthrow of a great national evil like that of slavery can only beeffected by the united energies of the great body of the people. Shoulder must be put to shoulder and hand linked with hand, the wholemass must be put in motion and its entire strength applied, until thefabric of oppression is shaken to its dark foundations and not one stoneis left upon another. 

Let the Christian remember that the God of his worship hateth oppression;that the mystery of faith can only be held by a pure conscience; and thatin vain is the tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, if the weihtiermatters of the law, judgment, mercy, and truth, are forgotten. Let himremember that all along the clouded region of slavery the truths of theeverlasting gospel are not spoken, that the ear of iniquity is lulled, that those who minister between the "porch and the altar" dare not speakout the language of eternal justice: "Is not this the fast which I havechosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, andto let the oppressed go free?" (Isa. Viii. 6. ) "He that stealeth a manand selleth him; or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put todeath. " (Exod. Xxi. 16. 1) Yet a little while and the voice of impartialprayer for humanity will be heard no more in the abiding place ofslavery. The truths of the gospel, its voice of warning and exhortation, will be denounced as incendiary? The night of that infidelity, whichdenies God in the abuse and degradation of man, will settle over theland, to be broken only by the upheaving earthquake of eternalretribution. 

To the members of the religious Society of Friends, I would earnestlyappeal. They have already done much to put away the evil of slavery inthis country and Great Britain. The blessings of many who were ready toperish have rested upon them. But their faithful testimony must be stillsteadily upborne, for the great work is but begun. Let them not relaxtheir exertions, nor be contented with a lifeless testimony, a formalprotestation against the evil. Active, prayerful, unwearied exertion isneeded for its overthrow. But above all, let them not aid in excusingand palliating it. Slavery has no redeeming qualities, no feature ofbenevolence, nothing pure, nothing peaceful, nothing just. Let themcarefully keep themselves aloof from all societies and all schemes whichhave a tendency to excuse or overlook its crying iniquity. True to adoctrine founded on love and mercy, "peace on earth and good will tomen, " they should regard the suffering slave as their brother, andendeavor to "put their souls in his soul's stead. " They may earnestlydesire the civilization of Africa, but they cannot aid in building up thecolony of Liberia so long as that colony leans for support upon the armof military power; so long as it proselytes to Christianity under themuzzles of its cannon; and preaches the doctrines of Christ whilepractising those of Mahomet. When the Sierra Leone Company was formed inEngland, not a member of the Society of Friends could be prevailed uponto engage in it, because the colony was to be supplied with cannon andother military stores. Yet the Foreign Agent of the Liberia ColonySociety, to which the same insurmountable objection exists, is a memberof the Society of Friends, and I understand has been recently employed inproviding gunpowder, etc. , for the use of the colony. There must be anawakening on this subject; other Woolmans and other Benezets must ariseand speak the truth with the meek love of James and the fervent sincerityof Paul. 

To the women of America, whose sympathies know no distinction of cline, or sect, or color, the suffering slave is making a strong appeal. Oh, let it not be unheeded! for of those to whom much is given much will berequired at the last dread tribunal; and never in the strongest terms ofhuman eulogy was woman's influence overrated. Sisters, daughters, wives, and mothers, your influence is felt everywhere, at the fireside, and inthe halls of legislation, surrounding, like the all-encirclingatmosphere, brother and father, husband and son! And by your love ofthem, by every holy sympathy of your bosoms, by every mournful appealwhich comes up to you from hearts whose sanctuary of affections has beenmade waste and desolate, you are called upon to exert it in the cause ofredemption from wrong and outrage. 

Let the patriot, the friend of liberty and the Union of the States, nolonger shut his eyes to the great danger, the master-evil before whichall others dwindle into insignificance. Our Union is tottering to itsfoundation, and slavery is the cause. Remove the evil. Dry up at theirsource the bitter waters. In vain you enact and abrogate your tariffs;in vain is individual sacrifice, or sectional concession. The accursedthing is with us, the stone of stumbling and the rock of offence remains. Drag, then, the Achan into light; and let national repentance atone fornational sin. 

The conflicting interests of free and slave labor furnish the only groundfor fear in relation to the permanency of the Union. The line ofseparation between them is day by day growing broader and deeper;geographically and politically united, we are already, in a moral pointof view, a divided people. But a few months ago we were on the veryverge of civil war, a war of brothers, a war between the North and theSouth, between the slave-holder and the free laborer. The danger hasbeen delayed for a time; this bolt has fallen without mortal injury tothe Union, but the cloud from whence it came still hangs above us, reddening with the elements of destruction. 

Recent events have furnished ample proof that the slave-holding interestis prepared to resist any legislation on the part of the generalgovernment which is supposed to have a tendency, directly or indirectly, to encourage and invigorate free labor; and that it is determined tocharge upon its opposite interest the infliction of all those evils whichnecessarily attend its own operation, "the primeval curse of Omnipotenceupon slavery. "

We have already felt in too many instances the extreme difficulty ofcherishing in one common course of national legislation the oppositeinterests of republican equality and feudal aristocracy and servitude. The truth is, we have undertaken a moral impossibility. These interestsare from their nature irreconcilable. The one is based upon the pureprinciples of rational liberty; the other, under the name of freedom, revives the ancient European system of barons and villains, nobles andserfs. Indeed, the state of society which existed among our Anglo-Saxonancestors was far more tolerable than that of many portions of ourrepublican confederacy. For the Anglo-Saxon slaves had it in their powerto purchase their freedom; and the laws of the realm recognized theirliberation and placed them under legal protection. 

 (The diffusion of Christianity in Great Britain was moreover followed by a general manumission; for it would seem that the priests and missionaries of religion in that early and benighted age were more faithful in the performance of their duties than those of the present. "The holy fathers, monks, and friars, " says Sir T. Smith, "had in their confessions, and specially in their extreme and deadly sickness, convinced the laity how dangerous a thing it was for one Christian to hold another in bondage; so that temporal men, by reason of the terror in their consciences, were glad to manumit all their villains. "--Hilt. Commonwealth, Blackstone, p. 52. )

To counteract the dangers resulting from a state of society so utterly atvariance with the great Declaration of American freedom should be theearnest endeavor of every patriotic statesman. Nothing unconstitutional, nothing violent, should be attempted; but the true doctrine of the rightsof man should be steadily kept in view; and the opposition to slaveryshould be inflexible and constantly maintained. The almost dailyviolations of the Constitution in consequence of the laws of some of theslave states, subjecting free colored citizens of New England andelsewhere, who may happen to be on board of our coasting vessels, toimprisonment immediately on their arrival in a Southern port should beprovided against. Nor should the imprisonment of the free coloredcitizens of the Northern and Middle states, on suspicion of beingrunaways, subjecting them, even after being pronounced free, to the costsof their confinement and trial, be longer tolerated; for if we continueto yield to innovations like these upon the Constitution of our fathers, we shall erelong have the name only of a free government left us. 

Dissemble as we may, it is impossible for us to believe, after fullyconsidering the nature of slavery, that it can much longer maintain apeaceable existence among us. A day of revolution must come, and it isour duty to prepare for it. Its threatened evil may be changed into anational blessing. The establishment of schools for the instruction ofthe slave children, a general diffusion of the lights of Christianity, and the introduction of a sacred respect for the social obligations ofmarriage and for the relations between parents and children, among ourblack population, would render emancipation not only perfectly safe, butalso of the highest advantage to the country. Two millions of freemenwould be added to our population, upon whom in the hour of danger wecould safely depend; "the domestic foe" would be changed into a firmfriend, faithful, generous, and ready to encounter all dangers in ourdefence. It is well known that during the last war with Great Britain, wherever the enemy touched upon our Southern coast, the slaves inmultitudes hastened to join them. On the other hand, the free blackswere highly serviceable in repelling them. So warm was the zeal of thelatter, so manifest their courage in the defence of Louisiana, that thepresent Chief Magistrate of the United States publicly bestowed upon themone of the highest eulogiums ever offered by a commander to his soldiers. 

Let no one seek an apology for silence on the subject of slavery becausethe laws of the land tolerate and sanction it. But a short time ago theslave-trade was protected by laws and treaties, and sanctioned by theexample of men eminent for the reputation of piety and integrity. Yetpublic opinion broke over these barriers; it lifted the curtain andrevealed the horrors of that most abominable traffic; and unrighteous lawand ancient custom and avarice and luxury gave way before itsirresistible authority. It should never be forgotten that human lawcannot change the nature of human action in the pure eye of infinitejustice; and that the ordinances of man cannot annul those of God. Theslave system, as existing in this country, can be considered in no otherlight than as the cause of which the foul traffic in human flesh is thelegitimate consequence. It is the parent, the fosterer, the solesupporter of the slave-trade. It creates the demand for slaves, and theforeign supply will always be equal to the demand of consumption. Itkeeps the market open. It offers inducements to the slave-trader whichno severity of law against his traffic can overcome. By our laws histrade is piracy; while slavery, to which alone it owes its existence, isprotected and cherished, and those engaged in it are rewarded by anincrease of political power proportioned to the increase of their stockof human beings! To steal the natives of Africa is a crime worthy of anignominious death; but to steal and enslave annually nearly one hundredthousand of the descendants of these stolen natives, born in thiscountry, is considered altogether excusable and proper! For my own part, I know no difference between robbery in Africa and robbery at home. Icould with as quiet a conscience engage in the one as the other. 

"There is not one general principle, " justly remarks Lord Nugent, "onwhich the slave-trade is to be stigmatized which does not impeach slaveryitself. " Kindred in iniquity, both must fall speedily, fall together, and be consigned to the same dishonorable grave. The spirit which isthrilling through every nerve of England is awakening America from hersleep of death. Who, among our statesmen, would not shrink from thebaneful reputation of having supported by his legislative influence theslave-trade, the traffic in human flesh? Let them then beware; for thetime is near at hand when the present defenders of slavery will sinkunder the same fatal reputation, and leave to posterity a memory whichwill blacken through all future time, a legacy of infamy. 

"Let us not betake us to the common arts and stratagems of nations, butfear God, and put away the evil which provokes Him; and trust not in man, but in the living God; and it shall go well for England!" This counsel, given by the purehearted William Penn, in a former age, is about to befollowed in the present. An intense and powerful feeling is working inthe mighty heart of England; it is speaking through the lips of Broughamand Buxton and O'Connell, and demanding justice in the name of humanityand according to the righteous law of God. The immediate emancipation ofeight hundred thousand slaves is demanded with an authority which cannotmuch longer be disputed or trifled with. That demand will be obeyed;justice will be done; the heavy burdens will be unloosed; the oppressedset free. It shall go well for England. 

And when the stain on our own escutcheon shall be seen no more; when theDeclaration of our Independence and the practice of our people shallagree; when truth shall be exalted among us; when love shall take theplace of wrong; when all the baneful pride and prejudice of caste andcolor shall fall forever; when under one common sun of political libertythe slave-holding portions of our republic shall no longer sit, like theEgyptians of old, themselves mantled in thick darkness, while all aroundthem is glowing with the blessed light of freedom and equality, then, andnot till then, shall it go well for America!

THE ABOLITIONISTS. THEIR SENTIMENTS AND OBJECTS. 

Two letters to the 'Jeffersonian and Times', Richmond, Va. 

 I. 

A FRIEND has banded me a late number of your paper, containing a briefnotice of a pamphlet, which I have recently published on the subject ofslavery. 

From an occasional perusal of your paper, I have formed a favorableopinion of your talent and independence. Compelled to dissent from someof your political sentiments, I still give you full credit for the loftytone of sincerity and manliness with which these sentiments are avowedand defended. 

I perceive that since the adjustment of the tariff question a new subjectof discontent and agitation seems to engross your attention. 

The "accursed tariff" has no sooner ceased to be the stone of stumblingand the rock of offence, than the "abolition doctrines of the Northernenthusiasts, " as you are pleased to term the doctrines of your ownJefferson, furnish, in your opinion, a sufficient reason for poising the"Ancient Dominion" on its sovereignty, and rousing every slaveowner tomilitary preparations, until the entire South, from the Potomac to theGulf, shall bristle with bayonets, "like quills upon the fretfulporcupine. "

In proof of a conspiracy against your "vested rights, " you have commencedpublishing copious extracts from the pamphlets and periodicals of theabolitionists of New England and New York. An extract from my ownpamphlet you have headed "The Fanatics, " and in introducing it to yourreaders you inform them that "it exhibits, in strong colors, the morbidspirit of that false and fanatical philanthropy, which is at work in theNorthern states, and, to some extent, in the South. "

Gentlemen, so far as I am personally concerned in the matter, I feel nodisposition to take exceptions to any epithets which you may see fit toapply to me or my writings. A humble son of New England--a tiller of herrugged soil, and a companion of her unostentatious yeomanry--it matterslittle, in any personal consideration of the subject, whether the voiceof praise or opprobrium reaches me from beyond the narrow limits of myimmediate neighborhood. 

But when I find my opinions quoted as the sentiment of New England, andthen denounced as dangerous, "false and fanatical;" and especially when Isee them made the occasion of earnest appeals to the prejudices andsectional jealousies of the South, it becomes me to endeavor to establishtheir truths, and defend them from illegitimate influences and unjustsuspicions. 

In the first place, then, let me say, that if it be criminal to publiclyexpress a belief that it is in the power of the slave states toemancipate their slaves, with profit and safety to themselves, and thatsuch is their immediate duty, a majority of the people of New England arewholly guiltless. Of course, all are nominally opposed to slavery; butupon the little band of abolitionists should the anathemas of the slave-holder be directed, for they are the agitators of whom you complain, menwho are acting under a solemn conviction of duty, and who are bendingevery energy of their minds to the accomplishment of their object. 

And that object is the overthrow of slavery in the United States, by suchmeans only as are sanctioned by law, humanity, and religion. 

I shall endeavor, gentlemen, as briefly as may be, to give you some ofour reasons for opposing slavery and seeking its abolition; and, secondly, to explain our mode of operation; to disclose our plan ofemancipation, fully and entirely. We wish to do nothing darkly; frankrepublicans, we acknowledge no double-dealing. At this busy season ofthe year, I cannot but regret that I have not leisure for such adeliberate examination of the subject as even my poor ability mightwarrant. My remarks, penned in the intervals of labor, must necessarilybe brief, and wanting in coherence. 

We seek the abolishment of slavery

1. Because it is contrary to the law of God. 

In your paper of the 2d of 7th mo. , the same in which you denounce the"false and fanatical philanthropy" of abolitionists, you avow yourselvesmembers of the Bible Society, and bestow warm and deserved encomiums onthe "truly pious undertaking of sending the truth among all nations. "

You, therefore, gentlemen, whatever others may do, will not accuse me of"fanaticism, " if I endeavor to sustain my first great reason for opposingslavery by a reference to the volume of inspiration:

"Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you doye even so to them. "

"Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you, take heed and do it;for there is no iniquity with the Lord, nor respect of persons. "

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands ofwickedness; to undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free, andthat ye break every yoke?"

"If a man be found stealing any of his brethren, and maketh merchandiseof him, or selling him, that thief shall die. "

"Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. "

"And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in hishands, he shall surely be put to death. "

2. Because it is an open violation of all human equality, of the laws ofNature and of nations. 

The fundamental principle of all equal and just law is contained in thefollowing extract from Blackstone's Commentaries, Introduction, sec. 2. 

"The rights which God and Nature have established, and which aretherefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not theaid of human laws to be more effectually vested in every man than theyare; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared bymunicipal laws to be inviolable: on the contrary, no human legislationhas power to abridge or destroy there, unless the owner shall himselfcommit some act that amounts to a forfeiture. "

Has the negro committed such offence? Above all, has his infant childforfeited its unalienable right?

Surely it can be no act of the innocent child. 

Yet you must prove the forfeiture, or no human legislation can deprivethat child of its freedom. 

Its black skin constitutes the forfeiture!

What! throw the responsibility upon God! Charge the common Father of thewhite and the black, He, who is no respecter of persons, with plunderingHis unoffending children of all which makes the boon of existencedesirable; their personal liberty!

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: 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. "--(Declaration of Independence, from the pen of Thomas Jefferson. )

In this general and unqualified declaration, on the 4th of July, 1776, all the people of the United States, without distinction of color, wereproclaimed free, by the delegates of the people of those states assembledin their highest sovereign capacity. 

For more than half a century we have openly violated that solemndeclaration. 

3. Because it renders nugatory the otherwise beneficial example of ourfree institutions, and exposes us to the scorn and reproach of theliberal and enlightened of other nations. 

"Chains clank and groans echo around the walls of their spotlessCongress. "--(Francis Jeffrey. )

"Man to be possessed by man! Man to be made property of! The image ofthe Deity to be put under the yoke! Let these usurpers show us theirtitle-deeds!"--(Simon Boliver. )

"When I am indulging in my views of American prospects and Americanliberty, it is mortifying to be told that in that very country a largeportion of the people are slaves! It is a dark spot on the face of thenation. Such a state of things cannot always exist. "--(Lafayette. )

"I deem it right to raise my humble voice to convince the citizens ofAmerica that the slaveholding states are held in abomination by all thosewhose opinion ought to be valuable. Man is the property of man in aboutone half of the American States: let them not therefore dare to prate oftheir institutions or of their national freedom, while they hold theirfellow-men in bondage! Of all men living, the American citizen who isthe owner of slaves is the most despicable. He is a political hypocriteof the very worst description. The friends of humanity and liberty inEurope should join in one universal cry of shame on the American slave-holders! 'Base wretches!' should we shout in chorus; 'base wretches!how dare you profane the temple of national freedom, the sacred fane ofrepublican rites, with the presence and the sufferings of human beings inchains and slavery!'"--(Daniel O'Connell. )

4. Because it subjects one portion of our American brethren to theunrestrained violence and unholy passions of another. 

Here, gentlemen, I might summon to my support a cloud of witnesses, ahost of incontrovertible, damning facts, the legitimate results of asystem whose tendency is to harden and deprave the heart. But I will notdescend to particulars. I am willing to believe that the majority of themasters of your section of the country are disposed to treat theirunfortunate slaves with kindness. But where the dreadful privilege ofslave-holding is extended to all, in every neighborhood, there must beindividuals whose cupidity is unrestrained by any principle of humanity, whose lusts are fiercely indulged, whose fearful power over the bodies, nay, may I not say the souls, of their victims is daily and hourlyabused. 

Will the evidence of your own Jefferson, on this point, be admissible?

"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise, ofthe most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the onepart, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, andlearn to imitate it. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches thelineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smallerslaves, gives loose to the worst of passions; and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot fail to be stamped by it withodious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain hismorals and manners undepraved by such circumstances. "--(Notes onVirginia, p. 241. )

"Il n'existe a la verite aucune loi qui protege l'esclave le mauvaistraitement du maitre, " says Achille Murat, himself a Floridian slave-holder, in his late work on the United States. 

Gentlemen, is not this true? Does there exist even in Virginia any lawlimiting the punishment of a slave? Are there any bounds prescribed, beyond which the brutal, the revengeful, the intoxicated slave-master, acting in the double capacity of judge and executioner, cannot pass?

You will, perhaps, tell me that the general law against murder appliesalike to master and slave. True; but will you point out instances ofmasters suffering the penalty of that law for the murder of their slaves?If you examine your judicial reports you will find the wilful murder of aslave decided to be only a trespass!--(Virginia Reports, vol. V. P. 481, Harris versus Nichols. )

It indeed argues well for Virginian pride of character, that latterly, the law, which expressly sanctioned the murder of a slave, who in thelanguage of Georgia and North Carolina, "died of moderate correction, "has been repealed. But, although the letter of the law is changed, itspractice remains the same. In proof of this, I would refer toBrockenborough and Holmes' Virginia Cases, p. 258. 

In Georgia and North Carolina the murder of a slave is tolerated andjustified by law, provided that in the opinion of the court he died "ofmoderate correction!"

In South Carolina the following clause of a law enacted in 1740 is stillin force:--

"If any slave shall suffer in his life, limbs, or members, when no whiteperson shall be present, or being present shall neglect or refuse to giveevidence concerning the same, in every such case the owner or otherperson who shall have the care and government of the slave shall bedeemed and taken to be guilty of such offence; unless such owner or otherperson can make the contrary appear by good and sufficient evidence, orshall by his own oath clear and exculpate himself, which oath every courtwhere such offence shall be tried is hereby empowered to administer andto acquit the offender accordingly, if clear proof of the offence be notmade by two witnesses at least, any law, usage, or custom to the contrarynotwithstanding. "

Is not this offering a reward for perjury? And what shall we think ofthat misnamed court of justice, where it is optional with the witnesses, in a case of life and death, to give or withhold their testimony. 

5. Because it induces dangerous sectional jealousies, creates ofnecessity a struggle between the opposing interests of free and slavelabor, and threatens the integrity of the Union. 

That sectional jealousies do exist, the tone of your paper, gentlemen, isof itself an evidence, if indeed any were needed. The moral sentiment ofthe free states is against slavery. The freeman has declared hisunwillingness that his labor should be reduced to a level with that ofslaves. Harsh epithets and harsh threats have been freely exchanged, until the beautiful Potomac, wherever it winds its way to the ocean, hasbecome the dividing line, not of territory only, but of feeling, interest, national pride, a moral division. 

What shook the pillars of the Union when the Missouri question wasagitated? What but a few months ago arrayed in arms a state against theUnion, and the Union against a state?

From Maine to Florida, gentlemen, the answer must be the same, slavery. 

6. Because of its pernicious influence upon national wealth andprosperity. 

Political economy has been the peculiar study of Virginia. But there aresome important truths connected with this science which she has hithertooverlooked or wantonly disregarded. 

Population increasing with the means of subsistence is a fair test ofnational wealth. 

By reference to the several censuses of the United States, it will beseen that the white population increases nearly twice as fast in stateswhere there are few or no slaves as in the slave states. 

Again, in the latter states the slave population has increased twice asfast as the white. Let us take, for example, the period of twenty years, from 1790 to 1810, and compare the increase of the two classes in threeof the Southern states. 

 Per cent. Of whites. Per cent. Of blacks. 

 Maryland 13 31 Virginia 24 38 North Carolina 30 70

The causes of this disproportionate increase, so inimical to the trueinterests of the country, are very manifest. 

A large proportion of the free inhabitants of the United States aredependent upon their labor for subsistence. The forced, unnatural systemof slavery in some of the states renders the demand for free laborersless urgent; they are not so readily and abundantly supplied with themeans of subsistence as those of their own class in the free states, andas the necessaries of life diminish population also diminishes. 

There is yet another cause for the decline of the white population. Inthe free states labor is reputable. The statesman, whose eloquence haselectrified a nation, does not disdain in the intervals of the publicservice to handle the axe and the hoe. And the woman whose beauty, talents, and accomplishments have won the admiration of all deems it nodegradation to "look well to her household. "

But the slave stamps with indelible ignominy the character of occupation. It is a disgrace for a highborn Virginian or chivalrous Carolinian tolabor, side by side, with the low, despised, miserable black man. Wretched must be the condition of the poorer classes of whites in aslave-holding community! Compelled to perform the despised offices ofthe slave, they can hardly rise above his level. They become the pariahsof society. No wonder, then, that the tide of emigration flows from theslave-cursed shores of the Atlantic to the free valleys of the West. 

In New England the labor of a farmer or mechanic is worth from $150 to$200 per annum. That of a female from $50 to $100. Our entirepopulation, with the exception of those engaged in mercantile affairs, the professional classes, and a very few moneyed idlers, are working menand women. If that of the South were equally employed (and slaveryapart, there is no reason why they should not be), how large an additionwould be annually made to the wealth of the country? The truth is, avery considerable portion of the national wealth produced by Northernlabor is taxed to defray the expenses of twenty-five representatives ofSouthern property in Congress, and to maintain an army mainly for theprotection of the slave-master against the dangerous tendencies of thatproperty. 

In the early and better days of the Roman Republic, the ancient warriorsand statesmen cultivated their fields with their own hands; but so soonas their agriculture was left to the slaves, it visibly declined, theonce fertile fields became pastures, and the inhabitants of that gardenof the world were dependent upon foreign nations for the necessaries oflife. The beautiful villages, once peopled by free contented laborers, became tenantless, and, over the waste of solitude, we see, here andthere, at weary distances, the palaces of the master, contrastingpainfully with the wretched cottages and subterranean cells of the slave. In speaking of the extraordinary fertility of the soil in the early timesof the Republic, Pliny inquires, "What was the cause of these abundantharvests? It was this, that men of rank employed themselves in theculture of the fields; whereas now it is left to wretches loaded withfetters, who carry in their countenances the shameful evidence of theirslavery. "

And what was true in the days of the Roman is now written legibly uponthe soil of your own Virginia. A traveller in your state, incontemplating the decline of its agriculture, has justly remarked that, "if the miserable condition of the negro had left his mind forreflection, he would laugh in his chains to see how slavery has strickenthe land with ugliness. "

Is the rapid increase of a population of slaves in itself no evil? Inall the slave states the increase of the slaves is vastly more rapid thanthat of the whites or free blacks. When we recollect that they are underno natural or moral restraint, careless of providing food or clothing forthemselves or their children; when, too, we consider that they are raisedas an article of profitable traffic, like the cattle of New England andthe hogs of Kentucky; that it is a matter of interest, of dollars andcents, to the master that they should multiply as fast as possible, thereis surely nothing at all surprising in the increase of their numbers. Would to heaven there were also nothing alarming!

7. Because, by the terms of the national compact, the free and the slavestates are alike involved in the guilt of maintaining slavery, and thecitizens of the former are liable, at any moment, to be called upon toaid the latter in suppressing, at the point of the bayonet, theinsurrection of the slaves. 

Slavery is, at the best, an unnatural state. And Nature, when hereternal principles are violated, is perpetually struggling to restorethem to their first estate. 

All history, ancient and modern, is full of warning on this point. NeedI refer to the many revolts of the Roman and Grecian slaves, the bloodyinsurrection of Etruria, the horrible servile wars of Sicily and Capua?Or, to come down to later times, to France in the fourteenth century, Germany in the sixteenth, to Malta in the last? Need I call to mind theuntold horrors of St. Domingo, when that island, under the curse of itsservile war, glowed redly in the view of earth and heaven, --an open hell?Have our own peculiar warnings gone by unheeded, --the frequent slaveinsurrections of the South? One horrible tragedy, gentlemen, must stillbe fresh in your recollection, --Southampton, with its fired dwellings andghastly dead! Southampton, with its dreadful associations, of the deathstruggle with the insurgents, the groans of the tortured negroes, thelamentations of the surviving whites over woman in her innocence andbeauty, and childhood, and hoary age!

"The hour of emancipation, " said Thomas Jefferson, "is advancing in themarch of time. It will come. If not brought on by the generous energyof our own minds, it will come by the bloody process of St. Domingo!"

To the just and prophetic language of your own great statesman I have buta few words to add. They shall be those of truth and soberness. 

We regard the slave system in your section of the country as a greatevil, moral and political, --an evil which, if left to itself for even afew years longer, will give the entire South into the hands of theblacks. 

The terms of the national compact compel us to consider more than twomillions of our fellow-beings as your property; not, indeed, morally, really, de facto, but still legally your property! We acknowledge thatyou have a power derived from the United States Constitution to hold this"property, " but we deny that you have any moral right to take advantageof that power. For truth will not allow us to admit that any human lawor compact can make void or put aside the ordinance of the living God andthe eternal laws of Nature. 

We therefore hold it to be the duty of the people of the slave-holdingstates to begin the work of emancipation now; that any delay must bedangerous to themselves in time and eternity, and full of injustice totheir slaves and to their brethren of the free states. 

Because the slave has never forfeited his right to freedom, and thecontinuance of his servitude is a continuance of robbery; and because, inthe event of a servile war, the people of the free states would be calledupon to take a part in its unutterable horrors. 

New England would obey that call, for she will abide unto death by theConstitution of the land. Yet what must be the feelings of her citizens, while engaged in hunting down like wild beasts their fellow-men--brutaland black it may be, but still oppressed, suffering human beings, struggling madly and desperately for their liberty, if they feel and knowthat the necessity of so doing has resulted from a blind fatality on thepart of the oppressor, a reckless disregard of the warnings of earth andheaven, an obstinate perseverance in a system founded and sustained byrobbery and wrong?

All wars are horrible, wicked, inexcusable, and truly and solemnly hasJefferson himself said that, in a contest of this kind, between the slaveand the master, "the Almighty has no attribute which could take side withus. "

Understand us, gentlemen. We only ask to have the fearful necessitytaken away from us of sustaining the wretched policy of slavery by moralinfluence or physical force. We ask alone to be allowed to wash ourhands of the blood of millions of your fellow-beings, the cry of whom isrising up as a swift witness unto God against us. 

8. Because all the facts connected with the subject warrant us in a mostconfident belief that a speedy and general emancipation might be madewith entire safety, and that the consequences of such an emancipationwould be highly beneficial to the planters of the South. 

Awful as may be their estimate in time and eternity, I will not, gentlemen, dwell upon the priceless benefits of a conscience at rest, asoul redeemed from the all-polluting influences of slavery, and againstwhich the cry of the laborer whose hire has been kept back by fraud doesnot ascend. Nor will I rest the defence of my position upon the factthat it can never be unsafe to obey the commands of God. These are theold and common arguments of "fanatics" and "enthusiasts, " melting awaylike frost-work in the glorious sunshine of expediency and utility. Inthe light of these modern luminaries, then, let us reason together. 

A long and careful examination of the subject will I think fully justifyme in advancing this general proposition. 

Wherever, whether in Europe, the East and West Indies, South America, orin our own country, a fair experiment has been made of the comparativeexpense of free and slave labor, the result has uniformly been favorableto the former. 

 (See Brougham's Colonial Policy. Hodgdon's Letter to Jean Baptiste Say. Waleh's Brazil. Official Letter of Hon. Mr. Ward, from Mexico. Dr. Dickson's Mitigation of Slavery. Franklin on The Peopling of Countries. Ramsay's Essay. Botham's Sugar Cultivation in Batavia. Marsden's History of Sumatra. Coxe's Travels. Dr. Anderson's Observations on Slavery. Storch's Political Economy. Adam Smith. J. Jeremies' Essays. Humboldt's Travels, etc. , etc. )

Here, gentlemen, the issue is tendered. Standing on your own ground ofexpediency, I am ready to defend my position. 

I pass from the utility to the safety of emancipation. And here, gentlemen, I shall probably be met at the outset with your supposedconsequences, bloodshed, rapine, promiscuous massacre!

The facts, gentlemen! In God's name, bring out your facts! If slaveryis to cast over the prosperity of our country the thick shadow of aneverlasting curse, because emancipation is dreaded as a remedy worse thanthe disease itself, let us know the real grounds of your fear. 

Do you find them in the emancipation of the South American Republics? InHayti? In the partial experiments of some of the West India Islands?Does history, ancient or modern, justify your fears? Can you find anyexcuse for them in the nature of the human mind, everywhere maddened byinjury and conciliated by kindness? No, gentlemen; the dangers ofslavery are manifest and real, all history lies open for your warning. But the dangers of emancipation, of "doing justly and loving mercy, "exist only in your imaginations. You cannot produce one fact incorroboration of your fears. You cannot point to the stain of a singledrop of any master's blood shed by the slave he has emancipated. 

I have now given some of our reasons for opposing slavery. In my nextletter I shall explain our method of opposition, and I trust I shall beable to show that there is nothing "fanatical, " nothing"unconstitutional, " and nothing unchristian in that method. 

In the mean time, gentlemen, I am your friend and well-wisher. 

HAVERHILL, MASS. , 22d 7th Mo. , 1833. 

 II. 

The abolitionists of the North have been grossly misrepresented. Inattacking the system of slavery, they have never recommended any measureor measures conflicting with the Constitution of the United States. 

They have never sought to excite or encourage a spirit of rebellion amongthe slaves: on the contrary, they would hold any such attempt, bywhomsoever made, in utter and stern abhorrence. 

All the leading abolitionists of my acquaintance are, from principle, opposed to war of all kinds, believing that the benefits of no warwhatever can compensate for the sacrifice of one human life by violence. 

Consequently, they would be the first to deprecate any physicalinterference with your slave system on the part of the generalgovernment. 

They are, without exception, opposed to any political interposition ofthe government, in regard to slavery as it exists in the states. For, although they feel and see that the canker of the moral disease isaffecting all parts of the confederacy, they believe that the remedy lieswith yourselves alone. Any such interference they would considerunlawful and unconstitutional; and the exercise of unconstitutionalpower, although sanctioned by the majority of a republican government, they believe to be a tyranny as monstrous and as odious as the despotismof a Turkish Sultan. 

Having made this disclaimer on the part of myself and my friends, let meinquire from whence this charge of advocating the interference of thegeneral government with the sovereign jurisdiction of the states hasarisen? Will you, gentlemen, will the able editors of the United StatesTelegraph and the Columbian Telescope, explain? For myself, I havesought in vain among the writings of our "Northern Enthusiasts, " andamong the speeches of the Northern statesmen and politicians, for somegrounds for the accusation. 

The doctrine, such as it is, does not belong to us. I think it may betraced home to the South, to Virginia, to her Convention of 1829, to thespeech of Ex-President Monroe, on the white basis question. 

"As to emancipation, " said that distinguished son of your state, "if everthat should take place, it cannot be done by the state; it must be doneby the Union. "

Again, "If emancipation can ever be effected, it can only be done withthe aid of the general government. "

Gentlemen, you are welcome to your doctrine. It has no advocates amongthe abolitionists of New England. 

We aim to overthrow slavery by the moral influence of an enlightenedpublic sentiment;

By a clear and fearless exposition of the guilt of holding property inman;

By analyzing the true nature of slavery, and boldly rebuking sin;

By a general dissemination of the truths of political economy, in regardto free and slave labor;

By appeals from the pulpit to the consciences of men;

By the powerful influence of the public press;

By the formation of societies whose object shall be to oppose theprinciple of slavery by such means as are consistent with our obligationsto law, religion, and humanity;

By elevating, by means of education and sympathy, the character of thefree people of color among us. 

Our testimony against slavery is the same which has uniformly, and withso much success, been applied to prevailing iniquity in all ages of theworld, the truths of divine revelation. 

Believing that there can be nothing in the Providence of God to which Hisholy and eternal law is not strictly applicable, we maintain that nocircumstances can justify the slave-holder in a continuance of hissystem. 

That the fact that this system did not originate with the presentgeneration is no apology for retaining it, inasmuch as crime cannot beentailed; and no one is under a necessity of sinning because others havedone so before him;

That the domestic slave-trade is as repugnant to the laws of God, andshould be as odious in the eyes of a Christian community, as the foreign;

That the black child born in a slave plantation is not "an entailedarticle of property;" and that the white man who makes of that child aslave is a thief and a robber, stealing the child as the sea pirate stolehis father!

We do not talk of gradual abolition, because, as Christians, we find noauthority for advocating a gradual relinquishment of sin. We say toslaveholders, "Repent now, to-day, immediately;" just as we say to theintemperate, "Break off from your vice at once; touch not, taste not, handle not, from henceforth forever. "

Besides, the plan of gradual abolition has been tried in this country andthe West Indies, and found wanting. It has been in operation in ourslave states ever since the Declaration of Independence, and its resultsare before the nation. Let us see. 

THE ABOLITIONISTS 79

In 1790 there were in the slave states south of the Potomac and the Ohio20, 415 free blacks. Their increase for the ten years following was atthe rate of sixty per cent. , their number in 1800 being 32, 604. In 1810there were 58, 046, an increase of seventy-five per cent. Thiscomparatively large increase was, in a great measure, owing to the freediscussions going on in England and in this country on the subject of theslave-trade and the rights of man. The benevolent impulse extended tothe slave-masters, and manumissions were frequent. But the salutaryimpression died away; the hand of oppression closed again upon itsvictims; and the increase for the period of twenty years, 1810 to 1830, was only seventy-seven per cent. , about one half of what it was in theten years from 1800 to 1810. And this is the practical result of themuch-lauded plan of gradual abolition. 

In 1790, in the states above mentioned, there were only 550, 604 slaves, but in 1830 there were 1, 874, 098! And this, too, is gradual abolition. 

"What, then!" perhaps you will ask, "do you expect to overthrow our wholeslave system at once? to turn loose to-day two millions of negroes?"

No, gentlemen; we expect no such thing. Enough for us if in the spiritof fraternal duty we point to your notice the commands of God; if we urgeyou by every cherished remembrance of common sacrifices upon a commonaltar, by every consideration of humanity, justice, and expediency, tobegin now, without a moment's delay, to break away from your miserablesystem, --to begin the work of moral reformation, as God commands you tobegin, not as selfishness, or worldly policy, or short-sighted politicalexpediency, may chance to dictate. 

Such is our doctrine of immediate emancipation. A doctrine founded onGod's eternal truth, plain, simple, and perfect, --the doctrine ofimmediate, unprocrastinated repentance applied to the sin of slavery. 

Of this doctrine, and of our plan for crrrying it into effect, I havegiven an exposition, with the most earnest regard to the truth. Doeseither embrace anything false, fanatical, or unconstitutional? Do theyafford a reasonable protext for your fierce denunciations of yourNorthern brethren? Do they furnish occasion for your newspaper chivalry, your stereotyped demonstrations of Southern magnanimity and Yankeemeanness?--things, let me say, unworthy of Virginians, degrading toyourselves, insulting to us. 

Gentlemen, it is too late for Virginia, with all her lofty intellect andnobility of feeling, to defend and advocate the principle of slavery. The death-like silence which for nearly two centuries brooded over herexecrable system has been broken; light is pouring in upon the minds ofher citizens; truth is abroad, "searching out and overturning the lies ofthe age. " A moral reformation has been already awakened, and it cannotnow be drugged to sleep by the sophistries of detected sin. A thousandintelligences are at work in her land; a thousand of her noblest heartsare glowing with the redeeming spirit of that true philanthropy, which ismoving all the world. No, gentlemen; light is spreading from the hillsof Western Virginia to the extremest East. You cannot arrest itsprogress. It is searching the consciences; it is exercising the reason;it is appealing to the noblest characteristics of intelligent Virginians. It is no foreign influence. From every abandoned plantation where theprofitless fern and thistle have sprung up under the heel of slavery;from every falling mansion of the master, through whose windows the foxmay look out securely, and over whose hearth-stone the thin grass iscreeping, a warning voice is sinking deeply into all hearts not imbrutedby avarice, indolence, and the lust of power. 

Abolitionist as I am, the intellectual character of Virginia has nowarmer admirer than myself. Her great names, her moral trophies, theglories of her early day, the still proud and living testimonials of hermental power, I freely acknowledge and strongly appreciate. And, believeme, it is with no other feelings than those of regret and heartfeltsorrow that I speak plainly of her great error, her giant crime, a crimewhich is visibly calling down upon her the curse of an offended Deity. But I cannot forget that upon some of the most influential and highlyfavored of her sons rests the responsibility at the present time ofsustaining this fearful iniquity. Blind to the signs of the times, careless of the wishes of thousands of their white fellow-citizens and ofthe manifold wrongs of the black man, they have dared to excuse, defend, nay, eulogize, the black abominations of slavery. 

Against the tottering ark of the idol these strong men have placed theirshoulders. That ark must fall; that idol must be cast down; what, then, will be the fate of their supporters?

When the Convention of 1829 had gathered in its splendid galaxy oftalents the great names of Virginia, the friends of civil liberty turnedtheir eyes towards it in the earnest hope and confidence that it wouldadopt some measures in regard to slavery worthy of the high character ofits members and of the age in which they lived. I need not say how deepand bitter was our disappointment. Western Virginia indeed spoke on thatoccasion, through some of her delegates, the words of truth and humanity. But their counsels and warnings were unavailing; the majority turned awayto listen to the bewildering eloquence of Leigh and Upshur and Randolph, as they desecrated their great intellects to the defence of that systemof oppression under which the whole land is groaning. The memorial ofthe citizens of Augusta County, bearing the signatures of many slave-holders, placed the evils of slavery in a strong light before theconvention. Its facts and arguments could only be arbitrarily thrustaside and wantonly disregarded; they could not be disproved. 

"In a political point of view, " says the memorial, "we esteem slavery anevil greater than the aggregate of all the other evils which beset us, and we are perfectly willing to bear our proportion of the burden ofremoving it. We ask, further, What is the evil of any such alarm as ourproposition may excite in minds unnecessarily jealous compared with thatof the fatal catastrophe which ultimately awaits our country, and thegeneral depravation of manners which slavery has already produced and isproducing?"

I cannot forbear giving one more extract from this paper. Thememorialists state their belief

"That the labor of slaves is vastly less productive than that of freemen;that it therefore requires a larger space to furnish subsistence for agiven number of the former than of the latter; that the employment of theformer necessarily excludes that of the latter; that hence ourpopulation, white and black, averages seventeen, when it ought, and wouldunder other circumstances, average, as in New England, at least sixty toa square mile; that the possession and management of slaves form a sourceof endless vexation and misery in the house, and of waste and ruin on thefarm; that the youth of the country are growing up with a contempt ofsteady industry as a low and servile thing, which contempt inducesidleness and all its attendant effeminacy, vice, and worthlessness; thatthe waste of the products of the land, nay, of the land itself, isbringing poverty on all its inhabitants; that this poverty and thesparseness of population either prevent the institution of schoolsthroughout the country, or keep them in a most languid and inefficientcondition; and that the same causes most obviously paralyze all ourschemes and efforts for the useful improvement of the country. "

Gentlemen, you have only to look around you to know that this picture hasbeen drawn with the pencil of truth. What has made desolate and sterileone of the loveliest regions of the whole earth? What mean the signs ofwasteful neglect, of long improvidence around you: the half-finishedmansion already falling into decay, the broken-down enclosures, the weed-grown garden the slave hut open to the elements, the hillsides galled andnaked, the fields below them run over with brier and fern? Is all thisin the ordinary course of nature? Has man husbanded well the good giftsof God, and are they nevertheless passing from him, by a process ofdeterioration over which he has no control? No, gentlemen. For morethan two centuries the cold and rocky soil of New England has yielded itsannual tribute, and it still lies green and luxuriant beneath the sun ofour brief summer. The nerved and ever-exercised arm of free labor haschanged a landscape wild and savage as the night scenery of Salvator Rosainto one of pastoral beauty, --the abode of independence and happiness. Under a similar system of economy and industry, how would Virginia, richwith Nature's prodigal blessings, have worn at this time over all herterritory the smiles of plenty, the charms of rewarded industry! What achange would have been manifest in your whole character! Freemen in theplace of slaves, industry, reputable economy, a virtue, dissipationdespised, emigration unnecessary!

 (A late Virginia member of Congress described the Virginia slave- holder as follows: "He is an Eastern Virginian whose good fortune it has been to have been born wealthy, and to have become a profound politician at twenty-one without study or labor. This individual, from birth and habit, is above all labor and exertion. He never moves a finger for any useful purpose; he lives on the labor of his slaves, and even this labor he is too proud and indolent to direct in person. While he is at his ease, a mercenary with a whip in his hand drives his slaves in the field. Their dinner, consisting of a few scraps and lean bones, is eaten in the burning sun. They have no time to go to a shade and be refreshed such easement is reserved for the horses"!--Speech of Hon. P. P. Doddridge in House of Delegates, 1829. )

All this, you will say, comes too late; the curse is upon you, the evilin the vitals of your state, the desolation widening day by day. No, itis not too late. There are elements in the Virginian character capableof meeting the danger, extreme as it is, and turning it aside. Could youbut forget for a time partisan contest and unprofitable politicalspeculations, you might successfully meet the dangerous exigencies ofyour state with those efficient remedies which the spirit of the agesuggests; you might, and that too without pecuniary loss, relinquish yourclaims to human beings as slaves, and employ them as free laborers, undersuch restraint and supervision as their present degraded condition mayrender necessary. In the language of one of your own citizens, "it isuseless for you to attempt to linger on the skirts of the age which isdeparted. The action of existing causes and principles is steady andprogressive. It cannot be retarded, unless you would blow out all themoral lights around you; and if you refuse to keep up with it, you willbe towed in the wake, whether you will or not. "--(Speech in Virginialegislature, 1832. )

The late noble example of the eloquent statesman of Roanoke, themanumission of his slaves, speaks volumes to his political friends. Inthe last hour of existence, when his soul was struggling from his brokentenement, his latest effort was the confirmation of this generous act ofa former period. Light rest the turf upon him beneath his ownpatrimonial oaks! The prayers of many hearts made happy by hisbenevolence shall linger over his grave and bless it. 

Gentlemen, in concluding these letters, let me once more assure you thatI entertain towards you and your political friends none other than kindlyfeelings. If I have spoken at all with apparent harshness, it has beenof principles rather than of men. But I deprecate no censure. Consciousof the honest and patriotic motives which have prompted their avowal, Icheerfully leave my sentiments to their fate. Despised and contemned asthey may be, I believe they cannot be gainsaid. Sustained by the truthas it exists in Nature and Revelation, sanctioned by the prevailingspirit of the age, they are yet destined to work out the political andmoral regeneration of our country. The opposition which they meet withdoes not dishearten me. In the lofty confidence of John Milton, Ibelieve that "though all the winds of doctrine be let loose upon theearth, so Truth be among them, we need not fear. Let her and Falsehoodgrapple; whoever knew her to be put to the worst in a free and openencounter?"

HAVERHILL, MASS. , 29th of 7th Mo. , 1833. 

LETTER TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL. 

HAVERHILL, 10th of 1st Mo. , 1834. 

SAMUEL E. SEWALL, ESQ. , Secretary New England A. S. Society

DEAR FRIEND, --I regret that circumstances beyond my control will notallow of my attendance at the annual meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. 

I need not say to the members of that society that I am with them, heartand soul, in the cause of abolition; the abolition not of physicalslavery alone, abhorrent and monstrous as it is, but of that intellectualslavery, the bondage of corrupt and mistaken opinion, which has fetteredas with iron the moral energies and intellectual strength of New England. 

For what is slavery, after all, but fear, --fear, forcing mind and bodyinto unnatural action? And it matters little whether it be the terror ofthe slave-whip on the body, or of the scourge of popular opinion upon theinner man. 

We all know how often the representatives of the Southern division of thecountry have amused themselves in Congress by applying the opprobriousname of "slave" to the free Northern laborer. And how familiar have thesignificant epithets of "white slave" and "dough-face" become!

I fear these epithets have not been wholly misapplied. Have we not beentold here, gravely and authoritatively, by some of our learned judges, divines, and politicians, that we, the free people of New England, haveno right to discuss the subject of slavery? Freemen, and no right tosuggest the duty or the policy of a practical adherence to the doctrinesof that immortal declaration upon which our liberties are founded!Christians, enjoying perfect liberty of conscience, yet possessing noright to breathe one whisper against a system of adultery and blood, which is filling the whole land with abomination and blasphemy! And thiscraven sentiment is echoed by the very men whose industry is taxed todefray the expenses of twenty-five representatives of property, vested inbeings fashioned in the awful image of their Maker; by men whose hardearnings aid in supporting a standing army mainly for the protection ofslaveholding indolence; by men who are liable at any moment to be calledfrom the field and workshop to put down by force the ever upwardtendencies of oppressed humanity, to aid the negro-breeder and the negro-trader in the prosecution of a traffic most horrible in the eye of God, to wall round with their bayonets two millions of colored Americans, children of a common Father and heirs of a common eternity, while thebroken chain is riveted anew and the thrown-off fetter replaced. 

I am for the abolition of this kind of slavery. It must be accomplishedbefore we can hope to abolish the negro slavery of the country. Thepeople of the free states, with a perfect understanding of their ownrights and a sacred respect for the rights of others, must put theirstrong shoulders to the work of moral reform, and our statesmen, orators, and politicians will follow, floating as they must with the tendency ofthe current, the mere indices of popular sentiment. They cannot beexpected to lead in this matter. They are but instruments in the handsof the people for good or evil:--

 "A breath can make them, as a breath has made. "

Be it our task to give tone and direction to these instruments; to turnthe tide of popular feeling into the pure channels of justice; to breakup the sinful silence of the nation; to bring the vaunted Christianity ofour age and country to the test of truth; to try the strength and purityof our republicanism. If the Christianity we profess has not power topull down the strongholds of prejudice, and overcome hate, and melt theheart of oppression, it is not of God. If our republicanism is based onother foundation than justice and humanity, let it fall forever. 

No better evidence is needed of the suicidal policy of this nation thanthe death-like silence on the subject of slavery which pervades itspublic documents. Who that peruses the annual messages of the nationalexecutive would, from their perusal alone, conjecture that such an evilas slavery had existence among us? Have the people reflected upon thecause of this silence? The evil has grown to be too monstrous to bequestioned. Its very magnitude has sealed the lips of the rulers. Uneasily, and troubled with its dream of guilt, the nation sleeps on. The volcano is beneath. God is above us. 

At every step of our peaceful and legal agitation of this subject we aremet with one grave objection. We are told that the system which we areconscientiously opposing is recognized and protected by the Constitution. For all the benefits of our fathers' patriotism--and they are neither fewnor trifling--let us be grateful to God and to their memories. But itshould not be forgotten that the same constitutional compact which nowsanctions slavery guaranteed protection for twenty years to the foreignslave-trade. It threw the shield of its "sanctity" around the nowuniversally branded pirate. It legalized the most abhorrent system ofrobbery which ever cursed the family of man. 

During those years of sinful compromise the crime of man-robbery lessatrocious than at present? Because the Constitution permitted, in thatsingle crime, the violation of all the commandments of God, was thatviolation less terrible to earth or offensive to heaven?

No one now defends that "constitutional" slavetrade. Loaded with thecurse of God and man, it stands amidst minor iniquities, like Satan inPandemonium, preeminent and monstrous in crime. 

And if the slave-trade has become thus odious, what must be the fate, erelong, of its parent, slavery? If the mere consequence be thusblackening under the execration of all the world, who shall measure thedreadful amount of infamy which must finally settle on the cause itself?The titled ecclesiastic and the ambitious statesman should have theirwarning on this point. They should know that public opinion is steadilyturning to the light of truth. The fountains are breaking up around us, and the great deep will soon be in motion. A stern, uncompromising, andsolemn spirit of inquiry is abroad. It cannot be arrested, and itsresult may be easily foreseen. It will not long be popular to talk ofthe legality of soul-murder, the constitutionality of man-robbery. 

One word in relation to our duty to our Southern brethren. If we detesttheir system of slavery in our hearts, let us not play the hypocrite withour lips. Let us not pay so poor a compliment to their understandings asto suppose that we can deceive them into a compliance with our views ofjustice by ambiguous sophistry, and overcome their sinful practices andestablished prejudices by miserable stratagem. Let us not first doviolence to our consciences by admitting their moral right to property inman, and then go to work like so many vagabond pedlers to cheat them outof it. They have a right to complain of such treatment. It is mean, andwicked, and dishonorable. Let us rather treat our Southern friends asintelligent and high-minded men, who, whatever may be their faults, despise unmanly artifice, and loathe cant, and abhor hypocrisy. Connected with them, not by political ties alone, but by commonsacrifices and mutual benefits, let us seek to expostulate with themearnestly and openly, to gain at least their confidence in our sincerity, to appeal to their consciences, reason, and interests; and, using noother weapons than those of moral truth, contend fearlessly with the evilsystem they are cherishing. And if, in an immediate compliance with thestrict demands of justice, they should need our aid and sympathy, let usopen to them our hearts and our purses. But in the name of sincerity, and for the love of peace and the harmony of the Union, let there be nomore mining and countermining, no more blending of apology withdenunciation, no more Janus-like systems of reform, with one face for theSouth and another for the North. 

If we steadily adhere to the principles upon which we have heretoforeacted, if we present our naked hearts to the view of all, if we meet thethreats and violence of our misguided enemies with the bare bosom andweaponless hand of innocence, may we not trust that the arm of ourHeavenly Father will be under us, to strengthen and support us? Andalthough we may not be able to save our country from the awful judgmentshe is provoking, though the pillars of the Union fall and all theelements of her greatness perish, still let it be our part to rallyaround the standard of truth and justice, to wash our hands of evil, tokeep our own souls unspotted, and, bearing our testimony and lifting ourwarning voices to the last, leave the event in the hands of a righteousGod. 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

 In 1837 Isaac Knapp printed Letters from John Quincy Adams to his Constituents of the Twelfth Congressional District in Massachusetts, to which is added his Speech in Congress, delivered February 9, 1837, and the following stood as an introduction to the pamphlet. 

THE following letters have been published, within a few weeks, in theQuincy (Mass. ) 'Patriot'. Notwithstanding the great importance of thesubjects which they discuss, the intense interest which they arecalculated to awaken throughout this commonwealth and the whole country, and the exalted reputation of their author as a profound statesman andpowerful writer, they are as yet hardly known beyond the limits of theconstituency to whom they are particularly addressed. The reason of thisis sufficiently obvious. John Quincy Adams belongs to neither of theprominent political parties, fights no partisan battles, and cannot beprevailed upon to sacrifice truth and principle upon the altar of partyexpediency and interest. Hence neither party is interested in defendinghis course, or in giving him an opportunity to defend himself. Buthowever systematic may be the efforts of mere partisan presses tosuppress and hold back from the public eye the powerful and triumphantvindication of the Right of Petition, the graphic delineation of theslavery spirit in Congress, and the humbling disclosure of Northerncowardice and treachery, contained in these letters, they are destined toexert a powerful influence upon the public mind. They will constituteone of the most striking pages in the history of our times. They will beread with avidity in the North and in the South, and throughout Europe. Apart from the interest excited by the subjects under discussion, andviewed only as literary productions, they may be ranked among the highestintellectual efforts of their author. Their sarcasm is Junius-like, --cold, keen, unsparing. In boldness, directness, and eloquent appeal, they will bear comparison with O'Connell's celebrated 'Letters to theReformers of Great Britain'. They are the offspring of an intellectunshorn of its primal strength, and combining the ardor of youth with theexperience of age. 

The disclosure made in these letters of the slavery influence exerted inCongress over the representatives of the free states, of the manner inwhich the rights of freemen have been bartered for Southern votes, orbasely yielded to the threats of men educated in despotism, and stampedby the free indulgence of unrestrained tyranny with the "odiouspeculiarities" of slavery, is painful and humiliating in the extreme. Itwill be seen that, in the great struggle for and against the Right ofPetition, an account of which is given in the following pages, theirauthor stood, in a great measure, alone and unsupported by his Northerncolleagues. On his "gray, discrowned head" the entire fury of slave-holding arrogance and wrath was expended. He stood alone, beating back, with his aged and single arm, the tide which would have borne down andoverwhelmed a less sturdy and determined spirit. 

We need not solicit for these letters, and the speech which accompaniesthem, a thorough perusal. They deserve, and we trust will receive, acirculation throughout the entire country. They will meet a cordialwelcome from every lover of human liberty, from every friend of justiceand the rights of man, irrespective of color or condition. Theprinciples which they defend, the sentiments which they express, arethose of Massachusetts, as recently asserted, almost unanimously, by herlegislature. In both branches of that body, during the discussion of thesubject of slavery and the right of petition, the course of the ex-President was warmly and eloquently commended. Massachusetts willsustain her tried and faithful representative; and the time is not fardistant when the best and worthiest citizens of the entire North willproffer him their thanks for his noble defence of their rights asfreemen, and of the rights of the slave as a man. 

THE BIBLE AND SLAVERY. 

 From a review of a pro-slavery pamphlet by "Evangelicus" in the Boston Emancipator in 1843. 

THE second part of the essay is occupied in proving that the slavery inthe Roman world, at the time of our Saviour, was similar in all essentialfeatures to American slavery at the present day; and the third andconcluding part is devoted to an examination of the apostolicaldirections to slaves and masters, as applicable to the same classes inthe United States. He thinks the command to give to servants that whichis just and equal means simply that the masters should treat their slaveswith equity, and that while the servant is to be profitable to themaster, the latter is bound in "a fair and equitable manner to providefor the slave's subsistence and happiness. " Although he professes tobelieve that a faithful adherence to Scriptural injunctions on this pointwould eventually terminate in the emancipation of the slaves, he thinksit not necessary to inquire whether the New Testament does or does not"tolerate slavery as a permanent institution"!

From the foregoing synopsis it will be seen at once that whatever mayhave been the motives of the writer, the effect of his publication, sofar as it is at all felt, will be to strengthen the oppressor in hisguilt, and hold him back from the performance of his immediate duty inrespect to his slaves, and to shield his conscience from the reproofs ofthat class who, according to "Evangelicus, " have "no personalacquaintance with the actual domestic state or the social and politicalconnections of their Southern fellow-citizens. " We look upon it only asanother vain attempt to strike a balance between Christian duty andcriminal policy, to reconcile Christ and Belial, the holy philanthropy ofHim who went about doing good with the most abhorrent manifestation ofhuman selfishness, lust, and hatred which ever provoked the divinedispleasure. There is a grave-stone coldness about it. The authormanifests as little feeling as if he were solving a question in algebra. No sigh of sympathy breathes through its frozen pages for the dumb, chained millions, no evidence of a feeling akin to that of Him who at thegrave of Lazarus

 "Wept, and forgot His power to save;"

no outburst of that indignant reproof with which the Divine Masterrebuked the devourers of widows' houses and the oppressors of the poor iscalled forth by the writer's stoical contemplation of the tyranny of his"Christian brethren" at the South. 

"It is not necessary, " says Evangelicus, "to inquire whether the NewTestament does not tolerate slavery as a permanent institution. " Andthis is said when the entire slave-holding church has sheltered itsabominations under the pretended sanction of the gospel; when slavery, including within itself a violation of every command uttered amidst thethunders of Sinai, a system which has filled the whole South with theoppression of Egypt and the pollutions of Sodom, is declared to be aninstitution of the Most High. With all due deference to the author, wetell him, and we tell the church, North and South, that this questionmust be met. Once more we repeat the solemn inquiry which has beenalready made in our columns, "Is the Bible to enslave the world?" Has itbeen but a vain dream of ours that the mission of the Author of thegospel was to undo the heavy burdens, to open the prison doors, and tobreak the yoke of the captive? Let Andover and Princeton answer. If thegospel does sanction the vilest wrong which man can inflict upon hisfellow-man, if it does rivet the chains which humanity, left to itself, would otherwise cast off, then, in humanity's name, let it perish foreverfrom the face of the earth. Let the Bible societies dissolve; let notanother sheet issue from their presses. Scatter not its leaves abroadover the dark places of the earth; they are not for the healing of thenations. Leave rather to the Persian his Zendavesta, to the Mussulmanhis Koran. We repeat it, this question must be met. Already we haveheard infidelity exulting over the astute discoveries of bespectacledtheological professors, that the great Head of the Christian Churchtolerated the horrible atrocities of Roman slavery, and that His mostfavored apostle combined slave-catching with his missionary labors. Andwhy should it not exult? Fouler blasphemy than this was never uttered. A more monstrous libel upon the Divine Author of Christianity was neverpropagated by Paine or Voltaire, Kneeland or Owen; and we are constrainedto regard the professor of theology or the doctor of divinity who taskshis sophistry and learning in an attempt to show that the Divine Mindlooks with complacency upon chattel slavery as the most dangerous enemywith which Christianity has to contend. The friends of pure andundefiled religion must awake to this danger. The Northern church mustshake itself clean from its present connection with blasphemers andslave-holders, or perish with them. 

WHAT IS SLAVERY

 Addressed to the Liberty Party Convention at New Bedford in September, 1843. 

I HAVE just received your kind invitation to attend the meeting of theLiberty Party in New Bedford on the 2d of next month. Believe me, it iswith no ordinary feelings of regret that I find myself under thenecessity of foregoing the pleasure of meeting with you on that occasion. But I need not say to you, and through you to the convention, that youhave my hearty sympathy. 

I am with the Liberty Party because it is the only party in the countrywhich is striving openly and honestly to reduce to practice the greattruths which lie at the foundation of our republic: all men createdequal, endowed with rights inalienable; the security of these rights theonly just object of government; the right of the people to alter ormodify government until this great object is attained. Precious andglorious truths! Sacred in the sight of their Divine Author, gratefuland beneficent to suffering humanity, essential elements of that ultimateand universal government of which God is laying the strong and widefoundations, turning and overturning, until He whose right it is shallrule. The voice which calls upon us to sustain them is the voice of God. In the eloquent language of the lamented Myron Holley, the man who firstlifted up the standard of the Liberty Party: "He calls upon us to sustainthese truths in the recorded voice of the holy of ancient times. Hecalls us to sustain them in the sound as of many waters and mightythunderings rising from the fields of Europe, converted into one vastAceldama by the exertions of despots to suppress them; in the persuasivehistory of the best thoughts and boldest deeds of all our brave, self-sacrificing ancestors; in the tender, heart-reaching whispers of ourchildren, preparing to suffer or enjoy the future, as we leave it forthem; in the broken and disordered but moving accents of half our raceyet groping in darkness and galled by the chains of bondage. He callsupon us to sustain them by the solemn and considerate use of all thepowers with which He has invested us. " In a time of almost universalpolitical scepticism, in the midst of a pervading and growing unbelief inthe great principles enunciated in the revolutionary declaration, theLiberty Party has dared to avow its belief in these truths, and to carrythem into action as far as it has the power. It is a protest against thepolitical infidelity of the day, a recurrence to first principles, asummons once more to that deserted altar upon which our fathers laidtheir offerings. 

It may be asked why it is that a party resting upon such broad principlesis directing its exclusive exertions against slavery. "Are there notother great interests?" ask all manner of Whig and Democrat editors andpoliticians. "Consider, for instance, " say the Democrats, "the mightyquestion which is agitating us, whether a 'Northern man with Southernprinciples' or a Southern man with the principles of a Nero or Caligulashall be President. " "Or look at us, " say the Whigs, "deprived of ourinalienable right to office by this Tyler-Calhoun administration. Andbethink you, gentlemen, how could your Liberty Party do better than tovote with us for a man who, if he does hold some threescore of slaves, and maintain that 'two hundred years of legislation has sanctioned andsanctified negro slavery, ' is, at the same time, the champion of Greekliberty, and Polish liberty, and South American liberty, and, in short, of all sorts of liberties, save liberty at home. "

Yes, friends, we have considered all this, and more, namely, that onesixth part of our entire population are slaves, and that you, with yoursubtreasuries and national banks, propose no relief for them. Nay, farther, it is because both of you, when in power, have used yourauthority to rivet closer the chains of unhappy millions, that we havebeen compelled to abandon you, and form a liberty party having for itsfirst object the breaking of these chains. 

What is slavery? For upon the answer to this question must the LibertyParty depend for its justification. 

The slave laws of the South tell us that it is the conversion of men intoarticles of property; the transformation of sentient immortal beings into"chattels personal. " The principle of a reciprocity of benefits, whichto some extent characterizes all other relations, does not exist in thatof master and slave. The master holds the plough which turns the soil ofhis plantation, the horse which draws it, and the slave who guides it byone and the same tenure. The profit of the master is the great end ofthe slave's existence. For this end he is fed, clothed, and prescribedfor in sickness. He learns nothing, acquires nothing, for himself. Hecannot use his own body for his own benefit. His very personality isdestroyed. He is a mere instrument, a means in the hands of another forthe accomplishment of an end in which his own interests are not regarded, a machine moved not by his own will, but by another's. In him the awfuldistinction between a person and a thing is annihilated: he is thrustdown from the place which God and Nature assigned him, from the equalcompanionship of rational intelligence's, --a man herded with beasts, animmortal nature classed with the wares of the merchant!

The relations of parent and child, master and apprentice, government andsubject, are based upon the principle of benevolence, reciprocalbenefits, and the wants of human society; relations which sacredlyrespect the rights and legacies which God has given to all His rationalcreatures. But slavery exists only by annihilating or monopolizing theserights and legacies. In every other modification of society, man'spersonal ownership remains secure. He may be oppressed, deprived ofprivileges, loaded with burdens, hemmed about with legal disabilities, his liberties restrained. But, through all, the right to his own bodyand soul remains inviolate. He retains his inherent, original possessionof himself. Even crime cannot forfeit it, for that law which destroyshis personality makes void its own claims upon him as a moral agent; andthe power to punish ceases with the accountability of the criminal. Hemay suffer and die under the penalties of the law, but he suffers as aman, he perishes as a man, and not as a thing. To the last moments ofhis existence the rights of a moral agent are his; they go with him tothe grave; they constitute the ground of his accountability at the bar ofinfinite justice, --rights fixed, eternal, inseparable; attributes of allrational intelligence in time and eternity; the same in essence, anddiffering in degree only, with those of the highest moral being, of Godhimself. 

Slavery alone lays its grasp upon the right of personal ownership, thatfoundation right, the removal of which uncreates the man; a right whichGod himself could not take away without absolving the being thus deprivedof all moral accountability; and so far as that being is concerned, making sin and holiness, crime and virtue, words without significance, and the promises and sanctions of revelation, dreams. Hence, thecrowning horror of slavery, that which lifts it above all otheriniquities, is not that it usurps the prerogatives of Deity, but that itattempts that which even He who has said, "All souls are mine, " cannotdo, without breaking up the foundations of His moral government. Slaveryis, in fact, a struggle with the Almighty for dominion over His rationalcreatures. It is leagued with the powers of darkness, in wresting manfrom his Maker. It is blasphemy lifting brazen brow and violent hand toheaven, attempting a reversal of God's laws. Man claiming the right touncreate his brother; to undo that last and most glorious work, which Godhimself pronounced good, amidst the rejoicing hosts of heaven! Manarrogating to himself the right to change, for his own selfish purposes, the beautiful order of created existences; to pluck the crown of animmortal nature, scarce lower than that of angels, from the brow of hisbrother; to erase the God-like image and superscription stamped upon himby the hand of his Creator, and to write on the despoiled and desecratedtablet, "A chattel personal!"

This, then, is slavery. Nature, with her thousand voices, cries outagainst it. Against it, divine revelation launches its thunders. Thevoice of God condemns it in the deep places of the human heart. The woesand wrongs unutterable which attend this dreadful violation of naturaljustice, the stripes, the tortures, the sunderings of kindred, thedesolation of human affections, the unchastity and lust, the toiluncompensated, the abrogated marriage, the legalized heathenism, theburial of the mind, are but the mere incidentals of the first grandoutrage, that seizure of the entire man, nerve, sinew, and spirit, whichrobs him of his body, and God of his soul. These are but the naturalresults and outward demonstrations of slavery, the crystallizations fromthe chattel principle. 

It is against this system, in its active operation upon three millions ofour countrymen, that the Liberty Party is, for the present, directing allits efforts. With such an object well may we be "men of one idea. " Nordo we neglect "other great interests, " for all are colored and controlledby slavery, and the removal of this disastrous influence would mosteffectually benefit them. 

Political action is the result and immediate object of moral suasion onthis subject. Action, action, is the spirit's means of progress, itssole test of rectitude, its only source of happiness. And should notdecided action follow our deep convictions of the wrong of slavery?Shall we denounce the slave-holders of the states, while we retain ourslavery in the District of Columbia? Shall we pray that the God of theoppressed will turn the hearts of "the rulers" in South Carolina, whilewe, the rulers of the District, refuse to open the prisons and break upthe slave-markets on its ten miles square? God keep us from suchhypocrisy! Everybody now professes to be opposed to slavery. Theleaders of the two great political parties are grievously concerned lestthe purity of the antislavery enterprise will suffer in its connectionwith politics. In the midst of grossest pro-slavery action, they arefull of anti-slavery sentiment. They love the cause, but, on the whole, think it too good for this world. They would keep it sublimated, aloft, out of vulgar reach or use altogether, intangible as Magellan's clouds. Everybody will join us in denouncing slavery, in the abstract; not afaithless priest nor politician will oppose us; abandon action, andforsooth we can have an abolition millennium; the wolf shall lie downwith the lamb, while slavery in practice clanks, in derision, its threemillions of unbroken chains. Our opponents have no fear of the harmlessspectre of an abstract idea. They dread it only when it puts on theflesh and sinews of a practical reality, and lifts its right arm in thestrength which God giveth to do as well as theorize. 

As honest men, then, we must needs act; let us do so as becomes menengaged in a great and solemn cause. Not by processions and idle paradesand spasmodic enthusiasms, by shallow tricks and shows and artifices, cana cause like ours be carried onward. Leave these to parties contendingfor office, as the "spoils of victory. " We need no disguises, nor falsepretences, nor subterfuges; enough for us to present before our fellow-countrymen the holy truths of freedom, in their unadorned and nativebeauty. Dark as the present may seem, let us remember with heartyconfidence that truth and right are destined to triumph. Let us blot outthe word "discouragement" from the anti-slavery vocabulary. Let theenemies of freedom be discouraged; let the advocates of oppressiondespair; but let those who grapple with wrong and falsehood, in the nameof God and in the power of His truth, take courage. Slavery must die. The Lord hath spoken it. The vials of His hot displeasure, like thosewhich chastised the nations in the Apocalyptic vision, are smoking evennow, above its "habitations of cruelty. " It can no longer be borne withby Heaven. Universal humanity cries out against it. Let us work, then, to hasten its downfall, doing whatsoever our hands find to do, "with allour might. "

October, 1843. 

DEMOCRACY AND SLAVERY. (1843. )

THE great leader of American Democracy, Thomas Jefferson, was anultra-abolitionist in theory, while from youth to age a slave-holder inpractice. With a zeal which never abated, with a warmth which the frostof years could not chill, he urged the great truths, that each man shouldbe the guardian of his own weal; that one man should never have absolutecontrol over another. He maintained the entire equality of the race, theinherent right of self-ownership, the equal claim of all to a fairparticipation in the enactment of the laws by which they are governed. 

He saw clearly that slavery, as it existed in the South and on his ownplantation, was inconsistent with this doctrine. His early efforts foremancipation in Virginia failed of success; but he next turned hisattention to the vast northwestern territory, and laid the foundation ofthat ordinance of 1787, which, like the flaming sword of the angel at thegates of Paradise, has effectually guarded that territory against theentrance of slavery. Nor did he stop here. He was the friend andadmirer of the ultra-abolitionists of revolutionary France; he warmlyurged his British friend, Dr. Price, to send his anti-slavery pamphletsinto Virginia; he omitted no opportunity to protest against slavery asanti-democratic, unjust, and dangerous to the common welfare; and in hisletter to the territorial governor of Illinois, written in old age, hebequeathed, in earnest and affecting language, the cause of negroemancipation to the rising generation. "This enterprise, " said he, "isfor the young, for those who can carry it forward to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an oldman. "

Such was Thomas Jefferson, the great founder of American Democracy, theadvocate of the equality of human rights, irrespective of any conditionsof birth, or climate, or color. His political doctrines, it is strangeto say, found their earliest recipients and most zealous admirers in theslave states of the Union. The privileged class of slaveholders, whoserank and station "supersede the necessity of an order of nobility, "became earnest advocates of equality among themselves--the democracy ofaristocracy. With the misery and degradation of servitude always beforethem, in the condition of their own slaves, an intense love of personalindependence, and a haughty impatience of any control over their actions, prepared them to adopt the democratic idea, so far as it might be appliedto their own order. Of that enlarged and generous democracy, the love, not of individual freedom alone, but of the rights and liberties of allmen, the unselfish desire to give to others the privileges which all menvalue for themselves, we are constrained to believe the great body ofThomas Jefferson's slave-holding admirers had no adequate conception. They were just such democrats as the patricians of Rome and thearistocracy of Venice; lords over their own plantations, a sort of "holyalliance" of planters, admitting and defending each other's divine rightof mastership. 

Still, in Virginia, Maryland, and in other sections of the slave states, truer exponents and exemplifiers of the idea of democracy, as it existedin the mind of Jefferson, were not wanting. In the debate on thememorials presented to the first Congress of the United States, prayingfor the abolition of slavery, the voice of the Virginia delegation inthat body was unanimous in deprecation of slavery as an evil, social, moral, and political. In the Virginia constitutional convention--of 1829there were men who had the wisdom to perceive and the firmness to declarethat slavery was not only incompatible with the honor and prosperity ofthe state, but wholly indefensible on any grounds which could beconsistently taken by a republican people. In the debate on the samesubject in the legislature in 1832, universal and impartial democracyfound utterance from eloquent lips. We might say as much of Kentucky, the child of Virginia. But it remains true that these were exceptions tothe general rule. With the language of universal liberty on their lips, and moved by the most zealous spirit of democratic propagandism, thegreater number of the slave-holders of the Union seem never to haveunderstood the true meaning, or to have measured the length and breadthof that doctrine which they were the first to adopt, and of which theyhave claimed all along to be the peculiar and chosen advocates. 

The Northern States were slow to adopt the Democratic creed. Theoligarchy of New England, and the rich proprietors and landholders of theMiddle States, turned with alarm and horror from the levelling doctrinesurged upon them by the "liberty and equality" propagandists of the South. The doctrines of Virginia were quite as unpalatable to Massachusetts atthe beginning of the present century as those of Massachusetts now are tothe Old Dominion. Democracy interfered with old usages and time-honoredinstitutions, and threatened to plough up the very foundations of thesocial fabric. It was zealously opposed by the representatives of NewEngland in Congress and in the home legislatures; and in many pulpitshands were lifted to God in humble entreaty that the curse and bane ofdemocracy, an offshoot of the rabid Jacobinism of revolutionary France, might not be permitted to take root and overshadow the goodly heritage ofPuritanism. The alarmists of the South, in their most fervid pictures ofthe evils to be apprehended from the prevalence of anti-slavery doctrinesin their midst, have drawn nothing more fearful than the visions of such

 "Prophets of war and harbingers of ill"

as Fisher Ames in the forum and Parish in the desk, when contemplatingthe inroads of Jeffersonian democracy upon the politics, religion, andproperty of the North. 

But great numbers of the free laborers of the Northern States, themechanics and small farmers, took a very different view of the matter. The doctrines of Jefferson were received as their political gospel. Itwas in vain that federalism denounced with indignation the impertinentinconsistency of slave-holding interference in behalf of liberty in thefree states. Come the doctrine from whom it might, the people felt it tobe true. State after state revolted from the ranks of federalism, andenrolled itself on the side of democracy. The old order of things wasbroken up; equality before the law was established, religious tests andrestrictions of the right of suffrage were abrogated. TakeMassachusetts, for example. There the resistance to democraticprinciples was the most strenuous and longest continued. Yet, at thistime, there is no state in the Union more thorough in its practicaladoption of them. No property qualifications or religious tests prevail;all distinctions of sect, birth, or color, are repudiated, and suffrageis universal. The democracy, which in the South has only been held in astate of gaseous abstraction, hardened into concrete reality in the coldair of the North. The ideal became practical, for it had found lodgmentamong men who were accustomed to act out their convictions and test alltheir theories by actual experience. 

While thus making a practical application of the new doctrine, the peopleof the free states could not but perceive the incongruity of democracyand slavery. 

Selleck Osborn, who narrowly escaped the honor of a Democratic martyr inConnecticut, denounced slave-holding, in common with other forms ofoppression. Barlow, fresh from communion with Gregoire, Brissot, andRobespierre, devoted to negro slavery some of the most vigorous andtruthful lines of his great poem. Eaton, returning from his romanticachievements in Tunis for the deliverance of white slaves, improved theoccasion to read a lecture to his countrymen on the inconsistency andguilt of holding blacks in servitude. In the Missouri struggle of 1819-20, the people of the free states, with a few ignoble exceptions, tookissue with the South against the extension of slavery. Some ten yearslater, the present antislavery agitation commenced. It originated, beyond a question, in the democratic element. With the words ofJefferson on their lips, young, earnest, and enthusiastic men called theattention of the community to the moral wrong and political reproach ofslavery. In the name and spirit of democracy, the moral and politicalpowers of the people were invoked to limit, discountenance, and put anend to a system so manifestly subversive of its foundation principles. It was a revival of the language of Jefferson and Page and Randolph, anecho of the voice of him who penned the Declaration of Independence andoriginated the ordinance of 1787. 

Meanwhile the South had wellnigh forgotten the actual significance of theteachings of its early political prophets, and their renewal in the shapeof abolitionism was, as might have been expected, strange and unwelcome. Pleasant enough it had been to hold up occasionally these democraticabstractions for the purpose of challenging the world's admiration andcheaply acquiring the character of lovers of liberty and equality. Frederick of Prussia, apostrophizing the shades of Cato and Brutus, "Vous de la liberte heros que je revere, "

while in the full exercise of his despotic power, was quite as consistentas these democratic slaveowners, whose admiration of liberty increased inexact ratio with its distance from their own plantations. They had notcalculated upon seeing their doctrine clothed with life and power, apractical reality, pressing for application to their slaves as well as tothemselves. They had not taken into account the beautiful ordination ofProvidence, that no man can vindicate his own rights, without directly orimpliedly including in that vindication the rights of all other men. Thehaughty and oppressive barons who wrung from their reluctant monarch theGreat Charter at Runnymede, acting only for themselves and their class, little dreamed of the universal application which has since been made oftheir guaranty of rights and liberties. As little did the nobles of theparliament of Paris, when strengthening themselves by limiting the kinglyprerogative, dream of the emancipation of their own serfs, by arevolution to which they were blindly giving the first impulse. God'struth is universal; it cannot be monopolized by selfishness. 

THE TWO PROCESSIONS. (1844. )

 "Look upon this picture, and on this. " HAMLET. 

CONSIDERING that we have a slave population of nearly three millions, andthat in one half of the states of the Republic it is more hazardous toact upon the presumption that "all men are created free and equal" thanit would be in Austria or Russia, the lavish expression of sympathy andextravagant jubilation with which, as a people, we are accustomed togreet movements in favor of freedom abroad are not a little remarkable. We almost went into ecstasies over the first French revolution; we filledour papers with the speeches of orator Hunt and the English radicals; wefraternized with the United Irishmen; we hailed as brothers in the causeof freedom the very Mexicans whom we have since wasted with fire andsword; our orators, North and South, grew eloquent and classic over theGreek and Polish revolutions. In short, long ere this, if the walls ofkingcraft and despotism had been, like those of Jericho, destined to beoverthrown by sound, our Fourth of July cannon-shootings and bell-ringings, together with our fierce, grandiloquent speech-makings in andout of Congress, on the occasions referred to, would have left no stoneupon another. 

It is true that an exception must be made in the case of Hayti. We firedno guns, drank no toasts, made no speeches in favor of the establishmentof that new republic in our neighborhood. The very mention of thepossibility that Haytien delegates might ask admittance to the congressof the free republics of the New World at Panama "frightened from theirpropriety" the eager propagandists of republicanism in the Senate, andgave a death-blow to their philanthropic projects. But as Hayti is arepublic of blacks who, having revolted from their masters as well asfrom the mother country, have placed themselves entirely without the paleof Anglo-Saxon sympathy by their impertinent interference with themonopoly of white liberty, this exception by no means disproves thegeneral fact, that in the matter of powder-burning, bell-jangling, speech-making, toast-drinking admiration of freedom afar off and in theabstract we have no rivals. The caricature of our "general sympathizers"in Martin Chuzzlewit is by no means a fancy sketch. 

The news of the revolution of the three days in Paris, and the triumph ofthe French people over Charles X. And his ministers, as a matter ofcourse acted with great effect upon our national susceptibility. We allthrew up our hats in excessive joy at the spectacle of a king dashed downheadlong from his throne and chased out of his kingdom by his long-suffering and oppressed subjects. We took half the credit of theperformance to ourselves, inasmuch as Lafayette was a principal actor init. Our editors, from Passamaquoddy to the Sabine, indited paragraphsfor a thousand and one newspapers, congratulating the Parisian patriots, and prophesying all manner of evil to holy alliances, kings, andaristocracies. The National Intelligencer for September 27, 1830, contains a full account of the public rejoicings of the good people ofWashington on the occasion. Bells were rung in all the steeples, gunswere fired, and a grand procession was formed, including the President ofthe United States, the heads of departments, and other publicfunctionaries. Decorated with tricolored ribbons, and with tricoloredflags mingling with the stripes and stars over their heads, and gazeddown upon by bright eyes from window and balcony, the "generalsympathizers" moved slowly and majestically through the broad avenuetowards the Capitol to celebrate the revival of French liberty in amanner becoming the chosen rulers of a free people. 

What a spectacle was this for the representatives of European kingcraftat our seat of government! How the titled agents of Metternich andNicholas must have trembled, in view of this imposing demonstration, forthe safety of their "peculiar institutions!"

Unluckily, however, the moral effect of this grand spectacle was marredsomewhat by the appearance of another procession, moving in a contrarydirection. It was a gang of slaves! Handcuffed in pairs, with thesullen sadness of despair in their faces, they marched wearily onward tothe music of the driver's whip and the clanking iron on their limbs. Think of it! Shouts of triumph, rejoicing bells, gay banners, andglittering cavalcades, in honor of Liberty, in immediate contrast withmen and women chained and driven like cattle to market! The editor ofthe American Spectator, a paper published at Washington at that time, speaking of this black procession of slavery, describes it as "drivenalong by what had the appearance of a man on horseback. " The miserablewretches who composed it were doubtless consigned to a slave-jail toawait their purchase and transportation to the South or Southwest; andperhaps formed a part of that drove of human beings which the same editorstates that he saw on the Saturday following, "males and females chainedin couples, starting from Robey's tavern, on foot, for Alexandria, toembark on board a slave-ship. "

At a Virginia camp-meeting, many years ago, one of the brethren, attempting an exhortation, stammered, faltered, and finally came to adead stand. "Sit down, brother, " said old Father Kyle, the one-eyedabolition preacher; "it's no use to try; you can't preach with twentynegroes sticking in your throat!" It strikes us that our country is verymuch in the condition of the poor confused preacher at the camp-meeting. Slavery sticks in its throat, and spoils its finest performances, political and ecclesiastical; confuses the tongues of its evangelicalalliances; makes a farce of its Fourth of July celebrations; and, as inthe case of the grand Washington procession of 1830, sadly mars theeffect of its rejoicings in view of the progress of liberty abroad. There is a stammer in all our exhortations; our moral and politicalhomilies are sure to run into confusions and contradictions; and theresponse which comes to us from the nations is not unlike that of FatherKyle to the planter's attempt at sermonizing: "It's no use, brotherJonathan; you can't preach liberty with three millions of slaves in yourthroat!"

A CHAPTER OF HISTORY. (1844. )

THE theory which a grave and learned Northern senator has recentlyannounced in Congress, that slavery, like the cotton-plant, is confinedby natural laws to certain parallels of latitude, beyond which it can byno possibility exist, however it may have satisfied its author and itsauditors, has unfortunately no verification in the facts of the case. Slavery is singularly cosmopolitan in its habits. The offspring ofpride, and lust, and avarice, it is indigenous to the world. Rooted inthe human heart, it defies the rigors of winter in the steppes of Tartaryand the fierce sun of the tropics. It has the universal acclimation ofsin. 

The first account we have of negro slaves in New England is from the penof John Josselyn. Nineteen years after the landing at Plymouth, thisinteresting traveller was for some time the guest of Samuel Maverick, whothen dwelt, like a feudal baron, in his fortalice on Noddle's Island, surrounded by retainers and servants, bidding defiance to his Indianneighbors behind his strong walls, with "four great guns" mountedthereon, and "giving entertainment to all new-comers gratis. "

"On the 2d of October, 1639, about nine o'clock in the morning, Mr. Maverick's negro woman, " says Josselyn, "came to my chamber, and in herown country language and tune sang very loud and shrill. Going out toher, she used a great deal of respect towards me, and would willinglyhave expressed her grief in English had she been able to speak thelanguage; but I apprehended it by her countenance and deportment. Whereupon I repaired to my host to learn of him the cause, and resolvedto entreat him in her behalf; for I had understood that she was a queenin her own country, and observed a very dutiful and humble garb usedtowards her by another negro, who was her maid. Mr. Maverick wasdesirous to have a breed of negroes; and therefore, seeing she would notyield by persuasions to company with a negro young man he had in hishouse, he commanded him, willed she, nilled she, to go to her bed, whichwas no sooner done than she thrust him out again. This she took in highdisdain beyond her slavery; and this was the cause of her grief. "

That the peculiar domestic arrangements and unfastidious economy of thisslave-breeding settler were not countenanced by the Puritans of thatearly time we have sufficient evidence. It is but fair to suppose, fromthe silence of all other writers of the time with respect to negroes andslaves, that this case was a marked exception to the general habits andusage of the Colonists. At an early period a traffic was commencedbetween the New England Colonies and that of Barbadoes; and it is notimprobable that slaves were brought to Boston from that island. Thelaws, however, discouraged their introduction and purchase, givingfreedom to all held to service at the close of seven years. 

In 1641, two years after Josselyn's adventure on Noddle's Island, thecode of laws known by the name of the Body of Liberties was adopted bythe Colony. It was drawn up by Nathaniel Ward, the learned and ingeniousauthor of the 'Simple Cobbler of Agawarn', the earliest poetical satireof New England. One of its provisions was as follows:--

"There shall be never any bond slaverie, villainage, or captivitieamongst us, unless it be lawfull captives taken in just warres and suchstrangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us. And theseshall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of Godestablished in Israel doth morally require. "

In 1646, Captain Smith, a Boston church-member, in connection with oneKeeser, brought home two negroes whom he obtained by the surprise andburning of a negro village in Africa and the massacre of many of itsinhabitants. Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the assistants, presented apetition to the General Court, stating the outrage thereby committed asthreefold in its nature, namely murder, man-stealing, and Sabbath-breaking; inasmuch as the offence of "chasing the negers, as aforesayde, upon the Sabbath day (being a servile work, and such as cannot beconsidered under any other head) is expressly capital by the law of God;"for which reason he prays that the offenders may be brought to justice, "soe that the sin they have committed may be upon their own heads and notupon ourselves. "

Upon this petition the General Court passed the following order, eminently worthy of men professing to rule in the fear and according tothe law of God, --a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to them that dowell:--

"The General Court, conceiving themselves bound by the first opportunityto bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing, asalso to prescribe such timely redress for what has passed, and such a lawfor the future as may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us tohave to do in such vile and odious courses, justly abhorred of all goodand just men, do order that the negro interpreter, and others unlawfullytaken, be by the first opportunity, at the charge of the country for thepresent, sent to his native country, Guinea, and a letter with him of theindignation of the Court thereabout, and justice thereof, desiring ourhonored Governor would please put this order in execution. "

There is, so far as we know, no historical record of the actual return ofthese stolen men to their home. A letter is extant, however, addressedin behalf of the General Court to a Mr. Williams on the Piscataqua, bywhom one of the negroes had been purchased, requesting him to send theman forthwith to Boston, that he may be sent home, "which this Court doresolve to send back without delay. "

Three years after, in 1649, the following law was placed upon thestatute-book of the Massachusetts Colony:--

"If any man stealeth a man, or mankind, he shall surely be put to death. "

It will thus be seen that these early attempts to introduce slavery intoNew England were opposed by severe laws and by that strong popularsentiment in favor of human liberty which characterized the Christianradicals who laid the foundations of the Colonies. It was not the rigorof her Northern winter, nor the unkindly soil of Massachusetts, whichdiscouraged the introduction of slavery in the first half-century of herexistence as a colony. It was the Puritan's recognition of thebrotherhood of man in sin, suffering, and redemption, his estimate of theawful responsibilities and eternal destinies of humanity, his hatred ofwrong and tyranny, and his stern sense of justice, which led him toimpose upon the African slave-trader the terrible penalty of the Mosaiccode. 

But that brave old generation passed away. The civil contentions in themother country drove across the seas multitudes of restless adventurersand speculators. The Indian wars unsettled and demoralized the people. Habits of luxury and the greed of gain took the place of the severe self-denial and rigid virtues of the fathers. Hence we are not surprised tofind that Josselyn, in his second visit to New England, some twenty-fiveyears after his first, speaks of the great increase of servants andnegroes. In 1680 Governor Bradstreet, in answer to the inquiries of hisMajesty's Privy Council, states that two years before a vessel fromMadagasca "brought into the Colony betwixt forty and fifty negroes, mostly women and children, who were sold at a loss to the owner of thevessel. " "Now and then, " he continues, "two or three negroes are broughtfrom Barbadoes and other of his Majesty's plantations and sold for twentypounds apiece; so that there may be within the government about onehundred or one hundred and twenty, and it may be as many Scots, broughthither and sold for servants in the time of the war with Scotland, andabout half as many Irish. "

The owning of a black or white slave, or servant, at this period wasregarded as an evidence of dignity and respectability; and hencemagistrates and clergymen winked at the violation of the law by themercenary traders, and supplied themselves without scruple. Indianslaves were common, and are named in old wills, deeds, and inventories, with horses, cows, and household furniture. As early as the year 1649 wefind William Hilton, of Newbury, sells to George Carr, "for one quarterpart of a vessel, James, my Indian, with all the interest I have in him, to be his servant forever. " Some were taken in the Narragansett war andother Indian wars; others were brought from South Carolina and theSpanish Main. It is an instructive fact, as illustrating the retributivedealings of Providence, that the direst affliction of the MassachusettsColony--the witchcraft terror of 1692--originated with the Indian Tituba, a slave in the family of the minister of Danvers. 

In the year 1690 the inhabitants of Newbury were greatly excited by thearrest of a Jerseyman who had been engaged in enticing Indians andnegroes to leave their masters. He was charged before the court withsaying that "the English should be cut off and the negroes set free. "James, a negro slave, and Joseph, an Indian, were arrested with him. Their design was reported to be, to seize a vessel in the port and escapeto Canada and join the French, and return and lay waste and plunder theirmasters. They were to come back with five hundred Indians and threehundred Canadians; and the place of crossing the Merrimac River, and ofthe first encampment on the other side, were even said to be fixed upon. When we consider that there could not have been more than a score ofslaves in the settlement, the excitement into which the inhabitants werethrown by this absurd rumor of conspiracy seems not very unlike that of aconvocation of small planters in a backwoods settlement in South Carolinaon finding an anti-slavery newspaper in their weekly mail bag. 

In 1709 Colonel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, had several negroes, and amongthem a high-spirited girl, who, for some alleged misdemeanor, wasseverely chastised. The slave resolved upon revenge for her injury, andsoon found the means of obtaining it. The Colonel had on hand, forservice in the Indian war then raging, a considerable store of gunpowder. This she placed under the room in which her master and mistress slept, laid a long train, and dropped a coal on it. She had barely time toescape to the farm-house before the explosion took place, shattering thestately mansion into fragments. Saltonstall and his wife were carried ontheir bed a considerable distance, happily escaping serious injury. Somesoldiers stationed in the house were scattered in all directions; but nolives were lost. The Colonel, on recovering from the effects of hissudden overturn, hastened to the farm-house and found his servants all upsave the author of the mischief, who was snug in bed and apparently in aquiet sleep. 

In 1701 an attempt was made in the General Court of Massachusetts toprevent the increase of slaves. Judge Sewall soon after published apamphlet against slavery, but it seems with little effect. Bostonmerchants and ship-owners became, to a considerable extent, involved inthe slave-trade. Distilleries, established in that place and in RhodeIsland, furnished rum for the African market. The slaves were usuallytaken to the West Indies, although occasionally part of a cargo found itsway to New England, where the wholesome old laws against man-stealing hadbecome a dead letter on the statute-book. 

In 1767 a bill was brought before the Legislature of Massachusetts toprevent "the unwarrantable and unnatural custom of enslaving mankind. "The Council of Governor Bernard sent it back to the House greatly changedand curtailed, and it was lost by the disagreement of the two branches. Governor Bernard threw his influence on the side of slavery. In 1774 abill prohibiting the traffic in slaves passed both Houses; but GovernorHutchinson withheld his assent and dismissed the Legislature. Thecolored men sent a deputation of their own to the Governor to solicit hisconsent to the bill; but he told them his instructions forbade him. Asimilar committee waiting upon General Gage received the same answer. 

In the year 1770 a servant of Richard Lechmere, of Cambridge, stimulatedby the general discussion of the slavery question and by the advice ofsome of the zealous advocates of emancipation, brought an action againsthis master for detaining him in bondage. The suit was decided in hisfavor two years before the similar decision in the case of Somerset inEngland. The funds necessary for carrying on this suit were raised amongthe blacks themselves. Other suits followed in various parts of theProvince; and the result was, in every instance, the freedom of theplaintiff. In 1773 Caesar Hendrick sued his master, one Greenleaf, ofNewburyport, for damages, laid at fifty pounds, for holding him as aslave. The jury awarded him his freedom and eighteen pounds. 

According to Dr. Belknap, whose answers to the queries on the subject, propounded by Judge Tucker, of Virginia, have furnished us with many ofthe facts above stated, the principal grounds upon which the counsel ofthe masters depended were, that the negroes were purchased in openmarket, and included in the bills of sale like other property; thatslavery was sanctioned by usage; and, finally, that the laws of theProvince recognized its existence by making masters liable for themaintenance of their slaves, or servants. 

On the part of the blacks, the law and usage of the mother country, confirmed by the Great Charter, that no man can be deprived of hisliberty but by the judgment of his peers, were effectually pleaded. Theearly laws of the Province prohibited slavery, and no subsequentlegislation had sanctioned it; for, although the laws did recognize itsexistence, they did so only to mitigate and modify an admitted evil. 

The present state constitution was established in 1780. The firstarticle of the Bill of Rights prohibited slavery by affirming thefoundation truth of our republic, that "all men are born free and equal. "The Supreme Court decided in 1783 that no man could hold another asproperty without a direct violation of that article. 

In 1788 three free black citizens of Boston were kidnapped and sold intoslavery in one of the French islands. An intense excitement followed. Governor Hancock took efficient measures for reclaiming the unfortunatemen. The clergy of Boston petitioned the Legislature for a totalprohibition of the foreign slave-trade. The Society of Friends, and theblacks generally, presented similar petitions; and the same year an actwas passed prohibiting the slave-trade and granting relief to personskidnapped or decoyed out of the Commonwealth. The fear of a burden tothe state from the influx of negroes from abroad led the Legislature, inconnection with this law, to prevent those who were not citizens of thestate or of other states from gaining a residence. 

The first case of the arrest of a fugitive slave in Massachusetts underthe law of 1793 took place in Boston soon after the passage of the law. It is the case to which President Quincy alludes in his late letteragainst the fugitive slave law. The populace at the trial aided theslave to escape, and nothing further was done about it. 

The arrest of George Latimer as a slave, in Boston, and his illegalconfinement in jail, in 1842, led to the passage of the law of 1843 forthe "protection of personal liberty, " prohibiting state officers fromarresting or detaining persons claimed as slaves, and the use of thejails of the Commonwealth for their confinement. This law was strictlyin accordance with the decision of the supreme judiciary, in the case ofPrigg vs. The State of Pennsylvania, that the reclaiming of fugitives wasa matter exclusively belonging to the general government; yet that thestate officials might, if they saw fit, carry into effect the law ofCongress on the subject, "unless prohibited by state legislation. "

It will be seen by the facts we have adduced that slavery inMassachusetts never had a legal existence. The ermine of the judiciaryof the Puritan state has never been sullied by the admission of itsdetestable claims. It crept into the Commonwealth like other evils andvices, but never succeeded in clothing itself with the sanction andauthority of law. It stood only upon its own execrable foundation ofrobbery and wrong. 

With a history like this to look back upon, is it strange that the peopleof Massachusetts at the present day are unwilling to see their time-honored defences of personal freedom, the good old safeguards of Saxonliberty, overridden and swept away after the summary fashion of "theFugitive Slave Bill;" that they should loathe and scorn the task whichthat bill imposes upon them of aiding professional slave-hunters inseizing, fettering, and consigning to bondage men and women accused onlyof that which commends them to esteem and sympathy, love of liberty andhatred of slavery; that they cannot at once adjust themselves to"constitutional duties" which in South Carolina and Georgia are reservedfor trained bloodhounds? Surely, in view of what Massachusetts has been, and her strong bias in favor of human freedom, derived from her great-hearted founders, it is to be hoped that the Executive and Cabinet atWashington will grant her some little respite, some space for turning, some opportunity for conquering her prejudices, before letting loose thedogs of war upon her. Let them give her time, and treat with forbearanceher hesitation, qualms of conscience, and wounded pride. Her people, indeed, are awkward in the work of slave-catching, and, it would seem, rendered but indifferent service in a late hunt in Boston. Whether theywould do better under the surveillance of the army and navy of the UnitedStates is a question which we leave with the President and his Secretaryof State. General Putnam once undertook to drill a company of Quakers, and instruct them, by force of arms, in the art and mystery of fighting;but not a single pair of drab-colored breeches moved at his "forwardmarch;" not a broad beaver wheeled at his word of command; no handunclosed to receive a proffered musket. Patriotic appeal, hard swearing, and prick of bayonet had no effect upon these impracticable raw recruits;and the stout general gave them up in despair. We are inclined tobelieve that any attempt on the part of the Commander-in-chief of ourarmy and navy to convert the good people of Massachusetts into expertslave-catchers, under the discipline of West Point and Norfolk, wouldprove as idle an experiment as that of General Putnam upon the Quakers. 

THOMAS CARLYLE ON THE SLAVE-QUESTION. (1846. )

A LATE number of Fraser's Magazine contains an article bearing theunmistakable impress of the Anglo-German peculiarities of Thomas Carlyle, entitled, 'An Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question', which would beinteresting as a literary curiosity were it not in spirit and tendency sounspeakably wicked as to excite in every rightminded reader a feeling ofamazement and disgust. With a hard, brutal audacity, a blasphemousirreverence, and a sneering mockery which would do honor to the devil ofFaust, it takes issue with the moral sense of mankind and the precepts ofChristianity. Having ascertained that the exports of sugar and spicesfrom the West Indies have diminished since emancipation, --and that thenegroes, having worked, as they believed, quite long enough withoutwages, now refuse to work for the planters without higher pay than thelatter, with the thriftless and evil habits of slavery still clinging tothem, can afford to give, --the author considers himself justified indenouncing negro emancipation as one of the "shams" which he wasspecially sent into this world to belabor. Had he confned himself tosimple abuse and caricature of the self-denying and Christianabolitionists of England--"the broad-brimmed philanthropists of ExeterHall"--there would have been small occasion for noticing his spleneticand discreditable production. Doubtless there is a cant of philanthropy--the alloy of human frailty and folly--in the most righteous reforms, which is a fair subject for the indignant sarcasm of a professed hater ofshows and falsities. Whatever is hollow and hypocritical in politics, morals, or religion, comes very properly within the scope of his mockery, and we bid him Godspeed in plying his satirical lash upon it. Imposturesand frauds of all kinds deserve nothing better than detection andexposure. Let him blow them up to his heart's content, as Daniel did theimage of Bell and the Dragon. 

But our author, in this matter of negro slavery, has undertaken to applyhis explosive pitch and rosin, not to the affectation of humanity, but tohumanity itself. He mocks at pity, scoffs at all who seek to lessen theamount of pain and suffering, sneers at and denies the most sacredrights, and mercilessly consigns an entire class of the children of hisHeavenly Father to the doom of compulsory servitude. He vituperates thepoor black man with a coarse brutality which would do credit to aMississippi slave-driver, or a renegade Yankee dealer in human cattle onthe banks of the Potomac. His rhetoric has a flavor of the slave-pen andauction-block, vulgar, unmanly, indecent, a scandalous outrage upon goodtaste and refined feeling, which at once degrades the author and insultshis readers. 

He assumes (for he is one of those sublimated philosophers who reject theBaconian system of induction and depend upon intuition without recourseto facts and figures) that the emancipated class in the West IndiaIslands are universally idle, improvident, and unfit for freedom; thatGod created them to be the servants and slaves of their "born lords, " thewhite men, and designed them to grow sugar, coffee, and spices for theirmasters, instead of raising pumpkins and yams for themselves; and that, if they will not do this, "the beneficent whip" should be again employedto compel them. He adopts, in speaking of the black class, the lowestslang of vulgar prejudice. "Black Quashee, " sneers the gentlemanlyphilosopher, --"black Quashee, if he will not help in bringing out thespices, will get himself made a slave again (which state will be a littleless ugly than his present one), and with beneficent whip, since othermethods avail not, will be compelled to work. "

It is difficult to treat sentiments so atrocious and couched in suchoffensive language with anything like respect. Common sense andunperverted conscience revolt instinctively against them. The doctrinethey inculcate is that which underlies all tyranny and wrong of mantowards man. It is that under which "the creation groaneth andtravaileth unto this day. " It is as old as sin; the perpetual argumentof strength against weakness, of power against right; that of the Greekphilosopher, that the barbarians, being of an inferior race, were born tobe slaves to the Greeks; and of the infidel Hobbes, that every man, beingby nature at war with every other man, has a perpetual right to reducehim to servitude if he has the power. It is the cardinal doctrine ofwhat John Quincy Adams has very properly styled the Satanic school ofphilosophy, --the ethics of an old Norse sea robber or an Arab plundererof caravans. It is as widely removed from the sweet humanities andunselfish benevolence of Christianity as the faith and practice of theEast India Thug or the New Zealand cannibal. 

Our author does not, however, take us altogether by surprise. He hasbefore given no uncertain intimations of the point towards which hisphilosophy was tending. In his brilliant essay upon 'Francia ofParaguay', for instance, we find him entering with manifest satisfactionand admiration into the details of his hero's tyranny. In his 'Lettersand Speeches of Oliver Cromwell'--in half a dozen pages of savage andalmost diabolical sarcasm directed against the growing humanity of theage, the "rose-pink sentimentalisms, " and squeamishness which shudders atthe sight of blood and infliction of pain--he prepares the way for ajustification of the massacre of Drogheda. More recently he hasintimated that the extermination of the Celtic race is the best way ofsettling the Irish question; and that the enslavement and forcibletransportation of her poor, to labor under armed taskmasters in thecolonies, is the only rightful and proper remedy for the political andsocial evils of England. In the 'Discourse on Negro Slavery' we see thisdevilish philosophy in full bloom. The gods, he tells us, are with thestrong. Might has a divine right to rule, --blessed are the crafty ofbrain and strong of hand! Weakness is crime. "Vae victis!" as Brennussaid when he threw his sword into the scale, --Woe to the conquered! Thenegro is weaker in intellect than his "born lord, " the white man, and hasno right to choose his own vocation. Let the latter do it for him, and, if need be, return to the "beneficent whip. " "On the side of theoppressor there is power;" let him use it without mercy, and hold fleshand blood to the grindstone with unrelenting rigor. Humanity issqueamishness; pity for the suffering mere "rose-pink sentimentalism, "maudlin and unmanly. The gods (the old Norse gods doubtless) laugh toscorn alike the complaints of the miserable and the weak compassions and"philanthropisms" of those who would relieve them. This is the substanceof Thomas Carlyle's advice; this is the matured fruit of his philosophichusbandry, --the grand result for which he has been all his life soundingunfathomable abysses or beating about in the thin air ofTranscendentalism. Such is the substitute which he offers us for theSermon on the Mount. 

He tells us that the blacks have no right to use the islands of the WestIndies for growing pumpkins and garden stuffs for their own use andbehoof, because, but for the wisdom and skill of the whites, theseislands would have been productive only of "jungle, savagery, and swampmalaria. " The negro alone could never have improved the islands orcivilized himself; and therefore their and his "born lord, " the whiteman, has a right to the benefits of his own betterments of land and "two-legged cattle!" "Black Quashee" has no right to dispose of himself andhis labor because he owes his partial civilization to others! And prayhow has it been with the white race, for whom our philosopher claims thedivine prerogative of enslaving? Some twenty and odd centuries ago, apair of half-naked savages, daubed with paint, might have been seenroaming among the hills and woods of the northern part of the Britishisland, subsisting on acorns and the flesh of wild animals, with anoccasional relish of the smoked hams and pickled fingers of someunfortunate stranger caught on the wrong side of the Tweed. Thisinteresting couple reared, as they best could, a family of children, who, in turn, became the heads of families; and some time about the beginningof the present century one of their descendants in the borough ofEcclefechan rejoiced over the birth of a man child now somewhat famous as"Thomas Carlyle, a maker of books. " Does it become such a one to raveagainst the West India negro's incapacity for self-civilization? Unaidedby the arts, sciences, and refinements of the Romans, he might have been, at this very day, squatted on his naked haunches in the woods ofEcclefechan, painting his weather-hardened epidermis in the sun like hisPiet ancestors. Where, in fact, can we look for unaided self-improvementand spontaneous internal development, to any considerable extent, on thepart of any nation or people? From people to people the original God-given impulse towards civilization and perfection has been transmitted, as from Egypt to Greece, and thence to the Roman world. 

But the blacks, we are told, are indolent and insensible to the duty ofraising sugar and coffee and spice for the whites, being mainly carefulto provide for their own household and till their own gardens fordomestic comforts and necessaries. The exports have fallen off somewhat. And what does this prove? Only that the negro is now a consumer ofproducts, of which, under the rule of the whip, he was a producer merely. As to indolence, under the proper stimulus of fair wages we have reasonto believe that the charge is not sustained. If unthrifty habits andlack of prudence on the part of the owners of estates, combined with therepeal of duties on foreign sugars by the British government, have placedit out of their power to pay just and reasonable wages for labor, who canblame the blacks if they prefer to cultivate their own garden plotsrather than raise sugar and spice for their late masters upon termslittle better than those of their old condition, the "beneficent whip"always excepted? The despatches of the colonial governors agree inadmitting that the blacks have had great cause for complaint anddissatisfaction, owing to the delay or non-payment of their wages. SirC. E. Gray, writing from Jamaica, says, that "in a good many instancesthe payment of the wages they have earned has been either veryirregularly made, or not at all, probably on account of the inability ofthe employers. " He says, moreover:--

"The negroes appear to me to be generally as free from rebellioustendencies or turbulent feelings and malicious thoughts as any race oflaborers I ever saw or heard of. My impression is, indeed, that under asystem of perfectly fair dealing and of real justice they will come to bean admirable peasantry and yeomanry; able-bodied, industrious, and hard-working, frank, and well-disposed. "

It must, indeed, be admitted that, judging by their diminished exportsand the growing complaints of the owners of estates, the condition of theislands, in a financial point of view, is by no means favorable. Animmediate cause of this, however, must be found in the unfortunate SugarAct of 1846. The more remote, but for the most part powerful, cause ofthe present depression is to be traced to the vicious and unnaturalsystem of slavery, which has been gradually but surely preparing the wayfor ruin, bankruptcy, and demoralization. Never yet, by a community oran individual, have the righteous laws of God been violated withimpunity. Sooner or later comes the penalty which the infinite justicehas affixed to sin. Partial and temporary evils and inconveniences haveundoubtedly resulted from the emancipation of the laborers; and manyyears must elapse before the relations of the two heretofore antagonisticclasses can be perfectly adjusted and their interests brought into entireharmony. But that freedom is not to be held mainly accountable for thedepression of the British colonies is obvious from the fact that DutchSurinam, where the old system of slavery remains in its original rigor, is in an equally depressed condition. The 'Paramaribo Neuws enAdvertentie Blad', quoted in the Jamaica Gazette, says, under date ofJanuary 2, 1850: "Around us we hear nothing but complaints. People seekand find matter in everything to picture to themselves the lot of theplace in which they live as bitterer than that of any other country. Ofa large number of flourishing plantations, few remain that can now becalled such. So deteriorated has property become within the last fewyears, that many of these estates have not been able to defray theirweekly expenses. The colony stands on the brink of a yawning abyss, intowhich it must inevitably plunge unless some new and better system isspeedily adopted. It is impossible that our agriculture can any longerproceed on its old footing; our laboring force is dying away, and thesocial position they held must undergo a revolution. "

The paper from which we have quoted, the official journal of the colony, thinks the condition of the emancipated British colonies decidedlypreferable to that of Surinam, where the old slave system has continuedin force, and insists that the Dutch government must follow the exampleof Great Britain. The actual condition of the British colonies sinceemancipation is perfectly well known in Surinam: three of them, Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice, being its immediate neighbors, whateverevils and inconveniences have resuited from emancipation must be wellunderstood by the Dutch slave-holders; yet we find them looking towardsemancipation as the only prospect of remedy for the greater evils oftheir own system. 

This fact is of itself a sufficient answer to the assumption of Carlyleand others, that what they call "the ruin of the colonies" has beenproduced by the emancipation acts of 1833 and 1838. 

We have no fears whatever of the effect of this literary monstrosity, which we have been considering upon the British colonies. Quashee, blackand ignorant as he may be, will not "get himself made a slave again. "The mission of the "beneficent whip" is there pretty well over; and itmay now find its place in museums and cabinets of ghastly curiosities, with the racks, pillories, thumbscrews, and branding-irons of old days. What we have feared, however, is, that the advocates and defenders ofslave-holding in this country might find in this discourse matter ofencouragement, and that our anti-christian prejudices against the coloredman might be strengthened and confirmed by its malignant vituperation andsarcasm. On this point we have sympathized with the forebodings of aneloquent writer in the London Enquirer:--

"We cannot imagine a more deadly moral poison for the American peoplethan his (Carlyle's) last composition. Every cruel practice of socialexclusion will derive from it new sharpness and venom. The slave-holder, of course, will exult to find himself, not apologized for, butenthusiastically cheered, upheld, and glorified, by a writer of Europeancelebrity. But it is not merely the slave who will feel Mr. Carlyle'shand in the torture of his flesh, the riveting of his fetters, and thedenial of light to his mind. The free black will feel him, too, in themore contemptuous and abhorrent scowl of his brother man, who will easilyderive from this unfortunate essay the belief that his inhuman feelingsare of divine ordination. It is a true work of the Devil, the fosteringof a tyrannical prejudice. Far and wide over space, and long into thefuture, the winged words of evil counsel will go. In the market-place, in the house, in the theatre, and in the church, --by land and by sea, inall the haunts of men, --their influence will be felt in a perennialgrowth of hate and scorn, and suffering and resentment. Amongst thesufferers will be many to whom education has given every refinedsusceptibility that makes contempt and exclusion bitter. Men and women, faithful and diligent, loving and worthy to be loved, and bearing, it maybe, no more than an almost imperceptible trace of African descent, willcontinue yet longer to be banished from the social meal of the white man, and to be spurned from his presence in the house of God, because a writerof genius has lent the weight of his authority and his fame, if not ofhis power, to the perpetuation of a prejudice which Christianity wasundermining. "

A more recent production, 'Latter Day Pamphlets', in which man'scapability of self-government is more than doubted, democracy somewhatcontemptuously sneered at, and the "model republic" itself stigmatized asa "nation of bores, " may have a salutary effect in restraining ouradmiration and in lessening our respect for the defender and eulogist ofslavery. The sweeping impartiality with which in this latter productionhe applies the principle of our "peculiar institution" to the laboringpoor man, irrespective of color, recognizing as his only inalienableright "the right of being set to labor" for his "born lords, " will, weimagine, go far to neutralize the mischief of his Discourse upon NegroSlavery. It is a sad thing to find so much intellectual power as Carlylereally possesses so little under the control of the moral sentiments. Insome of his earlier writings--as, for instance, his beautiful tribute tothe Corn Law Rhymer--we thought we saw evidence of a warm and generoussympathy with the poor and the wronged, a desire to ameliorate humansuffering, which would have done credit to the "philanthropisms of ExeterHall" and the "Abolition of Pain Society. " Latterly, however, likeMoliere's quack, he has "changed all that;" his heart has got upon thewrong side; or rather, he seems to us very much in the condition of thecoal-burner in the German tale, who had swapped his heart of flesh for acobblestone. 

FORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY. 

 A letter to William Lloyd Garrison, President of the Society. 

 AMESBURY, 24th 11th mo. , 1863. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I have received thy kind letter, with the accompanyingcircular, inviting me to attend the commemoration of the thirtiethanniversary of the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society, atPhiladelphia. It is with the deepest regret that I am compelled, by thefeeble state of my health, to give up all hope of meeting thee and myother old and dear friends on an occasion of so much interest. How muchit costs me to acquiesce in the hard necessity thy own feelings will tellthee better than any words of mine. 

I look back over thirty years, and call to mind all the circumstances ofmy journey to Philadelphia, in company with thyself and the excellent Dr. Thurston of Maine, even then, as we thought, an old man, but stillliving, and true as ever to the good cause. I recall the early graymorning when, with Samuel J. May, our colleague on the committee toprepare a Declaration of Sentiments for the convention, I climbed to thesmall "upper chamber" of a colored friend to hear thee read the firstdraft of a paper which will live as long as our national history. I seethe members of the convention, solemnized by the responsibility, rise oneby one, and solemnly affix their names to that stern pledge of fidelityto freedom. Of the signers, many have passed away from earth, a few havefaltered and turned back, but I believe the majority still live torejoice over the great triumph of truth and justice, and to devote whatremains of time and strength to the cause to which they consecrated theiryouth and manhood thirty years ago. 

For while we may well thank God and congratulate one another on theprospect of the speedy emancipation of the slaves of the United States, we must not for a moment forget that, from this hour, new and mightyresponsibilities devolve upon us to aid, direct, and educate thesemillions, left free, indeed, but bewildered, ignorant, naked, andfoodless in the wild chaos of civil war. We have to undo the accumulatedwrongs of two centuries; to remake the manhood which slavery has well-nigh unmade; to see to it that the long-oppressed colored man has a fairfield for development and improvement; and to tread under our feet thelast vestige of that hateful prejudice which has been the strongestexternal support of Southern slavery. We must lift ourselves at once tothe true Christian altitude where all distinctions of black and white areoverlooked in the heartfelt recognition of the brotherhood of man. 

I must not close this letter without confessing that I cannot besufficiently thankful to the Divine Providence which, in a great measurethrough thy instrumentality, turned me away so early from what RogerWilliams calls "the world's great trinity, pleasure, profit, and honor, "to take side with the poor and oppressed. I am not insensible toliterary reputation. I love, perhaps too well, the praise and good-willof my fellow-men; but I set a higher value on my name as appended to theAnti-Slavery Declaration of 1833 than on the title-page of any book. Looking over a life marked by many errors and shortcomings, I rejoicethat I have been able to maintain the pledge of that signature, and that, in the long intervening years, "My voice, though not the loudest, has been heard Wherever Freedom raised her cry of pain. "

Let me, through thee, extend a warm greeting to the friends, whether ofour own or the new generation, who may assemble on the occasion ofcommemoration. There is work yet to be done which will task the bestefforts of us all. For thyself, I need not say that the love and esteemof early boyhood have lost nothing by the test of time; and

 I am, very cordially, thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER

THE LESSON AND OUR DUTY. 

 From the Amesbury Villager. 

 (1865. )

IN the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the unspeakably brutalassault upon Secretary Seward slavery has made another revelation ofitself. Perhaps it was needed. In the magnanimity of assured victory wewere perhaps disposed to overlook, not so much the guilty leaders andmisguided masses of the great rebellion as the unutterable horror and sinof slavery which prompted it. 

How slowly we of the North have learned the true character of this mightymischief! How our politicians bowed their strong shoulders under itsburthens! How our churches reverenced it! How our clergy contrasted theheresy-tolerating North with the purely orthodox and Scriptural type ofslave-holding Christianity! How all classes hunted down, not merely thefugitive slave, but the few who ventured to give him food and shelter anda Godspeed in his flight from bondage! How utterly ignored was thenegro's claim of common humanity! How readily was the decision of theslave-holding chief justice acquiesced in, that "the black man had norights which the white man is bound to respect"!

We saw a senator of the United States, world-known and honored for hislearning, talents, and stainless integrity, beaten down and all butmurdered at his official desk by a South Carolina slave-holder, for thecrime of speaking against the extension of slavery; and we heard thedastardly deed applauded throughout the South, while its brutalperpetrator was rewarded with orations and gifts and smiles of beauty asa chivalrous gentleman. We saw slavery enter Kansas, with bowieknife inhand and curses on its lips; we saw the life of the Union struck at bysecession and rebellion; we heard of the bones of sons and brothers, fallen in defence of freedom and law, dug up and wrought into ornamentsfor the wrists and bosoms of slave-holding women; we looked into the openhell of Andersonville, upon the deliberate, systematic starvation ofhelpless prisoners; we heard of Libby Prison underlaid with gunpowder, for the purpose of destroying thousands of Union prisoners in case of theoccupation of Richmond by our army; we saw hundreds of prisonersmassacred in cold blood at Fort Pillow, and the midnight sack of Lawrenceand the murder of its principal citizens. The flames of our merchantvessels, seized by pirates, lighted every sea; we heard of officers ofthe rebel army and navy stealing into our cities, firing hotels filledwith sleeping occupants, and laying obstructions on the track of railcars, for the purpose of killing and mangling their passengers. Yet inspite of these revelations of the utterly barbarous character of slaveryand its direful effect upon all connected with it, we were on the verypoint of trusting to its most criminal defenders the task ofreestablishing the state governments of the South, leaving the real Unionmen, white as well as black, at the mercy of those who have made hatred areligion and murder a sacrament. The nation needed one more terriblelesson. It has it in the murder of its beloved chief magistrate and theattempted assassination of its honored prime minister, the two men of allothers prepared to go farthest to smooth the way of defeated rebellionback to allegiance. 

Even now the lesson of these terrible events seems but half learned. Inthe public utterances I hear much of punishing and hanging leadingtraitors, fierce demands for vengeance, and threats of the summarychastisement of domestic sympathizers with treason, but comparativelylittle is said of the accursed cause, the prolific mother ofabominations, slavery. The government is exhorted to remember that itdoes not bear the sword in vain, the Old Testament is ransacked for textsof Oriental hatred and examples of the revenges of a semi-barbarousnation; but, as respects the four millions of unmistakably loyal peopleof the South, the patient, the long-suffering, kind-hearted victims ofoppressions, only here and there a voice pleads for their endowment withthe same rights of citizenship which are to be accorded to the rank andfile of disbanded rebels. The golden rule of the Sermon on the Mount isnot applied to them. Much is said of executing justice upon rebels;little of justice to loyal black men. Hanging a few ringleaders oftreason, it seems to be supposed, is all that is needed to restore andreestablish the revolted states. The negro is to be left powerless inthe hands of the "white trash, " who hate him with a bitter hatred, exceeding that of the large slave-holders. In short, four years ofterrible chastisement, of God's unmistakable judgments, have not taughtus, as a people, their lesson, which could scarcely be plainer if it hadbeen written in letters of fire on the sky. Why is it that we are soslow to learn, so unwilling to confess that slavery is the accursed thingwhich whets the knife of murder, and transforms men, with the exterior ofgentlemen and Christians, into fiends? How pitiful is our exultationover the capture of the wretched Booth and his associates! The greatcriminal, of whom he and they were but paltry instruments, still stalksabroad in the pine woods of Jersey, where the state has thrown around himher legislative sanction and protection. He is in Pennsylvania, thrusting the black man from public conveyances. Wherever God's childrenare despised, insulted, and abused on account of their color, there isthe real assassin of the President still at large. I do not wonder atthe indignation which has been awakened by the late outrage, for I havepainfully shared it. But let us see to it that it is rightly directed. The hanging of a score of Southern traitors will not restore AbrahamLincoln nor atone for the mighty loss. In wreaking revenge upon thesemiserable men, we must see to it that we do not degrade ourselves and dodishonor to the sacred memory of the dead. We do well to be angry; and, if need be, let our wrath wax seven times hotter, until that which "was amurderer from the beginning" is consumed from the face of the earth. Asthe people stand by the grave of Lincoln, let them lift their right handsto heaven and take a solemn vow upon their souls to give no sleep totheir eyes nor slumber to their eyelids until slavery is hunted from itslast shelter, and every man, black and white, stands equal before thelaw. 

In dealing with the guilty leaders and instigators of the rebellion weshould beware how we take counsel of passion. Hatred has no place besidethe calm and awful dignity of justice. Human life is still a very sacredthing; Christian forbearance and patience are still virtues. For my ownpart, I should be satisfied to see the chiefs of the great treason go outfrom among us homeless, exiled, with the mark of Cain on their foreheads, carrying with them, wherever they go, the avenging Nemesis of conscience. We cannot take lessons, at this late day, in their school of barbarism;we cannot starve and torture them as they have starved and tortured oursoldiers. Let them live. Perhaps that is, after all, the most terriblepenalty. For wherever they hide themselves the story of their acts willpursue them; they can have no rest nor peace save in that deep repentancewhich, through the mercy of God, is possible for all. 

I have no disposition to stand between these men and justice. Ifarrested, they can have no claim to exemption from the liabilities ofcriminals. But it is not simply a question of deserts that is to beconsidered; we are to take into account our own reputation as a Christianpeople, the wishes of our best friends abroad, and the humane instinctsof the age, which forbid all unnecessary severity. Happily we are notcalled upon to take counsel of our fears. Rabbinical writers tell usthat evil spirits who are once baffled in a contest with human beingslose from thenceforth all power of further mischief. The defeated rebelsare in the precise condition of these Jewish demons. Deprived ofslavery, they are like wasps that have lost their stings. 

As respects the misguided masses of the South, the shattered and crippledremnants of the armies of treason, the desolate wives, mothers, andchildren mourning for dear ones who have fallen in a vain and hopelessstruggle, it seems to me our duty is very plain. We must forgive theirpast treason, and welcome and encourage their returning loyalty. Nonebut cowards will insult and taunt the defeated and defenceless. We mustfeed and clothe the destitute, instruct the ignorant, and, bearingpatiently with the bitterness and prejudice which will doubtless for atime thwart our efforts and misinterpret our motives, aid them inrebuilding their states on the foundation of freedom. Our sole enemy wasslavery, and slavery is dead. We have now no quarrel with the people ofthe South, who have really more reason than we have to rejoice over thedownfall of a system which impeded their material progress, pervertedtheir religion, shut them out from the sympathies of the world, andridged their land with the graves of its victims. 

We are victors, the cause of all this evil and suffering is removedforever, and we can well afford to be magnanimous. How better can weevince our gratitude to God for His great mercy than in doing good tothose who hated us, and in having compassion on those who havedespitefully used us? The hour is hastening for us all when our soleground of dependence will be the mercy and forgiveness of God. Let usendeavor so to feel and act in our relations to the people of the Souththat we can repeat in sincerity the prayer of our Lord: "Forgive us ourtrespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, " reverentlyacknowledging that He has indeed "led captivity captive and receivedgifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God mightdwell among them. "

CHARLES SUMNER AND THE STATE-DEPARTMENT. (1868. )

THE wise reticence of the President elect in the matter of his cabinethas left free course to speculation and conjecture as to its composition. That he fully comprehends the importance of the subject, and that he willcarefully weigh the claims of the possible candidates on the score ofpatriotic services, ability, and fitness for specific duties, no one whohas studied his character, and witnessed his discretion, clear insight, and wise adaptation of means to ends, under the mighty responsibilitiesof his past career, can reasonably doubt. 

It is not probable that the distinguished statesman now at the head ofthe State Department will, under the circumstances, look for acontinuance in office. History will do justice to his eminent servicesin the Senate and in the cabinet during the first years of the rebellion, but the fact that he has to some extent shared the unpopularity of thepresent chief magistrate seems to preclude the idea of his retention inthe new cabinet. In looking over the list of our public men in search ofa successor, General Grant is not likely to be embarrassed by the numberof individuals fitted by nature, culture, and experience for such animportant post. The newspaper press, in its wide license of conjectureand suggestion, has, as far as I have seen, mentioned but three or fournames in this connection. Allusions have been made to Senator Fessendenof Maine, ex-Minister Motley, General Dix, ex-Secretary Stanton, andCharles Sumner of Massachusetts. 

Without disparaging in any degree his assumed competitors, the last-namedgentleman is unquestionably preeminently fitted for the place. He hashad a lifelong education for it. The entire cast of his mind, the bentof his studies, the habit and experience of his public life, his profoundknowledge of international law and the diplomatic history of his own andother countries, his well-earned reputation as a statesman andconstitutional lawyer, not only at home, but wherever our country hasrelations of amity and commerce, the honorable distinction which heenjoys of having held a foremost place in the great conflict betweenfreedom and slavery, union and rebellion, all mark him as the man for theoccasion. There seems, indeed, a certain propriety in assigning to theman who struck the heaviest blows at secession and slavery in thenational Senate the first place under him who, in the field, made themhenceforth impossible. The great captain and the great senator united inwar should not be dissevered in peace. 

I am not unaware that there are some, even in the Republican party, whohave failed to recognize in Senator Sumner the really wise and practicalstatesmanship which a careful review of his public labors cannot but makemanifest. It is only necessary to point such to the open record of hissenatorial career. Few men have had the honor of introducing anddefending with exhaustive ability and thoroughness so many measures ofacknowledged practical importance to his immediate constituents, thecountry at large, and the wider interests of humanity and civilization. In what exigency has he been found wanting? What legislative act ofpublic utility for the last eighteen years has lacked his encouragement?At the head of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, his clearness of vision, firmness, moderation, and ready comprehension of the duties of his timeand place must be admitted by all parties. It was shrewdly said by Burkethat "men are wise with little reflection and good with little self-denial, in business of all times except their own. " But Charles Sumner, the scholar, loving the "still air of delightful studies, " has shownhimself as capable of thoroughly comprehending and digesting the eventstranspiring before his eyes as of pronouncing judgment upon thoserecorded in history. Far in advance of most of his contemporaries, hesaw and enunciated the true doctrine of reconstruction, the earlyadoption of which would have been of incalculable service to the country. One of the ablest statesmen and jurists of the Democratic party has hadthe rare magnanimity to acknowledge that in this matter the Republicansenator was right, and himself and his party wrong. 

The Republicans of Massachusetts will make no fractious or importunatedemand upon the new President. They are content to leave to his unbiasedand impartial judgment the selection of his cabinet. But if, looking tothe best interests of the country, he shall see fit to give theirdistinguished fellow-citizen the first place in it, they will feel nosolicitude as to the manner in which the duties of the office will bedischarged. They will feel that "the tools are with him who can usethem. " Nothing more directly affects the reputation of a country thanthe character of its diplomatic correspondence and its foreignrepresentatives. We have suffered in times past from sad mismanagementabroad, and intelligent Americans have too often been compelled to hangtheir heads with shame to see the flag of their country floating over theconsular offices of worthless, incompetent agents. There can be noquestion that so far as they are entrusted to Senator Sumner's hands, theinterest, honor, and dignity of the nation will be safe. 

In a few weeks Charles Summer will be returned for his fourth term in theUnited States Senate by the well-nigh unanimous vote of both branches ofthe legislature of Massachusetts. Not a syllable of opposition to hisreelection is heard from any quarter. There is not a Republican in thelegislature who could have been elected unless he had been virtuallypledged to his support. No stronger evidence of the popular estimate ofhis ability and integrity than this could be offered. As a matter ofcourse, the marked individuality of his intense convictions, earnestness, persistence, and confident reliance upon the justice of his conclusions, naturally growing out of the consciousness of having brought to hishonest search after truth all the lights of his learning and experience, may, at times, have brought him into unpleasant relations with some ofhis colleagues; but no one, friend or foe, has questioned his ability andpatriotism, or doubted his fidelity to principle. He has lent himself tono schemes of greed. While so many others have taken advantage of thefacilities of their official stations to fill, directly or indirectly, their own pockets or those of their relatives and retainers, it is to thehonor of Massachusetts that her representatives in the Senate have notonly "shaken their hands from the holding of bribes, " but have so bornethemselves that no shadow of suspicion has ever rested on them. 

In this connection it may be proper to state that, in the event of achange in the War Department, the claims of General Wilson, to whoseservices in the committee on military affairs the country is deeplyindebted, may be brought under consideration. In that case Massachusettswould not, if it were in her power, discriminate between her senators. Both have deserved well of her and of the country. In expressing thusbriefly my opinion, I do not forget that after all the choice andresponsibility rest with General Grant alone. There I am content toleave them. I am very far from urging any sectional claim. Let thecountry but have peace after its long discord, let its good faith andfinancial credit be sustained, and all classes of its citizens everywhereprotected in person and estate, and it matters very little to me whetherMassachusetts is represented at the Executive Council board, or not. Personally, Charles Sumner would gain nothing by a transfer from theSenate Chamber to the State Department. He does not need a place in theAmerican cabinet any more than John Bright does in the British. Thehighest ambition might well be satisfied with his present position, fromwhich, looking back upon an honorable record, he might be justified inusing Milton's language of lofty confidence in the reply to Salmasius: "Iam not one who has disgraced beauty of sentiment by deformity of conduct, or the maxims of a freeman by the actions of a slave, but, by the graceof God, I have kept my life unsullied. "

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1872. 

 The following letter was written on receiving a request from a committee of colored voters for advice as to their action at the presidential election of 1872. 

 AMESBURY, 9th mo. 3d, 1872. 

DEAR FRIENDS, --I have just received your letter of the 29th ult. Askingmy opinion of your present duty as colored voters in the choice betweenGeneral Grant and Horace Greeley for the presidency. You state that youhave been confused by the contradictory advice given you by such friendsof your people as Charles Sumner on one hand, and William L. Garrison andWendell Phillips on the other; and you ask me, as one whom you arepleased to think "free from all bias, " to add my counsel to theirs. 

I thank you for the very kind expression of your confidence and yourgenerous reference to my endeavors to serve the cause of freedom; but Imust own that I would fain have been spared the necessity of adding tothe already too long list of political epistles. I have felt it my dutyin times past to take an active part--often very distasteful to me--inpolitical matters, having for my first object the deliverance of mycountry from the crime and curse of slavery. That great question beingnow settled forever, I have been more than willing to leave to youngerand stronger hands the toils and the honors of partisan service. Painedand saddened by the bitter and unchristian personalities of the canvassnow in progress, I have hitherto held myself aloof from it as far aspossible, unwilling to sanction in the slightest degree the criminationsand recriminations of personal friends whom I have every reason to loveand respect, and in whose integrity I have unshaken confidence. In thepresent condition of affairs I have not been able to see that any specialaction as an abolitionist was required at my hands. Both of the greatparties, heretofore widely separated, have put themselves onsubstantially the same platform. The Republican party, originallypledged only to the non-extension of slavery, and whose most illustriousrepresentative, President Lincoln, avowed his willingness to save theUnion without abolishing slavery, has been, under Providence, mainlyinstrumental in the total overthrow of the detestable system; while theDemocratic party, composed largely of slave-holders, and, even at theNorth, scarcely willing to save the Union at the expense of the slaveinterest upon which its success depended, shattered and crippled by thecivil war and its results, has at last yielded to the inexorable logic ofevents, abandoned a position no longer tenable, and taken its "newdeparture" with an abolitionist as its candidate. As a friend of thelong-oppressed colored man, and for the sake of the peace and prosperityof the country, I rejoice at this action of the Democratic party. Theunderlying motives of this radical change are doubtless somewhat mixedand contradictory, honest conviction on the part of some, and partyexpediency and desire of office on the part of others; but the changeitself is real and irrevocable; the penalty of receding would be swiftand irretrievable ruin. In any point of view the new order of things isdesirable; and nothing more fully illustrates "the ways that are dark andthe tricks that are vain" of party politics than the attempt of professedfriends of the Union and equal rights for all to counteract it by givingaid and comfort to a revival of the worst characteristics of the oldparty in the shape of a straight-out Democratic convention. 

As respects the candidates now before us, I can see no good reason whycolored voters as such should oppose General Grant, who, though not anabolitionist and not even a member of the Republican party previous tohis nomination, has faithfully carried out the laws of Congress in theirbehalf. Nor, on the other hand, can I see any just grounds for distrustof such a man as Horace Greeley, who has so nobly distinguished himselfas the advocate of human rights irrespective of race or color, and who bythe instrumentality of his press has been for thirty years the educatorof the people in the principles of justice, temperance, and freedom. Both of these men have, in different ways, deserved too well of thecountry to be unnecessarily subjected to the brutalities of apresidential canvass; and, so far as they are personally concerned, itwould doubtless have been better if the one had declined a second term ofuncongenial duties, and the other continued to indite words of wisdom inthe shades of Chappaqua. But they have chosen otherwise; and I amwilling, for one, to leave my colored fellow-citizens to the unbiasedexercise of their own judgment and instincts in deciding between them. The Democratic party labors under the disadvantage of antecedents notcalculated to promote a rapid growth of confidence; and it is no matterof surprise that the vote of the emancipated class is likely to belargely against it. But if, as will doubtless be the case, that voteshall be to some extent divided between the two candidates, it will havethe effect of inducing politicians of the rival parties to treat withrespect and consideration this new element of political power, from self-interest if from no higher motive. The fact that at this time bothparties are welcoming colored orators to their platforms, and that, inthe South, old slave-masters and their former slaves fraternize at caucusand barbecue, and vote for each other at the polls, is full ofsignificance. If, in New England, the very men who thrust FrederickDouglass from car and stage-coach, and mobbed and hunted him like a wildbeast, now crowd to shake his hand and cheer him, let us not despair ofseeing even the Ku-Klux tarried into decency, and sitting "clothed intheir right minds" as listeners to their former victims. The colored manis to-day the master of his own destiny. No power on earth can deprivehim of his rights as an American citizen. And it is in the light ofAmerican citizenship that I choose to regard my colored friends, as menhaving a common stake in the welfare of the country; mingled with, andnot separate from, their white fellow-citizens; not herded together as adistinct class to be wielded by others, without self-dependence andincapable of self-determination. Thanks to such men as Sumner and Wilsonand their compeers, nearly all that legislation can do for them hasalready been done. We can now only help them to help themselves. Industry, economy, temperance, self-culture, education for theirchildren, --these things, indispensable to their elevation and progress, are in a great measure in their own hands. 

You will, therefore, my friends and fellow-citizens, pardon me if Idecline to undertake to decide for you the question of your politicalduty as respects the candidates for the presidency, --a question which youhave probably already settled in your own minds. If it had been apparentto me that your rights and liberties were really in danger from thesuccess of either candidate, your letter would not have been needed tocall forth my opinion. In the long struggle of well-nigh forty years, Ican honestly say that no consideration of private interest, nor mynatural love of peace and retirement and the good-will of others, havekept me silent when a word could be fitly spoken for human rights. Ihave not so long acted with the class to which you belong withoutacquiring respect for your intelligence and capacity for judging wiselyfor yourselves. I shall abide your decision with confidence, andcheerfully acquiesce in it. 

If, on the whole, you prefer to vote for the reelection of General Grant, let me hope you will do so without joining with eleventh-hour friends indenouncing and reviling such an old and tried friend as Charles Sumner, who has done and suffered so much in your behalf. If, on the other hand, some of you decide to vote for Horace Greeley, you need not in so doingforget your great obligations to such friends as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Lydia Maria Child. Agree or disagree with them, take their advice or reject it, but stand by them still, and teach theparties with which you are connected to respect your feelings towardsyour benefactors. 

THE CENSURE OF SUMNER. 

 A letter to the Boston Daily Advertiser in reference to the petition for the rescinding of the resolutions censuring Senator Sumner for his motion to erase from the United States flags the record of the battles of the civil war. 

I BEG leave to occupy a small space in the columns of the Advertiser forthe purpose of noticing a charge which has been brought against thepetitioners for rescinding the resolutions of the late extra sessionvirtually censuring the Hon. Charles Sumner. It is intimated that theaction of these petitioners evinces a lack of appreciation of theservices of the soldiers of the Union, and that not to censure CharlesSumner is to censure the volunteers of Massachusetts. 

As a matter of fact, the petitioners express no opinion as to the policyor expediency of the senator's proposition. Some may believe it not onlyright in itself, but expedient and well-timed; others that it wasinexpedient or premature. None doubt that, sooner or later, the thingwhich it contemplates must be done, if we are to continue a unitedpeople. What they feel and insist upon is that the proposition is onewhich implies no disparagement of the soldiers of Massachusetts and theUnion; that it neither receives nor merits the "unqualified condemnationof the people" of the state; and that it furnishes no ground whatever forlegislative interference or censure. A single glance at the names of thepetitioners is a sufficient answer to the insinuation that they areunmindful of that self-sacrifice and devotion, the marble and granitememorials of which, dotting the state from the Merrimac to theConnecticut, testify the gratitude of the loyal heart of Massachusetts. 

I have seen no soldier yet who considered himself wronged or "insulted"by the proposition. In point of fact the soldiers have never asked forsuch censure of the brave and loyal statesman who was the bosom friendand confidant of Secretary Stanton (the great war-minister, second, if atall, only to Carnot) and of John A. Andrew, dear to the heart of everyMassachusetts soldier, and whose tender care and sympathy reached themwherever they struggled or died for country and freedom. The proposal ofSenator Sumner, instead of being an "insult, " was, in fact, the highestcompliment which could be paid to brave men; for it implied that theycherished no vindictive hatred of fallen foes; that they were too proudlysecure of the love and gratitude of their countrymen to need above theirheads the flaunting blazon of their achievements; that they were asmagnanimous in peace and victory as they were heroic and patient throughthe dark and doubtful arbitrament of war. As such they understand it. Ishould be sorry to think there existed a single son of Massachusetts weakenough to believe that his reputation and honor as a soldier needed thiscensure of Charles Sumner. I have before me letters from men, rankingfrom orderly sergeant to general, who have looked at death full in theface on every battlefield where the flag of Massachusetts floated, andthey all thank me for my efforts to rescind this uncalled-for censure, and pledge me their hearty support. They cordially indorse the nobleletter of Vice-President Wilson offering his signature to the petitionfor rescinding the obnoxious resolutions; and if these resolutions arenot annulled, it will not be the fault of Massachusetts volunteers, butrather of the mistaken zeal of men more familiar with the drill of thecaucus than with that of the camp. 

I am no blind partisan of Charles Sumner. I have often differed from himin opinion. I regretted deeply the position which he thought it his dutyto take during the late presidential campaign. He felt the atmosphereabout him thick and foul with corruption and bribery and greed; he sawthe treasury ringed about like Saturn with unscrupulous combinations andcorporations; and it is to be regretted more than wondered at if hestruck out wildly in his indignation, and that his blows fell sometimesupon the wrong object. But I did not intend to act the part of hisapologist. The twenty years of his senatorial life are crowded withmemorials of his loyalty to truth and free dom and humanity, which willbe enduring as our history. He is no party to this movement, in which myname has been more prominent than I could have wished, and no word of hisprompted or suggested it. From its inception to the present time he hasremained silent in his chamber of pain, waiting to bequeath, like thetestator of the dramatist, "A fame by scandal untouched To Memory and Time's old daughter Truth. "

He can well afford to wait, and the issue of the present question beforeour legislature is of far less consequence to him than to us. To use thewords of one who stood by him in the dark days of the Fugitive Slave Law, the Chief Justice of the United States, --"Time and the wiser thought willvindicate the illustrious statesman to whom Massachusetts, the country, and humanity owe so much, but the state can ill afford the damage to itsown reputation which such a censure of such a man will inflict. "

AMESBURY, 3d month, 8, 1873. 

THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION OF 1833. (1874. )

In the gray twilight of a chill day of late November, forty years ago, adear friend of mine, residing in Boston, made his appearance at the oldfarm-house in East Haverhill. He had been deputed by the abolitionistsof the city, William L. Garrison, Samuel E. Sewall, and others, toinform me of my appointment as a delegate to the Convention about to beheld in Philadelphia for the formation of an American Anti-SlaverySociety, and to urge upon me the necessity of my attendance. 

Few words of persuasion, however, were needed. I was unused totravelling; my life had been spent on a secluded farm; and the journey, mostly by stage-coach, at that time was really a formidable one. Moreover, the few abolitionists were everywhere spoken against, theirpersons threatened, and in some instances a price set on their heads bySouthern legislators. Pennsylvania was on the borders of slavery, and itneeded small effort of imagination to picture to one's self the breakingup of the Convention and maltreatment of its members. This latterconsideration I do not think weighed much with me, although I was betterprepared for serious danger than for anything like personal indignity. Ihad read Governor Trumbull's description of the tarring and feathering ofhis hero MacFingal, when, after the application of the melted tar, thefeather-bed was ripped open and shaken over him, until

 "Not Maia's son, with wings for ears, Such plumes about his visage wears, Nor Milton's six-winged angel gathers Such superfluity of feathers, "

and I confess I was quite unwilling to undergo a martyrdom which my bestfriends could scarcely refrain from laughing at. But a summons like thatof Garrison's bugle-blast could scarcely be unheeded by one who, frombirth and education, held fast the traditions of that earlierabolitionism which, under the lead of Benezet and Woolman, had effacedfrom the Society of Friends every vestige of slave-holding. I had thrownmyself, with a young man's fervid enthusiasm, into a movement whichcommended itself to my reason and conscience, to my love of country, andmy sense of duty to God and my fellow-men. My first venture inauthorship was the publication, at my own expense, in the spring of 1833, of a pamphlet entitled Justice and Expediency, on the moral and politicalevils of slavery, and the duty of emancipation. Under such circumstancesI could not hesitate, but prepared at once for my journey. It wasnecessary that I should start on the morrow, and the intervening time, with a small allowance for sleep, was spent in providing for the care ofthe farm and homestead during my absence. 

So the next morning I took the stage for Boston, stopping at the ancienthostelry known as the Eastern Stage Tavern; and on the day following, incompany with William Lloyd Garrison, I left for New York. At that citywe were joined by other delegates, among them David Thurston, aCongregational minister from Maine. On our way to Philadelphia, we took, as a matter of necessary economy, a second-class conveyance, and foundourselves, in consequence, among rough and hilarious companions, whoselanguage was more noteworthy for strength than refinement. Our worthyfriend the clergyman bore it awhile in painful silence, but at last feltit his duty to utter words of remonstrance and admonition. The leader ofthe young roisterers listened with a ludicrous mock gravity, thanked himfor his exhortation, and, expressing fears that the extraordinary efforthad exhausted his strength, invited him to take a drink with him. FatherThurston buried his grieved face in his cloak-collar, and wisely left theyoung reprobates to their own devices. 

On reaching Philadelphia, we at once betook, ourselves to the humbledwelling on Fifth Street occupied by Evan Lewis, a plain, earnest man andlifelong abolitionist, who had been largely interested in preparing theway for the Convention. In one respect the time of our assembling seemedunfavorable. The Society of Friends, upon whose cooperation we hadcounted, had but recently been rent asunder by one of those unhappycontroversies which so often mark the decline of practical righteousness. The martyr-age of the society had passed, wealth and luxury had taken theplace of the old simplicity, there was a growing conformity to the maximsof the world in trade and fashion, and with it a correspondingunwillingness to hazard respectability by the advocacy of unpopularreforms. Unprofitable speculation and disputation on one hand, and avain attempt on the other to enforce uniformity of opinion, hadmeasurably lost sight of the fact that the end of the gospel is love, andthat charity is its crowning virtue. After a long and painful strugglethe disruption had taken place; the shattered fragments, under the nameof Orthodox and Hicksite, so like and yet so separate in feeling, confronted each other as hostile sects, and

 "Never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining; They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs that have been torn asunder A dreary sea now flows between; But neither rain, nor frost, nor thunder, Can wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once has been. "

We found about forty members assembled in the parlors of our friendLewis, and, after some general conversation, Lewis Tappan was asked topreside over an informal meeting, preparatory to the opening of theConvention. A handsome, intellectual-looking man, in the prime of life, responded to the invitation, and in a clear, well-modulated voice, thefirm tones of which inspired hope and confidence, stated the objects ofour preliminary council, and the purpose which had called us together, inearnest and well-chosen words. In making arrangements for theConvention, it was thought expedient to secure, if possible, the servicesof some citizen of Philadelphia, of distinction and high social standing, to preside over its deliberations. Looking round among ourselves in vainfor some titled civilian or doctor of divinity, we were fain to confessthat to outward seeming we were but "a feeble folk, " sorely needing theshield of a popular name. A committee, of which I was a member, wasappointed to go in search of a president of this description. We visitedtwo prominent gentlemen, known as friendly to emancipation and of highsocial standing. They received us with the dignified courtesy of the oldschool, declined our proposition in civil terms, and bowed us out with acool politeness equalled only by that of the senior Winkle towards theunlucky deputation of Pickwick and his unprepossessing companions. As weleft their doors we could not refrain from smiling in each other's facesat the thought of the small inducement our proffer of the presidency heldout to men of their class. Evidently our company was not one forrespectability to march through Coventry with. 

On the following morning we repaired to the Adelphi Building, on FifthStreet, below Walnut, which had been secured for our use. Sixty-twodelegates were found to be in attendance. Beriah Green, of the Oneida(New York) Institute, was chosen president, a fresh-faced, sandy-haired, rather common-looking man, but who had the reputation of an able andeloquent speaker. He had already made himself known to us as a resoluteand self-sacrificing abolitionist. Lewis Tappan and myself took ourplaces at his side as secretaries, on the elevation at the west end ofthe hall. 

Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly composed ofcomparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond thatperiod. They were nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to comfortrather than elegance. Many of the faces turned towards me wore a look ofexpectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all had the earnestness which mightbe expected of men engaged in an enterprise beset with difficulty andperhaps with peril. The fine, intellectual head of Garrison, prematurelybald, was conspicuous; the sunny-faced young man at his side, in whom allthe beatitudes seemed to find expression, was Samuel J. May, mingling inhis veins the best blood of the Sewalls and Quincys, --a man soexceptionally pure and large-hearted, so genial, tender, and loving, thathe could be faithful to truth and duty without making an enemy. 

 "The de'il wad look into his face, And swear he couldna wrang him. "

That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon whose somewhatmartial figure the Quaker coat seemed a little out of place, was LindleyCoates, known in all eastern Pennsylvania as a stern enemy of slavery;that slight, eager man, intensely alive in every feature and gesture, wasThomas Shipley, who for thirty years had been the protector of the freecolored people of Philadelphia, and whose name was whispered reverentlyin the slave cabins of Maryland as the friend of the black man, one of aclass peculiar to old Quakerism, who in doing what they felt to be duty, and walking as the Light within guided them, knew no fear and shrank fromno sacrifice. Braver men the world has not known. Beside him, differingin creed, but united with him in works of love and charity, sat ThomasWhitson, of the Hicksite school of Friends, fresh from his farm inLancaster County, dressed in plainest homespun, his tall form surmountedby a shock of unkempt hair, the odd obliquity of his vision contrastingstrongly with he clearness and directness of his spiritual insight. Elizur Wright, the young professor of a Western college, who had lost hisplace by his bold advocacy of freedom, with a look of sharp concentrationin keeping with an intellect keen as a Damascus blade, closely watchedthe proceedings through his spectacles, opening his mouth only to speakdirectly to the purpose. The portly form of Dr. Bartholomew Russell, thebeloved physician, from that beautiful land of plenty and peace whichBayard Taylor has described in his Story of Kennett, was not to beoverlooked. Abolitionist in heart and soul, his house was known as theshelter of runaway slaves, and no sportsman ever entered into the chasewith such zest as he did into the arduous and sometimes dangerous work ofaiding their escape and baffling their pursuers. The youngest manpresent was, I believe, James Miller McKim, a Presbyterian minister fromColumbia, afterwards one of our most efficient workers. James Mott, E. L. Capron, Arnold Buffum, and Nathan Winslow, men well known in the anti-slavery agitation, were conspicuous members. Vermont sent down from hermountains Orson S. Murray, a man terribly in earnest, with a zeal thatbordered on fanaticism, and who was none the more genial for the mob-violence to which he had been subjected. In front of me, awakeningpleasant associations of the old homestead in Merrimac valley, sat myfirst school-teacher, Joshua Coffin, the learned and worthy antiquarianand historian of Newbury. A few spectators, mostly of the Hicksitedivision of Friends, were present, in broad brims and plain bonnets, among them Esther Moore and Lucretia Mott. 

Committees were chosen to draft a constitution for a national Anti-Slavery Society, nominate a list of officers, and prepare a declarationof principles to be signed by the members. Dr. A. L. Cox of New York, while these committees were absent, read something from my pen eulogisticof William Lloyd Garrison; and Lewis Tappan and Amos A. Phelps, aCongregational clergyman of Boston, afterwards one of the most devotedlaborers in the cause, followed in generous commendation of the zeal, courage, and devotion of the young pioneer. The president, after callingJames McCrummell, one of the two or three colored members of theConvention, to the chair, made some eloquent remarks upon those editorswho had ventured to advocate emancipation. At the close of his speech ayoung man rose to speak, whose appearance at once arrested my attention. I think I have never seen a finer face and figure, and his manner, words, and bearing were in keeping. "Who is he?" I asked of one of thePennsylvania delegates. "Robert Purvis, of this city, a colored man, "was the answer. He began by uttering his heart-felt thanks to thedelegates who had convened for the deliverance of his people. He spokeof Garrison in terms of warmest eulogy, as one who had stirred the heartof the nation, broken the tomblike slumber of the church, and compelledit to listen to the story of the slave's wrongs. He closed by declaringthat the friends of colored Americans would not be forgotten. "Theirmemories, " he said, "will be cherished when pyramids and monuments shallhave crumbled in dust. The flood of time which is sweeping away therefuge of lies is bearing on the advocates of our cause to a gloriousimmortality. "

The committee on the constitution made their report, which afterdiscussion was adopted. It disclaimed any right or intention ofinterfering, otherwise than by persuasion and Christian expostulation, with slavery as it existed in the states, but affirming the duty ofCongress to abolish it in the District of Columbia and territories, andto put an end to the domestic slave-trade. A list of officers of the newsociety was then chosen: Arthur Tappan of New York, president, and ElizurWright, Jr. , William Lloyd Garrison, and A. L. Cox, secretaries. Amongthe vice-presidents was Dr. Lord of Dartmouth College, then professedlyin favor of emancipation, but who afterwards turned a moral somersault, aself-inversion which left him ever after on his head instead of his feet. 

He became a querulous advocate of slavery as a divine institution, anddenounced woe upon the abolitionists for interfering with the will andpurpose of the Creator. As the cause of freedom gained ground, the poorman's heart failed him, and his hope for church and state grew fainterand fainter. A sad prophet of the evangel of slavery, he testified inthe unwilling ears of an unbelieving generation, and died at lastdespairing of a world which seemed determined that Canaan should nolonger be cursed, nor Onesimus sent back to Philemon. 

The committee on the declaration of principles, of which I was a member, held a long session, discussing the proper scope and tenor of thedocument. But little progress being made, it was finally decided toentrust the matter to a sub-committee, consisting of William L. Garrison, S. J. May, and myself; and after a brief consultation andcomparison of each other's views, the drafting of the important paper wasassigned to the former gentleman. We agreed to meet him at his lodgingsin the house of a colored friend early the next morning. It was stilldark when we climbed up to his room, and the lamp was still burning bythe light of which he was writing the last sentence of the declaration. We read it carefully, made a few verbal changes, and submitted it to thelarge committee, who unanimously agreed to report it to the Convention. 

The paper was read to the Convention by Dr. Atlee, chairman of thecommittee, and listened to with the profoundest interest. 

Commencing with a reference to the time, fifty-seven years before, when, in the same city of Philadelphia, our fathers announced to the worldtheir Declaration of Independence, --based on the self-evident truths ofhuman equality and rights, --and appealed to arms for its defence, itspoke of the new enterprise as one "without which that of our fathers isincomplete, " and as transcending theirs in magnitude, solemnity, andprobable results as much "as moral truth does physical force. " It spokeof the difference of the two in the means and ends proposed, and of thetrifling grievances of our fathers compared with the wrongs andsufferings of the slaves, which it forcibly characterized as unequalledby any others on the face of the earth. It claimed that the nation wasbound to repent at once, to let the oppressed go free, and to admit themto all the rights and privileges of others; because, it asserted, no manhas a right to enslave or imbrute his brother; because liberty isinalienable; because there is no difference, in principle, between slave-holding and man-stealing, which the law brands as piracy; and because nolength of bondage can invalidate man's claim to himself, or render slavelaws anything but "an audacious usurpation. "

It maintained that no compensation should be given to plantersemancipating slaves, because that would be a surrender of fundamentalprinciples; "slavery is a crime, and is, therefore, not an article to besold;" because slave-holders are not just proprietors of what they claim;because emancipation would destroy only nominal, not real property; andbecause compensation, if given at all, should be given to the slaves. 

It declared any "scheme of expatriation" to be "delusive, cruel, anddangerous. " It fully recognized the right of each state to legislateexclusively on the subject of slavery within its limits, and concededthat Congress, under the present national compact, had no right tointerfere; though still contending that it had the power, and shouldexercise it, "to suppress the domestic slave-trade between the severalstates, " and "to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and inthose portions of our territory which the Constitution has placed underits exclusive jurisdiction. "

After clearly and emphatically avowing the principles underlying theenterprise, and guarding with scrupulous care the rights of persons andstates under the Constitution, in prosecuting it, the declaration closedwith these eloquent words:--

We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the highestobligations resting upon the people of the free states to remove slaveryby moral and political action, as prescribed in the Constitution of theUnited States. They are now living under a pledge of their tremendousphysical force to fasten the galling fetters of tyranny upon the limbs ofmillions in the Southern states; they are liable to be called at anymoment to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves; they authorizethe slave-owner to vote on three fifths of his slaves as property, andthus enable him to perpetuate his oppression; they support a standingarmy at the South for its protection; and they seize the slave who hasescaped into their territories, and send him back to be tortured by anenraged master or a brutal driver. This relation to slavery is criminaland full of danger. It must be broken up. 

"These are our views and principles, --these our designs and measures. With entire confidence in the overruling justice of God, we plantourselves upon the Declaration of Independence and the truths of divinerevelation as upon the everlasting rock. 

"We shall organize anti-slavery societies, if possible, in every city, town, and village in our land. 

"We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, ofwarning, of entreaty and rebuke. 

"We shall circulate unsparingly and extensively anti-slavery tracts andperiodicals. 

"We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the sufferingand the dumb. 

"We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participation inthe guilt of slavery. 

"We shall encourage the labor of freemen over that of the slaves, bygiving a preference to their productions; and

"We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation tospeedy repentance. 

"Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be personally defeated, but our principles never. Truth, justice, reason, humanity, must andwill gloriously triumph. Already a host is coming up to the help of theLord against the mighty, and the prospect before us is full ofencouragement. 

"Submitting this declaration to the candid examination of the people ofthis country, and of the friends of liberty all over the world, we herebyaffix our signatures to it; pledging ourselves that, under the guidanceand by the help of Almighty God, we will do all that in us lies, consistently with this declaration of our principles, to overthrow themost execrable system of slavery that has ever been witnessed upon earth, to deliver our land from its deadliest curse, to wipe out the fouleststain which rests upon our national escutcheon, and to secure to thecolored population of the United States all the rights and privilegeswhich belong to them as men and as Americans, come what may to ourpersons, our interests, or our reputations, whether we live to witnessthe triumph of justice, liberty, and humanity, or perish untimely asmartyrs in this great, benevolent, and holy cause. "

The reading of the paper was followed by a discussion which lastedseveral hours. A member of the Society of Friends moved its immediateadoption. "We have, " he said, "all given it our assent: every heart hereresponds to it. It is a doctrine of Friends that these strong and deepimpressions should be heeded. " The Convention, nevertheless, deemed itimportant to go over the declaration carefully, paragraph by paragraph. During the discussion, one of the spectators asked leave to say a fewwords. A beautiful and graceful woman, in the prime of life, with a facebeneath her plain cap as finely intellectual as that of Madame Roland, offered some wise and valuable suggestions, in a clear, sweet voice, thecharm of which I have never forgotten. It was Lucretia Mott ofPhiladelphia. The president courteously thanked her, and encouraged herto take a part in the discussion. On the morning of the last day of oursession, the declaration, with its few verbal amendments, carefullyengrossed on parchment, was brought before the Convention. Samuel J. Mayrose to read it for the last time. His sweet, persuasive voice falteredwith the intensity of his emotions as he repeated the solemn pledges ofthe concluding paragraphs. After a season of silence, David Thurston ofMaine rose as his name was called by one of the secretaries, and affixedhis name to the document. One after another passed up to the platform, signed, and retired in silence. All felt the deep responsibility of theoccasion the shadow and forecast of a life-long struggle rested uponevery countenance. 

Our work as a Convention was now done. President Green arose to make theconcluding address. The circumstances under which it was uttered mayhave lent it an impressiveness not its own; but as I now recall it, itseems to me the most powerful and eloquent speech to which I have everlistened. He passed in review the work that had been done, theconstitution of the new society, the declaration of sentiments, and theunion and earnestness which had marked the proceedings. His closingwords will never be forgotten by those who heard them:--

"Brethren, it has been good to be here. In this hallowed atmosphere Ihave been revived and refreshed. This brief interview has more thanrepaid me for all that I have ever suffered. I have here met congenialminds; I have rejoiced in sympathies delightful to the soul. Heart hasbeat responsive to heart, and the holy work of seeking to benefit theoutraged and despised has proved the most blessed employment. 

"But now we must retire from these balmy influences and breathe anotheratmosphere. The chill hoar-frost will be upon us. The storm and tempestwill rise, and the waves of persecution will dash against our souls. Letus be prepared for the worst. Let us fasten ourselves to the throne ofGod as with hooks of steel. If we cling not to Him, our names to thatdocument will be but as dust. 

"Let us court no applause, indulge in no spirit of vain boasting. Let usbe assured that our only hope in grappling with the bony monster is in anArm that is stronger than ours. Let us fix our gaze on God, and walk inthe light of His countenance. If our cause be just--and we know it is--His omnipotence is pledged to its triumph. Let this cause be entwinedaround the very fibres of our hearts. Let our hearts grow to it, so thatnothing but death can sunder the bond. "

He ceased, and then, amidst a silence broken only by the deep-drawnbreath of emotion in the assembly, lifted up his voice in a prayer toAlmighty God, full of fervor and feeling, imploring His blessing andsanctification upon the Convention and its labors. And with thesolemnity of this supplication in our hearts we clasped hands infarewell, and went forth each man to his place of duty, not knowing thethings that should befall us as individuals, but with a confidence, nevershaken by abuse and persecution, in the certain triumph of our cause. 

KANSAS

Read at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the state ofKansas. 

 BEAR CAMP HOUSE, WEST OSSIPEE, N. H. , Eighth month, 29th, 1879. 

To J. S. EMERY, R. MORROW, AND C. W. SMITH, COMMITTEE:

I HAVE received your invitation to the twenty-fifth anniversarycelebration of the first settlement of Kansas. It would give me greatpleasure to visit your state on an occasion of such peculiar interest, and to make the acquaintance of its brave and self-denying pioneers, butI have not health and strength for the journey. It is very fitting thatthis anniversary should be duly recognized. No one of your sister stateshas such a record as yours, --so full of peril and adventure, fortitude, self-sacrifice, and heroic devotion to freedom. Its baptism of martyrblood not only saved the state to liberty, but made the abolition ofslavery everywhere possible. Barber and Stillwell and Colpetzer andtheir associates did not die in vain. All through your long, hardstruggle I watched the course of events in Kansas with absorbinginterest. I rejoiced, while I marvelled at the steady courage which nodanger could shake, at the firm endurance which outwearied thebrutalities of your slaveholding invaders, and at that fidelity to rightand duty which the seduction of immediate self-interest could not swerve, nor the military force of a proslavery government overawe. All mysympathies were with you in that stern trial of your loyalty to God andhumanity. And when, in the end, you had conquered peace, and the last ofthe baffled border ruffians had left your territory, I felt that the doomof the accursed institution was sealed, and that its abolition was but aquestion of time. A state with such a record will, I am sure, be true toits noble traditions, and will do all in its power to aid the victims ofprejudice and oppression who may be compelled to seek shelter within itsborders. I will not for a moment distrust the fidelity of Kansas to herfoundation principle. God bless and prosper her! Thanking you for thekind terms of your invitation, I am, gentlemen, very truly your friend. 

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 

An Introduction to Oliver Johnson's "William Lloyd Garrison and hisTimes. "

 (1879. )

I no not know that any word of mine can give additional interest to thismemorial of William Lloyd Garrison from the pen of one of his earliestand most devoted friends, whose privilege it has been to share hisconfidence and his labors for nearly half a century; but I cannot wellforego the opportunity afforded me to add briefly my testimony to thetribute to the memory of the great Reformer, whose friendship I haveshared, and with whom I have been associated in a common cause from youthto age. 

My acquaintance with him commenced in boyhood. My father was asubscriber to his first paper, the Free Press, and the humanitarian toneof his editorials awakened a deep interest in our little household, whichwas increased by a visit which he made us. When he afterwards edited theJournal of the Times, at Bennington, Vt. , I ventured to write him aletter of encouragement and sympathy, urging him to continue his laborsagainst slavery, and assuring him that he could "do great things, " anunconscious prophecy which has been fulfilled beyond the dream of myboyish enthusiasm. The friendship thus commenced has remained unbrokenthrough half a century, confirming my early confidence in his zeal anddevotion, and in the great intellectual and moral strength which hebrought to the cause with which his name is identified. 

During the long and hard struggle in which the abolitionists wereengaged, and amidst the new and difficult questions and side-issues whichpresented themselves, it could scarcely be otherwise than thatdifferences of opinion and action should arise among them. The leaderand his disciples could not always see alike. My friend, the author ofthis book, I think, generally found himself in full accord with him, while I often decidedly dissented. I felt it my duty to use my right ofcitizenship at the ballot-box in the cause of liberty, while Garrison, with equal sincerity, judged and counselled otherwise. Each acted undera sense of individual duty and responsibility, and our personal relationswere undisturbed. If, at times, the great anti-slavery leader failed todo justice to the motives of those who, while in hearty sympathy with hishatred of slavery, did not agree with some of his opinions and methods, it was but the pardonable and not unnatural result of his intensity ofpurpose, and his self-identification with the cause he advocated; and, while compelled to dissent, in some particulars, from his judgment of menand measures, the great mass of the antislavcry people recognized hismoral leadership. The controversies of old and new organization, nonresistance and political action, may now be looked upon by the partiesto them, who still survive, with the philosophic calmness which followsthe subsidence of prejudice and passion. We were but fallible men, anddoubtless often erred in feeling, speech, and action. Ours was but thecommon experience of reformers in all ages. 

 "Never in Custom's oiled grooves The world to a higher level moves, But grates and grinds with friction hard On granite bowlder and flinty shard. Ever the Virtues blush to find The Vices wearing their badge behind, And Graces and Charities feel the fire Wherein the sins of the age expire. "

It is too late now to dwell on these differences. I choose rather, witha feeling of gratitude to God, to recall the great happiness of laboringwith the noble company of whom Garrison was the central figure. I loveto think of him as he seemed to me, when in the fresh dawn of manhood hesat with me in the old Haverhill farmhouse, revolving even then schemesof benevolence; or, with cheery smile, welcoming me to his frugal meal ofbread and milk in the dingy Boston printing-room; or, as I found him inthe gray December morning in the small attic of a colored man, inPhiladelphia, finishing his night-long task of drafting his immortalDeclaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society; or, as Isaw him in the jail of Leverett Street, after his almost miraculousescape from the mob, playfully inviting me to share the safe lodgingswhich the state had provided for him; and in all the varied scenes andsituations where we acted together our parts in the great endeavor andsuccess of Freedom. 

The verdict of posterity in his case may be safely anticipated. With thetrue reformers and benefactors of his race he occupies a place inferiorto none other. The private lives of many who fought well the battles ofhumanity have not been without spot or blemish. But his privatecharacter, like his public, knew no dishonor. No shadow of suspicionrests upon the white statue of a life, the fitting garland of whichshould be the Alpine flower that symbolizes noble purity. 

ANTI-SLAVERY ANNIVERSARY. 

Read at the semi-centennial celebration of the American Anti-SlaverySociety at Philadelphia, on the 3d December, 1883. 

 OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS. , 11th mo. , 30, 1883. 

I NEED not say how gladly I would be with you at the semi-centennial ofthe American Anti-Slavery Society. I am, I regret to say, quite unableto gratify this wish, and can only represent myself by a letter. 

Looking back over the long years of half a century, I can scarcelyrealize the conditions under which the convention of 1833 assembled. Slavery was predominant. Like Apollyon in Pilgrim's Progress, it"straddled over the whole breadth of the way. " Church and state, pressand pulpit, business interests, literature, and fashion were prostrate atits feet. Our convention, with few exceptions, was composed of menwithout influence or position, poor and little known, strong only intheir convictions and faith in the justice of their cause. To onlookersour endeavor to undo the evil work of two centuries and convert a nationto the "great renunciation" involved in emancipation must have seemedabsurd in the last degree. Our voices in such an atmosphere found noecho. We could look for no response but laughs of derision or themissiles of a mob. 

But we felt that we had the strength of truth on our side; we were right, and all the world about us was wrong. We had faith, hope, andenthusiasm, and did our work, nothing doubting, amidst a generation whofirst despised and then feared and hated us. For myself I have neverceased to be grateful to the Divine Providence for the privilege oftaking a part in that work. 

And now for more than twenty years we have had a free country. No slavetreads its soil. The anticipated dangerous consequences of completeemancipation have not been felt. The emancipated class, as a whole, havedone wisely, and well under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. Themasters have learned that cotton can be raised better by free than byslave labor, and nobody now wishes a return to slave-holding. Sectionalprejudices are subsiding, the bitterness of the civil war is slowlypassing away. We are beginning to feel that we are one people, with noreally clashing interests, and none more truly rejoice in the growingprosperity of the South than the old abolitionists, who hated slavery asa curse to the master as well as to the slave. 

In view of this commemorative semi-centennial occasion, many thoughtscrowd upon me; memory recalls vanished faces and voices long hushed. Ofthose who acted with me in the convention fifty years ago nearly all havepassed into another state of being. We who remain must soon follow; wehave seen the fulfilment of our desire; we have outlived scorn andpersecution; the lengthening shadows invite us to rest. If, in lookingback, we feel that we sometimes erred through impatient zeal in ourcontest with a great wrong, we have the satisfaction of knowing that wewere influenced by no merely selfish considerations. The low light ofour setting sun shines over a free, united people, and our last prayershall be for their peace, prosperity, and happiness. 

RESPONSE TO THE CELEBRATION OF MY EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

BY THE COLORED CITIZENS OF WASHINGTON D. C. 

To R. H. TERRELL AND GEORGE W. WILLIAMS, ESQUIRES. 

GENTLEMEN, --Among the great number of tokens of interest and good-willwhich reached me on my birthday, none have touched me more deeply thanthe proceedings of the great meeting of the colored citizens of thenation's capital, of which you are the representatives. The resolutionsof that meeting came to me as the voice of millions of my fellow-countrymen. That voice was dumb in slavery when, more than half acentury ago, I put forth my plea for the freedom of the slave. 

It could not answer me from the rice swamp and cotton field, but now, Godbe praised, it speaks from your great meeting in Washington and from allthe colleges and schools where the youth of your race are taught. Iscarcely expected then that the people for whom I pleaded would ever knowof my efforts in their behalf. I cannot be too thankful to the DivineProvidence that I have lived to hear their grateful response. 

I stand amazed at the rapid strides which your people have made sinceemancipation, at your industry, your acquisition of property and land, your zeal for education, your self-respecting but unresentful attitudetoward those who formerly claimed to be your masters, your pathetic butmanly appeal for just treatment and recognition. I see in all this thepromise that the time is not far distant when, in common with the whiterace, you will have the free, undisputed rights of American citizenshipin all parts of the Union, and your rightful share in the honors as wellas the protection of the government. 

Your letter would have been answered sooner if it had been possible. Ihave been literally overwhelmed with letters and telegrams, which, owingto illness, I have been in a great measure unable to answer or even read. 

I tender to you, gentlemen, and to the people you represent my heartfeltthanks, and the assurance that while life lasts you will find me, as Ihave been heretofore, under more difficult circumstances, your faithfulfriend. 

OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS. , first mo. , 9, 1888. 

REFORM AND POLITICS. UTOPIAN SCHEMES AND POLITICAL THEORISTS. 

THERE is a large class of men, not in Europe alone, but in this countryalso, whose constitutional conservatism inclines them to regard anyorganic change in the government of a state or the social condition ofits people with suspicion and distrust. They admit, perhaps, the evilsof the old state of things; but they hold them to be inevitable, thealloy necessarily mingled with all which pertains to fallible humanity. Themselves generally enjoying whatever of good belongs to the politicalor social system in which their lot is cast, they are disposed to lookwith philosophic indifference upon the evil which only afflicts theirneighbors. They wonder why people are not contented with theirallotments; they see no reason for change; they ask for quiet and peacein their day; being quite well satisfied with that social condition whichan old poet has quaintly described:--

 "The citizens like pounded pikes; The lesser feed the great; The rich for food seek stomachs, And the poor for stomachs meat. "

This class of our fellow-citizens have an especial dislike of theorists, reformers, uneasy spirits, speculators upon the possibilities of theworld's future, constitution builders, and believers in progress. Theyare satisfied; the world at least goes well enough with them; they sit ascomfortable in it as Lafontaine's rat in the cheese; and why should thosewho would turn it upside down come hither also? Why not let well enoughalone? Why tinker creeds, constitutions, and laws, and disturb the goodold-fashioned order of things in church and state? The idea of makingthe world better and happier is to them an absurdity. He who entertainsit is a dreamer and a visionary, destitute of common sense and practicalwisdom. His project, whatever it may be, is at once pronounced to beimpracticable folly, or, as they are pleased to term it, _Utopian. _

The romance of Sir Thomas More, which has long afforded to theconservatives of church and state a term of contempt applicable to allreformatory schemes and innovations, is one of a series of fabulouswritings, in which the authors, living in evil times and unable toactualize their plans for the well-being of society, have resorted tofiction as a safe means of conveying forbidden truths to the popularmind. Plato's "Timaeus, " the first of the series, was written after thedeath of Socrates and the enslavement of the author's country. In thisare described the institutions of the Island of Atlantis, --the writer'sideal of a perfect commonwealth. Xenophon, in his "Cyropaedia, " has alsodepicted an imaginary political society by overlaying with fictionhistorical traditions. At a later period we have the "New Atlantis" ofLord Bacon, and that dream of the "City of the Sun" with which Campanellasolaced himself in his long imprisonment. 

The "Utopia" of More is perhaps the best of its class. It is the work ofa profound thinker, the suggestive speculations and theories of one whocould

 "Forerun his age and race, and let His feet millenniums hence be set In midst of knowledge dreamed not yet. "

Much of what he wrote as fiction is now fact, a part of the frame-work ofEuropean governments, and the political truths of his imaginary state arenow practically recognized in our own democratic system. As might beexpected, in view of the times in which the author wrote, and theexceedingly limited amount of materials which he found ready to his handsfor the construction of his social and political edifice, there is a wantof proportion and symmetry in the structure. Many of his theories are nodoubt impracticable and unsound. But, as a whole, the work is anadmirable one, striding in advance of the author's age, and prefiguring agovernment of religious toleration and political freedom. The followingextract from it was doubtless regarded in his day as something worse thanfolly or the dream of a visionary enthusiast:--

"He judged it wrong to lay down anything rashly, and seemed to doubtwhether these different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire men in a different manner, and be pleased with thevariety. He therefore thought it to be indecent and foolish for any manto threaten and terrify another, to make him believe what did not strikehim as true. "

Passing by the "Telemachus" of Fenelon, we come to the political romanceof Harrington, written in the time of Cromwell. "Oceana" is the name bywhich the author represents England; and the republican plan ofgovernment which he describes with much minuteness is such as he wouldhave recommended for adoption in case a free commonwealth had beenestablished. It deals somewhat severely with Cromwell's usurpation; yetthe author did not hesitate to dedicate it to that remarkable man, who, after carefully reading it, gave it back to his daughter, Lady Claypole, with the remark, full of characteristic bluntness, that "the gentlemanneed not think to cheat him of his power and authority; for what he hadwon with the sword he would never suffer himself to be scribbled out of. "

Notwithstanding the liberality and freedom of his speculations upongovernment and religion in his Utopia, it must be confessed that SirThomas More, in after life, fell into the very practices of intoleranceand bigotry which he condemned. When in the possession of the great sealunder that scandal of kingship, Henry VIII. , he gave his countenance tothe persecution of heretics. Bishop Burnet says of him, that he caused agentleman of the Temple to be whipped and put to the rack in hispresence, in order to compel him to discover those who favored hereticalopinions. In his Utopia he assailed the profession of the law withmerciless satire; yet the satirist himself finally sat upon thechancellor's woolsack; and, as has been well remarked by Horace Smith, "if, from this elevated seat, he ever cast his eyes back upon his pastlife, he must have smiled at the fond conceit which could imagine apermanent Utopia, when he himself, certainly more learned, honest, andconscientious than the mass of men has ever been, could in the course ofone short life fall into such glaring and frightful rebellion against hisown doctrines. "

Harrington, on the other hand, as became the friend of Milton and Marvel, held fast, through good and evil report, his republican faith. Hepublished his work after the Restoration, and defended it boldly and ablyfrom the numerous attacks made upon it. Regarded as too dangerous anenthusiast to be left at liberty, he was imprisoned at the instance ofLord Chancellor Hyde, first in the Tower, and afterwards on the Island ofSt. Nicholas, where disease and imprudent remedies brought on a partialderangement, from which he never recovered. 

Bernardin St. Pierre, whose pathetic tale of "Paul and Virginia" hasfound admirers in every language of the civilized world, in a fragment, entitled "Arcadia, " attempted to depict an ideal republic, withoutpriest, noble, or slave, where all are so religious that each man is thepontiff of his family, where each man is prepared to defend his country, and where all are in such a state of equality that there are no suchpersons as servants. The plan of it was suggested by his friend Rousseauduring their pleasant walking excursions about the environs of Paris, inwhich the two enthusiastic philosophers, baffled by the evil passions andintractable materials of human nature as manifested in existing society, comforted themselves by appealing from the actual to the possible, fromthe real to the imaginary. Under the chestnut-trees of the Bois deBoulogne, through long summer days, the two friends, sick of the noisyworld about them, yet yearning to become its benefactors, --gladlyescaping from it, yet busy with schemes for its regeneration andhappiness, --at once misanthropes and philanthropists, --amused and solacedthemselves by imagining a perfect and simple state of society, in whichthe lessons of emulation and selfish ambition were never to be taught;where, on the contrary, the young were to obey their parents, and toprefer father, mother, brother, sister, wife, and friend to themselves. They drew beautiful pictures of a country blessed with peace, indus try, and love, covered with no disgusting monuments of violence and pride andluxury, without columns, triumphal arches, hospitals, prisons, orgibbets; but presenting to view bridges over torrents, wells on the aridplain, groves of fruit-trees, and houses of shelter for the traveller indesert places, attesting everywhere the sentiment of humanity. Religionwas to speak to all hearts in the eternal language of Nature. Death wasno longer to be feared; perspectives of holy consolation were to openthrough the cypress shadows of the tomb; to live or to die was to beequally an object of desire. 

The plan of the "Arcadia" of St. Pierre is simply this: A learned youngEgyptian, educated at Thebes by the priests of Osiris, desirous ofbenefiting humanity, undertakes a voyage to Gaul for the purpose ofcarrying thither the arts and religion of Egypt. He is shipwrecked onhis return in the Gulf of Messina, and lands upon the coast, where he isentertained by an Arcadian, to whom he relates his adventures, and fromwhom he receives in turn an account of the simple happiness and peace ofArcadia, the virtues and felicity of whose inhabitants are beautifullyexemplified in the lives and conversation of the shepherd and hisdaughter. This pleasant little prose poem closes somewhat abruptly. Although inferior in artistic skill to "Paul and Virginia" or the "IndianCottage", there is not a little to admire in the simple beauty of itspastoral descriptions. The closing paragraph reminds one of Bunyan'supper chamber, where the weary pilgrim's windows opened to the sunrisingand the singing of birds:--

"Tyrteus conducted his guests to an adjoining chamber. It had a windowshut by a curtain of rushes, through the crevices of which the islands ofthe Alpheus might be seen in the light of the moon. There were in thischamber two excellent beds, with coverlets of warm and light wool. 

"Now, as soon as Amasis was left alone with Cephas, he spoke with joy ofthe delight and tranquillity of the valley, of the goodness of theshepherd, and the grace of his young daughter, to whom he had seen noneworthy to be compared, and of the pleasure which he promised himself thenext day, at the festival on Mount Lyceum, of beholding a whole people ashappy as this sequestered family. Converse so delightful might havecharmed away the night without the aid of sleep, had they not beeninvited to repose by the mild light of the moon shining through thewindow, the murmuring wind in the leaves of the poplars, and the distantnoise of the Achelous, which falls roaring from the summit of MountLyceum. "

The young patrician wits of Athens doubtless laughed over Plato's idealrepublic. Campanella's "City of the Sun" was looked upon, no doubt, asthe distempered vision of a crazy state prisoner. Bacon's college, inhis "New Atlantis, " moved the risibles of fat-witted Oxford. More's"Utopia, " as we know, gave to our language a new word, expressive of thevagaries and dreams of fanatics and lunatics. The merciless wits, clerical and profane, of the court of Charles II. Regarded Harrington'sromance as a perfect godsend to their vocation of ridicule. The gaydames and carpet knights of Versailles made themselves merry with theprose pastoral of St. Pierre; and the poor old enthusiast went down tohis grave without finding an auditory for his lectures upon naturalsociety. 

The world had its laugh over these romances. When unable to refute theirtheories, it could sneer at the authors, and answer them to thesatisfaction of the generation in which they lived, at least by a generalcharge of lunacy. Some of their notions were no doubt as absurd as thoseof the astronomer in "Rasselas", who tells Imlac that he has for fiveyears possessed the regulation of the weather, and has got the secret ofmaking to the different nations an equal and impartial dividend of rainand sunshine. But truth, even when ushered into the world through themedium of a dull romance and in connection with a vast progeny of errors, however ridiculed and despised at first, never fails in the end offinding a lodging-place in the popular mind. The speculations of thepolitical theorists whom we have noticed have not all proved to be of

 "such stuff As dreams are made of, and their little life Rounded with sleep. "

They have entered into and become parts of the social and politicalfabrics of Europe and America. The prophecies of imagination have beenfulfilled; the dreams of romance have become familiar realities. 

What is the moral suggested by this record? Is it not that we shouldlook with charity and tolerance upon the schemes and speculations of thepolitical and social theorists of our day; that, if unprepared to ventureupon new experiments and radical changes, we should at least considerthat what was folly to our ancestors is our wisdom, and that anothergeneration may successfully put in practice the very theories which nowseem to us absurd and impossible? Many of the evils of society have beenmeasurably removed or ameliorated; yet now, as in the days of theApostle, "the creation groaneth and travaileth in pain;" and althoughquackery and empiricism abound, is it not possible that a properapplication of some of the remedies proposed might ameliorate the generalsuffering? Rejecting, as we must, whatever is inconsistent with orhostile to the doctrines of Christianity, on which alone rests our hopefor humanity, it becomes us to look kindly upon all attempts to applythose doctrines to the details of human life, to the social, political, and industrial relations of the race. If it is not permitted us tobelieve all things, we can at least hope them. Despair is infidelity anddeath. Temporally and spiritually, the declaration of inspiration holdsgood, "We are saved by hope. "

PECULIAR INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS. (1851. )

BERNARDIN ST. PIERRE, in his Wishes of a Solitary, asks for his countryneither wealth, nor military glory, nor magnificent palaces andmonuments, nor splendor of court nobility, nor clerical pomp. "Rather, "he says, "O France, may no beggar tread thy plains, no sick or sufferingman ask in vain for relief; in all thy hamlets may every young woman finda lover and every lover a true wife; may the young be trained arightlyand guarded from evil; may the old close their days in the tranquil hopeof those who love God and their fellow-men. "

We are reminded of the amiable wish of the French essayist--a wish evenyet very far from realization, we fear, in the empire of Napoleon III. --by the perusal of two documents recently submitted to the legislature ofthe State of Massachusetts. They indicate, in our view, the real gloryof a state, and foreshadow the coming of that time when Milton'sdefinition of a true commonwealth shall be no longer a prophecy, but thedescription of an existing fact, --"a huge Christian personage, a mightygrowth and stature of an honest man, moved by the purpose of a love ofGod and of mankind. "

Some years ago, the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the suggestion ofseveral benevolent gentlemen whose attention had been turned to thesubject, appointed a commission to inquire into the condition of theidiots of the Commonwealth, to ascertain their numbers, and whetheranything could be done in their behalf. 

The commissioners were Dr. Samuel G. Howe, so well and honorably knownfor his long and arduous labors in behalf of the blind, Judge Byington, and Dr. Gilman Kimball. The burden of the labor fell upon the chairman, who entered upon it with the enthusiasm, perseverance, and practicaladaptation of means to ends which have made him so efficient in hisvaried schemes of benevolence. On the 26th of the second month, 1848, afull report of the results of this labor was made to the Governor, accompanied by statistical tables and minute details. One hundred townshad been visited by the chairman or his reliable agent, in which fivehundred and seventy-five persons in a state of idiocy were discovered. These were examined carefully in respect to their physical as well asmental condition, no inquiry being omitted which was calculated to throwlight upon the remote or immediate causes of this mournful imperfectionin the creation of God. The proximate causes Dr. Howe mentions are to befound in the state of the bodily organization, deranged anddisproportioned by some violation of natural law on the part of theparents or remoter ancestors of the sufferers. Out of 420 cases ofidiocy, he had obtained information respecting the condition of theprogenitors of 359; and in all but four of these eases he found that oneor the other, or both, of their immediate progenitors had in some waydeparted widely from the condition of health; they were scrofulous, orpredisposed to affections of the brain, and insanity, or had intermarriedwith blood-relations, or had been intemperate, or guilty of sensualexcesses. 

Of the 575 cases, 420 were those of idiocy from birth, and 155 of idiocyafterwards. Of the born idiots, 187 were under twenty-five years of age, and all but 13 seemed capable of improvement. Of those above twenty-fiveyears of age, 73 appeared incapable of improvement in their mentalcondition, being helpless as children at seven years of age; 43 out ofthe 420 seemed as helpless as children at two years of age; 33 were inthe condition of mere infants; and 220 were supported at the publiccharge in almshouses. A large proportion of them were found to be givenover to filthy and loathsome habits, gluttony, and lust, and constantlysinking lower towards the condition of absolute brutishness. 

Those in private houses were found, if possible, in a still moredeplorable state. Their parents were generally poor, feeble in mind andbody, and often of very intemperate habits. Many of them seemed scarcelyable to take care of themselves, and totally unfit for the training ofordinary children. It was the blind leading the blind, imbecilityteaching imbecility. Some instances of the experiments of parentalignorance upon idiotic offspring, which fell under the observation of Dr. Howe, are related in his report Idiotic children were found with theirheads covered over with cold poultices of oak-bark, which the foolishparents supposed would tan the brain and harden it as the tanner does hisox-hides, and so make it capable of retaining impressions and rememberinglessons. In other cases, finding that the child could not be made tocomprehend anything, the sagacious heads of the household, on thesupposition that its brain was too hard, tortured it with hot poulticesof bread and milk to soften it. Others plastered over their children'sheads with tar. Some administered strong doses of mercury, to "solder upthe openings" in the head and make it tight and strong. Othersencouraged the savage gluttony of their children, stimulating theirunnatural and bestial appetites, on the ground that "the poor creatureshad nothing else to enjoy but their food, and they should have enough ofthat!"

In consequence of this report, the legislature, in the spring of 1848, made an annual appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars, for threeyears, for the purpose of training and teaching ten idiot children, to beselected by the Governor and Council. The trustees of the Asylum for theBlind, under the charge of Dr. Howe, made arrangements for receivingthese pupils. The school was opened in the autumn of 1848; and its firstannual report, addressed to the Governor and printed by order of theSenate, is now before us. 

Of the ten pupils, it appears that not one had the usual command ofmuscular motion, --the languid body obeyed not the service of the imbecilewill. Some could walk and use their limbs and hands in simple motions;others could make only make slight use of their muscles; and two werewithout any power of locomotion. 

One of these last, a boy six years of age, who had been stupefied on theday of his birth by the application of hot rum to his head, couldscarcely see or notice objects, and was almost destitute of the sense oftouch. He could neither stand nor sit upright, nor even creep, but wouldlie on the floor in whatever position he was placed. He could not feedhimself nor chew solid food, and had no more sense of decency than aninfant. His intellect was a blank; he had no knowledge, no desires, noaffections. A more hopeless object for experiment could scarcely havebeen selected. 

A year of patient endeavor has nevertheless wrought a wonderful change inthe condition of this miserable being. Cold bathing, rubbing of thelimbs, exercise of the muscles, exposure to the air, and other applianceshave enabled him to stand upright, to sit at table and feed himself, andchew his food, and to walk about with slight assistance. His habits areno longer those of a brute; he observes decency; his eye is brighter; hischeeks glow with health; his countenance, is more expressive of thought. He has learned many words and constructs simple sentences; his affectionsbegin to develop; and there is every prospect that he will be so farrenovated as to be able to provide for himself in manhood. 

In the case of another boy, aged twelve years, the improvement has beenequally remarkable. The gentleman who first called attention to him, ina recent note to Dr. Howe, published in the report, thus speaks of hispresent condition: "When I remember his former wild and almost franticdemeanor when approached by any one, and the apparent impossibility ofcommunicating with him, and now see him standing in his class, playingwith his fellows, and willingly and familiarly approaching me, examiningwhat I gave him, --and when I see him already selecting articles named byhis teacher, and even correctly pronouncing words printed on cards, --improvement does not convey the idea presented to my mind; it iscreation; it is making him anew. "

All the pupils have more or less advanced. Their health and habits haveimproved; and there is no reason to doubt that the experiment, at theclose of its three years, will be found to have been quite as successfulas its most sanguine projectors could have anticipated. Dr. Howe hasbeen ably seconded by an accomplished teacher, James B. Richards, who hasdevoted his whole time to the pupils. Of the nature and magnitude oftheir task, an idea may be formed only by considering the utterlistlessness of idiocy, the incapability of the poor pupil to fix hisattention upon anything, and his general want of susceptibility toimpressions. All his senses are dulled and perverted. Touch, hearing, sight, smell, are all more or less defective. His gluttony isunaccompanied with the gratification of taste, --the most savory viandsand the offal which he shares with the pigs equally satisfy him. Hismental state is still worse than his physical. Thought is painful andirksome to him. 

His teacher can only engage his attention by strenuous efforts, loud, earnest tones, gesticulations and signs, and a constant presentation ofsome visible object of bright color and striking form. The eye wanders, and the spark of consciousness and intelligence which has been fannedinto momentary brightness darkens at the slightest relaxation of theteacher's exertions. The names of objects presented to him mustsometimes be repeated hundreds of times before he can learn them. Yetthe patience and enthusiasm of the teacher are rewarded by a progress, slow and unequal, but still marked and manifest. Step by step, oftencompelled to turn back and go over the inch of ground he had gained, theidiot is still creeping forward; and by almost imperceptible degrees hissick, cramped, and prisoned spirit casts off the burden of its body ofdeath, breath as from the Almighty--is breathed into him, and he becomesa living soul. 

After the senses of the idiot are trained to take noteof their appropriate objects, the various perceptive faculties are nextto be exercised. The greatest possible number of facts are to begathered up through the medium of these faculties into the storehouse ofmemory, from whence eventually the higher faculties of mind may draw thematerial of general ideas. It has been found difficult, if notimpossible, to teach the idiot to read by the letters first, as in theordinary method; but while the varied powers of the three letters, h, a, t, could not be understood by him, he could be made to comprehend thecomplex sign of the word hat, made by uniting the three. 

The moral nature of the idiot needs training and development as well ashis physical and mental. All that can be said of him is, that he has thelatent capacity for moral development and culture. Uninstructed and leftto himself, he has no ideas of regulated appetites and propensities, ofdecency and delicacy of affection and social relations. The germs ofthese ideas, which constitute the glory and beauty of humanity, undoubtedly exist in him; but there can be no growth without patient andpersevering culture. Where this is afforded, to use the language of thereport, "the idiot may learn what love is, though he may not know theword which expresses it; he may feel kindly affections while unable tounderstand the simplest virtuous principle; and he may begin to liveacceptably to God before he has learned the name by which men call him. "

In the facts and statistics presented in the report, light is shed uponsome of the dark pages of God's providence, and it is seen that thesuffering and shame of idiocy are the result of sin, of a violation ofthe merciful laws of God and of the harmonies of His benign order. Thepenalties which are ordained for the violators of natural laws areinexorable and certain. For the transgressor of the laws of life thereis, as in the case of Esau, "no place for repentance, though he seek itearnestly and with tears. " The curse cleaves to him and his children. In this view, how important becomes the subject of the hereditarytransmission of moral and physical disease and debility! and hownecessary it is that there should be a clearer understanding of, and awilling obedience, at any cost, to the eternal law which makes the parentthe blessing or the curse of the child, giving strength and beauty, andthe capacity to know and do the will of God, or bequeathingloathsomeness, deformity, and animal appetite, incapable of therestraints of the moral faculties! Even if the labors of Dr. Howe andhis benevolent associates do not materially lessen the amount of presentactual evil and suffering in this respect, they will not be put forth invain if they have the effect of calling public attention to the greatlaws of our being, the violation of which has made this goodly earth avast lazarhouse of pain and sorrow. 

The late annual message of the Governor of Massachusetts invites ourattention to a kindred institution of charity. The chief magistratecongratulates the legislature, in language creditable to his mind andheart, on the opening of the Reform School for Juvenile Criminals, established by an act of a previous legislature. The act provides that, when any boy under sixteen years of age shall be convicted of crimepunishable by imprisonment other than such an offence as is punished byimprisonment for life, he may be, at the discretion of the court orjustice, sent to the State Reform School, or sentenced to suchimprisonment as the law now provides for his offence. The school isplaced under the care of trustees, who may either refuse to receive a boythus sent there, or, after he has been received, for reasons set forth inthe act, may order him to be committed to prison under the previous penallaw of the state. They are also authorized to apprentice the boys, attheir discretion, to inhabitants of the Commonwealth. And whenever anyboy shall be discharged, either as reformed or as having reached the ageof twenty-one years, his discharge is a full release from his sentence. 

It is made the duty of the trustees to cause the boys to be instructed inpiety and morality, and in branches of useful knowledge, in some regularcourse of labor, mechanical, agricultural, or horticultural, and suchother trades and arts as may be best adapted to secure the amendment, reformation, and future benefit of the boys. The class of offenders forwhom this act provides are generally the offspring of parents depraved bycrime or suffering from poverty and want, --the victims often ofcircumstances of evil which almost constitute a necessity, --issuing fromhomes polluted and miserable, from the sight and hearing of loathsomeimpurities and hideous discords, to avenge upon society the ignorance, and destitution, and neglect with which it is too often justlychargeable. In 1846 three hundred of these youthful violators of lawwere sentenced to jails and other places of punishment in Massachusetts, where they incurred the fearful liability of being still more thoroughlycorrupted by contact with older criminals, familiar with atrocity, androlling their loathsome vices "as a sweet morsel under the tongue. " Inview of this state of things the Reform School has been established, twenty-two thousand dollars having been contributed to the state for thatpurpose by an unknown benefactor of his race. The school is located inWestboro', on a fine farm of two hundred acres. The buildings are in theform of a square, with a court in the centre, three stories in front, with wings. They are constructed with a degree of architectural taste, and their site is happily chosen, --a gentle eminence, overlooking one ofthe loveliest of the small lakes which form a pleasing feature in NewEngland scenery. From this place the atmosphere and associations of theprison are excluded. The discipline is strict, as a matter of course;but it is that of a well-regulated home or school-room, --order, neatness, and harmony within doors; and without, the beautiful 'sights and soundsand healthful influences of Nature. One would almost suppose that thepoetical dream of Coleridge, in his tragedy of Remorse, had found itsrealization in the Westboro' School, and that, weary of the hopelessnessand cruelty of the old penal system, our legislators had embodied intheir statutes the idea of the poet:--

 "With other ministrations thou, O Nature, Healest thy wandering and distempered child Thou pourest on him thy soft influences, Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets, Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure To be a jarring and a dissonant thing Amidst this general dance and minstrelsy. "

Thus it is that the Christian idea of reformation, rather than revenge, is slowly but surely incorporating itself in our statute books. We haveonly to look back but a single century to be able to appreciate theimmense gain for humanity in the treatment of criminals which has beensecured in that space of time. Then the use of torture was commonthroughout Europe. Inability to comprehend and believe certain religiousdogmas was a crime to be expiated by death, or confiscation of estate, orlingering imprisonment. Petty offences against property furnishedsubjects for the hangman. The stocks and the whipping-post stood by theside of the meeting-house. Tongues were bored with redhot irons and earsshorn off. The jails were loathsome dungeons, swarming with vermin, unventilated, unwarmed. A century and a half ago the populace ofMassachusetts were convulsed with grim merriment at the writhings of amiserable woman scourged at the cart-tail or strangling in the ducking-stool; crowds hastened to enjoy the spectacle of an old man enduring theunutterable torment of the 'peine forte et dare, '--pressed slowly todeath under planks, --for refusing to plead to an indictment forwitchcraft. What a change from all this to the opening of the StateReform School, to the humane regulations of prisons and penitentiaries, to keen-eyed benevolence watching over the administration of justice, which, in securing society from lawless aggression, is not suffered tooverlook the true interest and reformation of the criminal, nor to forgetthat the magistrate, in the words of the Apostle, is to be indeed "theminister of God to man for good!"

LORD ASHLEY AND THE THIEVES. 

"THEY that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick, " wasthe significant answer of our Lord to the self-righteous Pharisees whotook offence at his companions, --the poor, the degraded, the weak, andthe sinful. "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, andnot sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners torepentance. "

The great lesson of duty inculcated by this answer of the Divine Teacherhas been too long overlooked by individuals and communities professedlygoverned by His maxims. The phylacteries of our modern Pharisees are asbroad as those of the old Jewish saints. The respectable Christiandetests his vicious and ill-conditioned neighbors as heartily as theIsraelite did the publicans and sinners of his day. He folds his robe ofself-righteousness closely about him, and denounces as little better thansinful weakness all commiseration for the guilty; and all attempts torestore and reclaim the erring violators of human law otherwise than bypains and penalties as wicked collusion with crime, dangerous to thestability and safety of society, and offensive in the sight of God. Andyet nothing is more certain than that, just in proportion as the exampleof our Lord has been followed in respect to the outcast and criminal, theeffect has been to reform and elevate, --to snatch as brands from theburning souls not yet wholly given over to the service of evil. Thewonderful influence for good exerted over the most degraded and recklesscriminals of London by the excellent and self-denying Elizabeth Fry, thehappy results of the establishment of houses of refuge, and reformation, and Magdalen asylums, all illustrate the wisdom of Him who went aboutdoing good, in pointing out the morally diseased as the appropriatesubjects of the benevolent labors of His disciples. No one is to bedespaired of. We have no warrant to pass by any of our fellow-creaturesas beyond the reach of God's grace and mercy; for, beneath the mostrepulsive and hateful outward manifestation, there is always aconsciousness of the beauty of goodness and purity, and of theloathsomeness of sin, --one chamber of the heart as yet not whollyprofaned, whence at times arises the prayer of a burdened and miserablespirit for deliverance. Deep down under the squalid exterior, unparticipative in the hideous merriment and recklessness of thecriminal, there is another self, --a chained and suffering inner man, --crying out, in the intervals of intoxication and brutal excesses, likeJonah from the bosom of hell. To this lingering consciousness thesympathy and kindness of benevolent and humane spirits seldom appeal invain; for, whatever may be outward appearances, it remains true that theway of the transgressor is hard, and that sin and suffering areinseparable. Crime is seldom loved or persevered in for its own sake;but, when once the evil path is entered upon, a return is in realityextremely difficult to the unhappy wanderer, and often seems as well nighimpossible. The laws of social life rise up like insurmountable barriersbetween him and escape. As he turns towards the society whose rights hehas outraged, its frown settles upon him; the penalties of the laws hehas violated await him; and he falls back despairing, and suffers thefetters of the evil habit to whose power he has yielded himself to befastened closer and heavier upon him. O for some good angel, in the formof a brother-man and touched with a feeling of his sins and infirmities, to reassure his better nature and to point out a way of escape from itsbody of death!

We have been led into these remarks by an account, given in the LondonWeekly Chronicle, of a most remarkable interview between the professionalthieves of London and Lord Ashley, --a gentleman whose best patent ofnobility is to be found in his generous and untiring devotion to theinterests of his fellow-men. It appears that a philanthropic gentlemanin London had been applied to by two young thieves, who had relinquishedtheir evil practices and were obtaining a precarious but honestlivelihood by picking up bones and rags in the streets, their loss ofcharacter closing against them all other employments. He had just beenreading an address of Lord Ashley's in favor of colonial emigration, andhe was led to ask one of the young men how he would like to emigrate. 

"I should jump at the chance!" was the reply. Not long after thegentleman was sent for to visit one of those obscure and ruinous courtsof the great metropolis where crime and poverty lie down together, --localities which Dickens has pictured with such painful distinctness. Here, to his surprise, he met a number of thieves and outlaws, whodeclared themselves extremely anxious to know whether any hope could beheld out to them of obtaining an honest living, however humble, in thecolonies, as their only reason for continuing in their criminal coursewas the impossibility of extricating themselves. He gave them suchadvice and encouragement as he was able, and invited them to assembleagain, with such of their companions as they could persuade to do so, atthe room of the Irish Free School, for the purpose of meeting LordAshley. On the 27th of the seventh month last the meeting took place. At the hour appointed, Lord Ashley and five or six other benevolentgentlemen, interested in emigration as a means of relief and reformationto the criminal poor, entered the room, which was already well-nighfilled. Two hundred and seven professed thieves were present. "Severalof the most experienced thieves were stationed at the door to prevent theadmission of any but thieves. Some four or five individuals, who werenot at first known, were subjected to examination, and only allowed toremain on stating that they were, and being recognized as, members of thedishonest fraternity; and before the proceedings of the evening commencedthe question was very carefully put, and repeated several times, whetherany one was in the room of whom others entertained doubts as to who hewas. The object of this care was, as so many of them were in danger of'getting into trouble, ' or, in other words, of being taken up for theircrimes, to ascertain if any who might betray them were present; andanother intention of this scrutiny was, to give those assembled, whonaturally would feel considerable fear, a fuller confidence in openingtheir minds. "

What a novel conference between the extremes of modern society! All thatis beautiful in refinement and education, moral symmetry and Christiangrace, contrasting with the squalor, the ignorance, the lifelongdepravity of men living "without God in the world, "--the pariahs ofcivilization, --the moral lepers, at the sight of whom decency covers itsface, and cries out, "Unclean!" After a prayer had been offered, LordAshley spoke at considerable length, making a profound impression on hisstrange auditory as they listened to his plans of emigration, whichoffered them an opportunity to escape from their miserable condition andenter upon a respectable course of life. The hard heart melted and thecold and cruel eye moistened. With one accord the wretched felonsresponded to the language of Christian love and good-will, and declaredtheir readiness to follow the advice of their true friend. They lookedup to him as to an angel of mercy, and felt the malignant spirits whichhad so long tormented them disarmed of all power of evil in the presenceof simple goodness. He stood in that felon audience like Spenser's Unaamidst the satyrs; unassailable and secure in the "unresistible might ofmeekness, " and panoplied in that "noble grace which dashed brute violencewith sudden adoration and mute awe. "

Twenty years ago, when Elizabeth Fry ventured to visit those "spirits inprison, "--the female tenants of Newgate, --her temerity was regarded withastonishment, and her hope of effecting a reformation in the miserableobjects of her sympathy was held to be wholly visionary. Her personalsafety and the blessed fruits of her labors, nevertheless, confirmed thelanguage of her Divine Master to His disciples when He sent them forth aslambs among wolves: "Behold, I give unto you power over all the power ofthe enemy. " The still more unpromising experiment of Lord Ashley, thusfar, has been equally successful; and we hail it as the introduction of anew and more humane method of dealing with the victims of sin andignorance, and the temptations growing out of the inequalities and vicesof civilization. 

WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

 Letter to the Newport Convention. 

 AMESBURY, MASS. , 12th, 8th Month, 1869. 

I HAVE received thy letter inviting me to attend the Convention in behalfof Woman's Suffrage, at Newport, R. I. , on the 25th inst. I do not seehow it is possible for me to accept the invitation; and, were I to do so, the state of my health would prevent me from taking such a part in themeeting as would relieve me from the responsibility of seeming tosanction anything in its action which might conflict with my own views ofduty or policy. Yet I should do myself great injustice if I did notembrace this occasion to express my general sympathy with the movement. I have seen no good reason why mothers, wives, and daughters should nothave the same right of person, property, and citizenship which fathers, husbands, and brothers have. 

The sacred memory of mother and sister; the wisdom and dignity of womenof my own religious communion who have been accustomed to something likeequality in rights as well as duties; my experience as a co-worker withnoble and self-sacrificing women, as graceful and helpful in theirhousehold duties as firm and courageous in their public advocacy ofunpopular truth; the steady friendships which have inspired andstrengthened me, and the reverence and respect which I feel for humannature, irrespective of sex, compel me to look with something more thanacquiescence on the efforts you are making. I frankly confess that I amnot able to forsee all the consequences of the great social and politicalchange proposed, but of this I am, at least, sure, it is always safe todo right, and the truest expediency is simple justice. I can understand, without sharing, the misgivings of those who fear that, when the votedrops from woman's hand into the ballot-box, the beauty and sentiment, the bloom and sweetness, of womankind will go with it. But in thismatter it seems to me that we can trust Nature. Stronger than statutesor conventions, she will be conservative of all that the true man lovesand honors in woman. Here and there may be found an equivocal, unsexedChevalier D'Eon, but the eternal order and fitness of things will remain. I have no fear that man will be less manly or woman less womanly whenthey meet on terms of equality before the law. 

On the other hand, I do not see that the exercise of the ballot by womanwill prove a remedy for all the evils of which she justly complains. Itis her right as truly as mine, and when she asks for it, it is somethingless than manhood to withhold it. But, unsupported by a more practicaleducation, higher aims, and a deeper sense of the responsibilities oflife and duty, it is not likely to prove a blessing in her hands any morethan in man's. 

With great respect and hearty sympathy, I am very truly thy friend. 

ITALIAN UNITY

 AMESBURY, MASS. , 1st Mo. , 4th, 1871. 

 Read at the great meeting in New York, January, 1871, in celebration of the freedom of Rome and complete unity of Italy. 

IT would give me more than ordinary satisfaction to attend the meeting onthe 12th instant for the celebration of Italian Unity, the emancipationof Rome, and its occupation as the permanent capital of the nation. 

For many years I have watched with deep interest and sympathy the popularmovement on the Italian peninsula, and especially every effort for thedeliverance of Rome from a despotism counting its age by centuries. Ilooked at these struggles of the people with little reference to theirecclesiastical or sectarian bearings. Had I been a Catholic instead of aProtestant, I should have hailed every symptom of Roman deliverance fromPapal rule, occupying, as I have, the standpoint of a republican radical, desirous that all men, of all creeds, should enjoy the civil libertywhich I prized so highly for myself. 

I lost all confidence in the French republic of 1849, when it forfeitedits own right to exist by crushing out the newly formed Roman republicunder Mazzini and Garibaldi. From that hour it was doomed, and theexpiation of its monstrous crime is still going on. My sympathies arewith Jules Favre and Leon Gambetta in their efforts to establish andsustain a republic in France, but I confess that the investment of Parisby King William seems to me the logical sequence of the bombardment ofRome by Oudinot. And is it not a significant fact that the terriblechassepot, which made its first bloody experiment upon the halfarmedItalian patriots without the walls of Rome, has failed in the hands ofFrench republicans against the inferior needle-gun of Prussia? It wassaid of a fierce actor in the old French Revolution that he demoralizedthe guillotine. The massacre at Mentana demoralized the chassepot. 

It is a matter of congratulation that the redemption of Rome has beeneffected so easily and bloodlessly. The despotism of a thousand yearsfell at a touch in noiseless rottenness. The people of Rome, fifty toone, cast their ballots of condemnation like so many shovelfuls of earthupon its grave. Outside of Rome there seems to be a very generalacquiescence in its downfall. No Peter the Hermit preaches a crusade inits behalf. No one of the great Catholic powers of Europe lifts a fingerfor it. Whatever may be the feelings of Isabella of Spain and thefugitive son of King Bomba, they are in no condition to come to itsrescue. It is reserved for American ecclesiastics, loud-mouthed inprofessions of democracy, to make solemn protest against what they callan "outrage, " which gives the people of Rome the right of choosing theirown government, and denies the divine right of kings in the person of PioNono. 

The withdrawal of the temporal power of the Pope will prove a blessing tothe Catholic Church, as well as to the world. Many of its most learnedand devout priests and laymen have long seen the necessity of such achange, which takes from it a reproach and scandal that could no longerbe excused or tolerated. A century hence it will have as few apologistsas the Inquisition or the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

In this hour of congratulation let us not forget those whose sufferingand self-sacrifice, in the inscrutable wisdom of Providence, prepared theway for the triumph which we celebrate. As we call the long, illustriousroll of Italian patriotism--the young, the brave, and beautiful; thegray-haired, saintly confessors; the scholars, poets, artists, who, shutout from human sympathy, gave their lives for God and country in theslow, dumb agony of prison martyrdom--let us hope that they also rejoicewith us, and, inaudible to earthly ears, unite in our thanksgiving:"Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! He hath avenged theblood of his servants!"

In the belief that the unity of Italy and the overthrow of Papal rulewill strengthen the cause of liberty throughout the civilized' world, Iam very truly thy friend. 

INDIAN CIVILIZATION. 

THE present condition and future prospects of the remnants of theaboriginal inhabitants of this continent can scarcely be a matter ofindifference to any class of the people of the United States. Apart fromall considerations of justice and duty, a purely selfish regard to ourown well-being would compel attention to the subject. The irreversiblelaws of God's moral government, and the well-attested maxims of politicaland social economy, leave us in no doubt that the suffering, neglect, andwrong of one part of the community must affect all others. A commonresponsibility rests upon each and all to relieve suffering, enlightenignorance, and redress wrong, and the penalty of neglect in this respectno nation has ever escaped. 

It is only within a comparatively recent period that the term IndianCivilization could be appropriately used in this country. Very littlereal progress bad been made in this direction, up to the time whenCommissioner Lang in 1844 visited the tribes now most advanced. Solittle had been done, that public opinion had acquiesced in theassumption that the Indians were not susceptible of civilization andprogress. The few experiments had not been calculated to assure asuperficial observer. 

The unsupported efforts of Elliot in New England were counteracted by theimprisonment, and in some instances the massacre of his "prayingIndians, " by white men under the exasperation of war with hostile tribes. The salutary influence of the Moravians and Friends in Pennsylvania wasgreatly weakened by the dreadful massacre of the unarmed and blamelessconverts of Gnadenhutten. But since the first visit of CommissionerLang, thirty-three years ago, the progress of education, civilization, and conversion to Christianity, has been of a most encouraging nature, and if Indian civilization was ever a doubtful problem, it has beenpractically solved. 

The nomadic habits and warlike propensities of the native tribes areindeed formidable but not insuperable difficulties in the way of theirelevation. The wildest of them may compare not unfavorably with thoseNorthern barbarian hordes that swooped down upon Christian Europe, andwho were so soon the docile pupils and proselytes of the peoples they hadconquered. The Arapahoes and Camanches of our day are no further removedfrom the sweetness and light of Christian culture than were theScandinavian Sea Kings of the middle centuries, whose gods were patronsof rapine and cruelty, their heaven a vast, cloud-built ale-house, whereghostly warriors drank from the skulls of their victims, and whose hellwas a frozen horror of desolation and darkness, to be avoided only bydiligence in robbery and courage in murder. The descendants of thesehuman butchers are now among the best exponents of the humanizinginfluence of the gospel of Christ. The report of the Superintendent ofthe remnants of the once fierce and warlike Six Nations, now peaceableand prosperous in Canada, shows that the Indian is not inferior to theNorse ancestors of the Danes and Norwegians of our day in capability ofimprovement. 

It is scarcely necessary to say, what is universally conceded, that thewars waged by the Indians against the whites have, in nearly everyinstance, been provoked by violations of solemn treaties and systematicdisregard of their rights of person, property, and life. The letter ofBishop Whipple, of Minnesota, to the New York Tribune of second month, 1877, calls attention to the emphatic language of Generals Sherman, Harney, Terry, and Augur, written after a full and searchinginvestigation of the subject: "That the Indian goes to war is notastonishing: he is often compelled to do so: wrongs are borne by him insilence, which never fail to drive civilized men to deeds of violence. The best possible way to avoid war is to do no injustice. "

It is not difficult to understand the feelings of the unfortunate pioneersettlers on the extreme borders of civilization, upon whom the blindvengeance of the wronged and hunted Indians falls oftener than upon thereal wrong-doers. They point to terrible and revolting cruelties asproof that nothing short of the absolute extermination of the race canprevent their repetition. But a moment's consideration compels us toadmit that atrocious cruelty is not peculiar to the red man. "All warsare cruel, " said General Sherman, and for eighteen centuries Christendomhas been a great battle-field. What Indian raid has been more dreadfulthan the sack of Magdeburg, the massacre of Glencoe, the namelessatrocities of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, the murders of St. Bartholomew's day, the unspeakable agonies of the South of France underthe demoniac rule of revolution! All history, black with crime and redwith blood, is but an awful commentary upon "man's inhumanity to man, "and it teaches us that there is nothing exceptional in the Indian'sferocity and vindictiveness, and that the alleged reasons for hisextermination would, at one time or another, have applied with equalforce to the whole family of man. 

A late lecture of my friend, Stanley Pumphrey, comprises more of valuableinformation and pertinent suggestions on the Indian question than I havefound in any equal space; and I am glad of the opportunity to add to itmy hearty endorsement, and to express the conviction that its generalcirculation could not fail to awaken a deeper and more kindly interest inthe condition of the red man, and greatly aid in leading the public mindto a fuller appreciation of the responsibility which rests upon us as apeople to rectify, as far as possible, past abuses, and in our futurerelations to the native owners of the soil to "deal justly and lovemercy. "

READING FOR THE BLIND. (1880. )

To Mary C. Moore, teacher in the Perkins Asylum. 

DEAR FRIEND, --It gives me great pleasure to know that the pupils in thyclass at the Institution for the Blind have the opportunity afforded themto read through the sense of touch some of my writings, and thus holdwhat I hope will prove a pleasant communion with me. Very glad I shallbe if the pen-pictures of nature, and homely country firesides, which Ihave tried to make, are understood and appreciated by those who cannotdiscern them by natural vision. I shall count it a great privilege tosee for them, or rather to let them see through my eyes. It is the mindafter all that really sees, shapes, and colors all things. What visionsof beauty and sublimity passed before the inward and spiritual sight ofblind Milton and Beethoven!

I have an esteemed friend, Morrison Hendy, of Kentucky, who is deaf andblind; yet under these circumstances he has cultivated his mind to a highdegree, and has written poems of great beauty, and vivid descriptions ofscenes which have been witnessed only by the "light within. "

I thank thee for thy letter, and beg of thee to assure the students thatI am deeply interested in their welfare and progress, and that my prayeris that their inward and spiritual eyes may become so clear that they canwell dispense with the outward and material ones. 

THE INDIAN QUESTION. 

Read at the meeting in Boston, May, 1883, for the consideration of thecondition of the Indians in the United States. 

AMESBURY, 4th mo. , 1883. 

I REGRET that I cannot be present at the meeting called in reference tothe pressing question of the day, the present condition and futureprospects of the Indian race in the United States. The old policy, however well intended, of the government is no longer available. Thewestward setting tide of immigration is everywhere sweeping over thelines of the reservations. There would seem to be no power in thegovernment to prevent the practical abrogation of its solemn treaties andthe crowding out of the Indians from their guaranteed hunting grounds. Outbreaks of Indian ferocity and revenge, incited by wrong and robbery onthe part of the whites, will increasingly be made the pretext ofindiscriminate massacres. The entire question will soon resolve itselfinto the single alternative of education and civilization orextermination. 

The school experiments at Hampton, Carlisle, and Forest Grove in Oregonhave proved, if such proof were ever needed, that the roving Indian canbe enlightened and civilized, taught to work and take interest anddelight in the product of his industry, and settle down on his farm or inhis workshop, as an American citizen, protected by and subject to thelaws of the republic. What is needed is that not only these schoolsshould be more liberally supported, but that new ones should be openedwithout delay. The matter does not admit of procrastination. The workof education and civilization must be done. The money needed must becontributed with no sparing hand. The laudable example set by theFriends and the American Missionary Association should be followed byother sects and philanthropic societies. Christianity, patriotism, andenlightened self interest have a common stake in the matter. Great anddifficult as the work may be the country is strong enough, rich enough, wise enough, and, I believe, humane and Christian enough to do it. 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Read at a meeting of the Essex Club, in Boston, November, 1885. 

AMESBURY, 11th Mo. , 10, 1885. 

I AM sorry that I cannot accept thy invitation to attend the meeting ofthe Essex Club on the 14th inst. I should be glad to meet my oldRepublican friends and congratulate them on the results of the electionin Massachusetts, and especially in our good old county of Essex. 

Some of our friends and neighbors, who have been with us heretofore, lastyear saw fit to vote with the opposite party. I would be the last todeny their perfect right to do so, or to impeach their motives, but Ithink they were mistaken in expecting that party to reform the abuses andevils which they complained of. President Cleveland has proved himselfbetter than his party, and has done and said some good things which Igive him full credit for, but the instincts of his party are against him, and must eventually prove too strong for him, and, instead of hiscarrying the party, it will be likely to carry him. It has alreadycompelled him to put his hands in his pockets for electioneeringpurposes, and travel all the way from Washington to Buffalo to give hisvote for a spoilsman and anti-civil service machine politician. I wouldnot like to call it a case of "offensive partisanship, " but it looks agood deal like it. 

As a Republican from the outset, I am proud of the noble record of theparty, but I should rejoice to see its beneficent work taken up by theDemocratic party and so faithfully carried on as to make our organizationno longer necessary. But, as far as we can see, the Republican party hasstill its mission and its future. When labor shall everywhere have itsjust reward, and the gains of it are made secure to the earners; wheneducation shall be universal, and, North and South, all men shall havethe free and full enjoyment of civil rights and privileges, irrespectiveof color or former condition; when every vice which debases the communityshall be discouraged and prohibited, and every virtue which elevates itfostered and strengthened; when merit and fitness shall be the conditionsof office; and when sectional distrust and prejudice shall give place towell-merited confidence in the loyalty and patriotism of all, then willthe work of the Republican party, as a party, be ended, and all politicalrivalries be merged in the one great party of the people, with no otheraim than the common welfare, and no other watchwords than peace, liberty, and union. Then may the language which Milton addressed to hiscountrymen two centuries ago be applied to the United States, "Go on, hand in hand, O peoples, never to be disunited; be the praise and heroicsong of all posterity. Join your invincible might to do worthy andgodlike deeds; and then he who seeks to break your Union, a cleavingcurse be his inheritance. "

OUR DUMB RELATIONS. (1886. )

IT was said of St. Francis of Assisi, that he had attained, through thefervor of his love, the secret of that deep amity with God and Hiscreation which, in the language of inspiration, makes man to be in leaguewith the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field to be at peacewith him. The world has never been without tender souls, with whom thegolden rule has a broader application than its letter might seem towarrant. The ancient Eastern seers recognized the rights of the brutecreation, and regarded the unnecessary taking of the life of the humblestand meanest as a sin; and in almost all the old religions of the worldthere are legends of saints, in the depth of whose peace with God andnature all life was sacredly regarded as the priceless gift of heaven, and who were thus enabled to dwell safely amidst lions and serpents. 

It is creditable to human nature and its unperverted instincts thatstories and anecdotes of reciprocal kindness and affection between menand animals are always listened to with interest and approval. Howpleasant to think of the Arab and his horse, whose friendship has beencelebrated in song and romance. Of Vogelwied, the Minnesinger, and hisbequest to the birds. Of the English Quaker, visited, wherever he went, by flocks of birds, who with cries of joy alighted on his broad-brimmedhat and his drab coat-sleeves. Of old Samuel Johnson, when half-blindand infirm, groping abroad of an evening for oysters for his cat. OfWalter Scott and John Brown, of Edinburgh, and their dogs. Of our ownThoreau, instinctively recognized by bird and beast as a friend. Emersonsays of him: "His intimacy with animals suggested what Thomas Fullerrecords of Butler, the apologist, that either he had told the beesthings, or the bees had told him. Snakes coiled round his legs; thefishes swam into his hand; he pulled the woodchuck out of his hole by histail, and took foxes under his protection from the hunters. "

In the greatest of the ancient Hindu poems--the sacred book of theMahabharata--there is a passage of exceptional beauty and tenderness, which records the reception of King Yudishthira at the gate of Paradise. A pilgrim to the heavenly city, the king had travelled over vast spaces, and, one by one, the loved ones, the companions of his journey, had allfallen and left him alone, save his faithful dog, which still followed. He was met by Indra, and invited to enter the holy city. But the kingthinks of his friends who have fallen on the way, and declines to go inwithout them. The god tells him they are all within waiting for him. Joyful, he is about to seek them, when he looks upon the poor dog, who, weary and wasted, crouches at his feet, and asks that he, too, may enterthe gate. Indra refuses, and thereupon the king declares that to abandonhis faithful dumb friend would be as great a sin as to kill a Brahmin. 

 "Away with that felicity whose price is to abandon the faithful! Never, come weal or woe, will I leave my faithful dog. The poor creature, in fear and distress, has trusted in my power to save him; Not, therefore, for life itself, will I break my plighted word. "

In full sight of heaven he chooses to go to hell with his dog, andstraightway descends, as he supposes, thither. But his virtue andfaithfulness change his destination to heaven, and he finds himselfsurrounded by his old friends, and in the presence of the gods, who thushonor and reward his humanity and unselfish love. 

INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION. 

Read at the reception in Boston of the English delegation representingmore than two hundred members of the British Parliament who favorinternational arbitration. 

AMESBURY, 11th Mo. , 9, 1887. 

IT is a very serious disappointment to me not to be able to be present atthe welcome of the American Peace Society to the delegation of more thantwo hundred members of the British Parliament who favor internationalarbitration. Few events have more profoundly impressed me than thepresentation of this peaceful overture to the President of the UnitedStates. It seems to me that every true patriot who seeks the bestinterests of his country and every believer in the gospel of Christ mustrespond to the admirable address of Sir Lyon Playfair and that of hiscolleagues who represented the workingmen of England. We do not need tobe told that war is always cruel, barbarous, and brutal; whether used byprofessed Christians with ball and bayonet, or by heathen with club andboomerang. We cannot be blind to its waste of life and treasure and thedemoralization which follows in its train; nor cease to wonder at thespectacle of Christian nations exhausting all their resources inpreparing to slaughter each other, with only here and there a voice, likeCount Tolstoi's in the Russian wilderness, crying in heedless ears thatthe gospel of Christ is peace, not war, and love, not hatred. 

The overture which comes to us from English advocates of arbitration is acheering assurance that the tide of sentiment is turning in favor ofpeace among English speaking peoples. I cannot doubt that whatever stumporators and newspapers may say for party purposes, the heart of Americawill respond to the generous proposal of our kinsfolk across the water. No two nations could be more favorably conditioned than England and theUnited States for making the "holy experiment of arbitration. "

In our associations and kinship, our aims and interests, our commonclaims in the great names and achievements of a common ancestry, we areessentially one people. Whatever other nations may do, we at leastshould be friends. God grant that the noble and generous attempt shallnot be in vain! May it hasten the time when the only rivalry between usshall be the peaceful rivalry of progress and the gracious interchange ofgood. 

 "When closer strand shall lean to strand, Till meet beneath saluting flags, The eagle of our mountain crags, The lion of our mother land!"

SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 

Read at the Woman's Convention at Washington. 

OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS. , Third Mo. , 8, 1888. 

I THANK thee for thy kind letter. It would be a great satisfaction to beable to be present at the fortieth anniversary of the Woman's SuffrageAssociation. But, as that is not possible, I can only reiterate myhearty sympathy with the object of the association, and bid it take heartand assurance in view of all that has been accomplished. There is noeasy royal road to a reform of this kind, but if the progress has beenslow there has been no step backward. The barriers which at first seemedimpregnable in the shape of custom and prejudice have been undermined andtheir fall is certain. A prophecy of your triumph at no distant day isin the air; your opponents feel it and believe it. They know that yoursis a gaining and theirs a losing cause. The work still before youdemands on your part great patience, steady perseverance, a firm, dignified, and self-respecting protest against the injustice of which youhave so much reason to complain, and of serene confidence which is notdiscouraged by temporary checks, nor embittered by hostile criticism, norprovoked to use any weapons of retort, which, like the boomerang, fallback on the heads of those who use them. You can affordin your consciousness of right to be as calm and courteous as thearchangel Michael, who, we are told in Scripture in his controversy withSatan himself, did not bring a railing accusation against him. A wiseadaptation of means to ends is no yielding of principle, but care shouldbe taken to avoid all such methods as have disgraced political andreligious parties of the masculine sex. Continue to make it manifestthat all which is pure and lovely and of good repute in womanhood isentirely compatible with the exercise of the rights of citizenship, andthe performance of the duties which we all owe to our homes and ourcountry. Confident that you will do this, and with no doubt or misgivingas to your success, I bid you Godspeed. I find I have written to theassociation rather than to thyself, but as one of the principaloriginators and most faithful supporters, it was very natural that Ishould identify thee with it. 

THE INNER LIFE

THE AGENCY OF EVIL. 

From the Supernaturalism of New England, in the Democratic Review for1843. 

IN this life of ours, so full of mystery, so hung about with wonders, sowritten over with dark riddles, where even the lights held by prophetsand inspired ones only serve to disclose the solemn portals of a futurestate of being, leaving all beyond in shadow, perhaps the darkest andmost difficult problem which presents itself is that of the origin ofevil, --the source whence flow the black and bitter waters of sin andsuffering and discord, --the wrong which all men see in others and feelin themselves, --the unmistakable facts of human depravity and misery. Asuperficial philosophy may attempt to refer all these dark phenomena ofman's existence to his own passions, circumstances, and will; but thethoughtful observer cannot rest satisfied with secondary causes. Thegrossest materialism, at times, reveals something of that latent dreadof an invisible and spiritual influence which is inseparable from ournature. Like Eliphaz the Temanite, it is conscious of a spirit passingbefore its face, the form whereof is not discerned. 

It is indeed true that our modern divines and theologians, as if to atonefor the too easy credulity of their order formerly, have unceremoniouslyconsigned the old beliefs of Satanic agency, demoniacal possession, andwitchcraft, to Milton's receptacle of exploded follies and detectedimpostures, "Over the backside of the world far off, Into a limbo broad and large, and called The paradise of fools, "--

that indeed, out of their peculiar province, and apart from the routineof their vocation, they have become the most thorough sceptics andunbelievers among us. Yet it must be owned that, if they have not themarvellous themselves, they are the cause of it in others. In certainstates of mind, the very sight of a clergyman in his sombre professionalgarb is sufficient to awaken all the wonderful within us. Imaginationgoes wandering back to the subtle priesthood of mysterious Egypt. Wethink of Jannes and Jambres; of the Persian magi; dim oak groves, withDruid altars, and priests, and victims, rise before us. For what is thepriest even of our New England but a living testimony to the truth of thesupernatural and the reality of the unseen, --a man of mystery, walking inthe shadow of the ideal world, --by profession an expounder of spiritualwonders? Laugh he may at the old tales of astrology and witchcraft anddemoniacal possession; but does he not believe and bear testimony to hisfaith in the reality of that dark essence which Scripture more than hintsat, which has modified more or less all the religious systems andspeculations of the heathen world, --the Ahriman of the Parsee, the Typhonof the Egyptian, the Pluto of the Roman mythology, the Devil of Jew, Christian, and Mussulman, the Machinito of the Indian, --evil in theuniverse of goodness, darkness in the light of divine intelligence, --initself the great and crowning mystery from which by no unnatural processof imagination may be deduced everything which our forefathers believedof the spiritual world and supernatural agency? That fearful being withhis tributaries and agents, --"the Devil and his angels, "--how awfully herises before us in the brief outline limning of the sacred writers! Howhe glooms, "in shape and gesture proudly eminent, " on the immortal canvasof Milton and Dante! What a note of horror does his name throw into thesweet Sabbath psalmody of our churches. What strange, dark fancies areconnected with the very language of common-law indictments, when grandjuries find under oath that the offence complained of has been committed"at the instigation of the Devil"!

How hardly effaced are the impressions of childhood! Even at this day, at the mention of the evil angel, an image rises before me like that withwhich I used especially to horrify myself in an old copy of Pilgrim'sProgress. Horned, hoofed, scaly, and fire-breathing, his caudalextremity twisted tight with rage, I remember him, illustrating thetremendous encounter of Christian in the valley where "Apollyon straddledover the whole breadth of the way. " There was another print of the enemywhich made no slight impression upon me. It was the frontispiece of anold, smoked, snuff-stained pamphlet, the property of an elderly lady, (who had a fine collection of similar wonders, wherewith she was kindenough to edify her young visitors, ) containing a solemn account of thefate of a wicked dancing-party in New Jersey, whose irreverentdeclaration, that they would have a fiddler if they had to send to thelower regions after him, called up the fiend himself, who forthwithcommenced playing, while the company danced to the music incessantly, without the power to suspend their exercise, until their feet and legswere worn off to the knees! The rude wood-cut represented the demonfiddler and his agonized companions literally stumping it up and down in"cotillons, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. " He would have answered verywell to the description of the infernal piper in Tam O'Shanter. 

To this popular notion of the impersonation of the principle of evil weare doubtless indebted for the whole dark legacy of witchcraft andpossession. Failing in our efforts to solve the problem of the origin ofevil, we fall back upon the idea of a malignant being, --the antagonism ofgood. Of this mysterious and dreadful personification we find ourselvesconstrained to speak with a degree of that awe and reverence which arealways associated with undefined power and the ability to harm. "TheDevil, " says an old writer, "is a dignity, though his glory be somewhatfaded and wan, and is to be spoken of accordingly. "

The evil principle of Zoroaster was from eternity self-created andexistent, and some of the early Christian sects held the same opinion. The gospel, however, affords no countenance to this notion of a dividedsovereignty of the universe. The Divine Teacher, it is true, indiscoursing of evil, made use of the language prevalent in His time, andwhich was adapted to the gross conceptions of His Jewish bearers; but Henowhere presents the embodiment of sin as an antagonism to the absolutepower and perfect goodness of God, of whom, and through whom, and to whomare all things. Pure himself, He can create nothing impure. Evil, therefore, has no eternity in the past. The fact of its present actualexistence is indeed strongly stated; and it is not given us to understandthe secret of that divine alchemy whereby pain, and sin, and discordbecome the means to beneficent ends worthy of the revealed attributes ofthe Infinite Parent. Unsolved by human reason or philosophy, the darkmystery remains to baffle the generations of men; and only to the eye ofhumble and childlike faith can it ever be reconciled to the purity, justice, and mercy of Him who is "light, and in whom is no darkness atall. "

"Do you not believe in the Devil?" some one once asked the Non-conformistRobinson. "I believe in God, " was the reply; "don't you?"

Henry of Nettesheim says "that it is unanimously maintained that devilsdo wander up and down in the earth; but what they are, or how they are, ecclesiasticals have not clearly expounded. " Origen, in his Platonicspeculations on this subject, supposed them to be spirits who, byrepentance, might be restored, that in the end all knees might be bowedto the Father of spirits, and He become all in all. Justin Martyr was ofthe opinion that many of them still hoped for their salvation; and theCabalists held that this hope of theirs was well founded. One isirresistibly reminded here of the closing verse of the _Address to theDeil_, by Burns:--

 "But fare ye weel, Auld Nickie ben! Gin ye wad take a thought and mend, Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken-- Still has a stake I'm was to think upon yon den Fen for your sake. "

The old schoolmen and fathers seem to agree that the Devil and hisministers have bodies in some sort material, subject to passions andliable to injury and pain. Origen has a curious notion that any evilspirit who, in a contest with a human being, is defeated, loses fromthenceforth all his power of mischief, and may be compared to a wasp whohas lost his sting. 

"The Devil, " said Samson Occum, the famous Indian preacher, in adiscourse on temperance, "is a gentleman, and never drinks. "Nevertheless it is a remarkable fact, and worthy of the seriousconsideration of all who "tarry long at the wine, " that, in that state ofthe drunkard's malady known as delirium tremens, the adversary, in someshape or other, is generally visible to the sufferers, or at least, asWinslow says of the Powahs, "he appeareth more familiarly to them than toothers. " I recollect a statement made to me by a gentleman who has hadbitter experience of the evils of intemperance, and who is at this timedevoting his fine talents to the cause of philanthropy and mercy, as theeditor of one of our best temperance journals, which left a most vividimpression on my mind. He had just returned from a sea-voyage; and, forthe sake of enjoying a debauch, unmolested by his friends, took up hisabode in a rum-selling tavern in a somewhat lonely location on theseaboard. Here he drank for many days without stint, keeping himself thewhole time in a state of semi-intoxication. One night he stood leaningagainst a tree, looking listlessly and vacantly out upon the ocean; thewaves breaking on the beach, and the white sails of passing vesselsvaguely impressing him like the pictures of a dream. He was startled bya voice whispering hoarsely in his ear, _"You have murdered a man; theofficers of justice are after you; you must fly for your life!"_ Everysyllable was pronounced slowly and separately; and there was something inthe hoarse, gasping sound of the whisper which was indescribablydreadful. He looked around him, and seeing nothing but the clearmoonlight on the grass, became partially sensible that he was the victimof illusion, and a sudden fear of insanity thrilled him with a momentaryhorror. Rallying himself, he returned to the tavern, drank another glassof brandy, and retired to his chamber. He had scarcely lain his head onthe pillow when he heard that hoarse, low, but terribly distinct whisper, repeating the same words. He describes his sensations at this time asinconceivably fearful. Reason was struggling with insanity; but amidstthe confusion and mad disorder one terrible thought evolved itself. Hadhe not, in a moment of mad frenzy of which his memory made no record, actually murdered some one? And was not this a warning from Heaven?Leaving his bed and opening his door, he heard the words again repeated, with the addition, in a tone of intense earnestness, "Follow me!" Hewalked forward in the direction of the sound, through a long entry, tothe head of the staircase, where he paused for a moment, when again heheard the whisper, half-way down the stairs, "Follow me!"

Trembling with terror, he passed down two flights of stairs, and foundhimself treading on the cold brick floor of a large room in the basement, or cellar, where he had never been before. The voice still beckoned himonward; and, groping after it, his hand touched an upright post, againstwhich he leaned for a moment. He heard it again, apparently only two orthree yards in front of him "You have murdered a man; the officers areclose behind you; follow me!" Putting one foot forward while his handstill grasped the post, it fell upon empty air, and he with difficultyrecovered himself. Stooping down and feeling with his hands, he foundhimself on the very edge of a large uncovered cistern, or tank, fillednearly to the top with water. The sudden shock of this discovery brokethe horrible enchantment. The whisperer was silent. He believed, at thetime, that he had been the subject, and well-nigh the victim, of adiabolical delusion; and he states that, even now, with the recollectionof that strange whisper is always associated a thought of the universaltempter. 

Our worthy ancestors were, in their own view of the matter, the advanceguard and forlorn hope of Christendom in its contest with the bad angel. The New World, into which they had so valiantly pushed the outposts ofthe Church militant, was to them, not God's world, but the Devil's. Theystood there on their little patch of sanctified territory like thegamekeeper of Der Freischutz in the charmed circle; within were prayerand fasting, unmelodious psalmody and solemn hewing of heretics, "beforethe Lord in Gilgal;" without were "dogs and sorcerers, red children ofperdition, Powah wizards, " and "the foul fiend. " In their grand oldwilderness, broken by fair, broad rivers and dotted with loveliest lakes, hanging with festoons of leaf, and vine, and flower, the steep sides ofmountains whose naked tops rose over the surrounding verdure like altarsof a giant world, --with its early summer greenness and the many-coloredwonder of its autumn, all glowing as if the rainbows of a summer showerhad fallen upon it, under the clear, rich light of a sun to which themisty day of their cold island was as moonlight, --they saw no beauty, they recognized no holy revelation. It was to them terrible as theforest which Dante traversed on his way to the world of pain. Everyadvance step they made was upon the enemy's territory. And one has onlyto read the writings of the two Mathers to perceive that that enemy wasto them no metaphysical abstraction, no scholastic definition, no figmentof a poetical fancy, but a living, active reality, alternating betweenthe sublimest possibilities of evil and the lowest details of meanmischief; now a "tricksy spirit, " disturbing the good-wife's platters orsoiling her newwashed linen, and anon riding the storm-cloud and pointingits thunder-bolts; for, as the elder Mather pertinently inquires, "howelse is it that our meeting-houses are burned by the lightning?" Whatwas it, for instance, but his subtlety which, speaking through the lipsof Madame Hutchinson, confuted the "judges of Israel" and put to theirwits' end the godly ministers of the Puritan Zion? Was not his evilfinger manifested in the contumacious heresy of Roger Williams? Who elsegave the Jesuit missionaries--locusts from the pit as they were--such ahold on the affections of those very savages who would not have scrupledto hang the scalp of pious Father Wilson himself from their girdles? Tothe vigilant eye of Puritanism was he not alike discernible in the lightwantonness of the May-pole revellers, beating time with the cloven footto the vain music of obscene dances, and in the silent, hat-canopiedgatherings of the Quakers, "the most melancholy of the sects, " as Dr. Moore calls them? Perilous and glorious was it, under thesecircumstances, for such men as Mather and Stoughton to gird up theirstout loins and do battle with the unmeasured, all-surrounding terror. Let no man lightly estimate their spiritual knight-errantry. The heroesof old romance, who went about smiting dragons, lopping giants' heads, and otherwise pleasantly diverting themselves, scarcely deserve mentionin comparison with our New England champions, who, trusting not to carnalsword and lance, in a contest with principalities and powers, "spiritsthat live throughout, Vital in every part, not as frail man, "--encountered their enemies with weapons forged by the stern spiritualarmorer of Geneva. The life of Cotton Mather is as full of romance asthe legends of Ariosto or the tales of Beltenebros and Florisando inAmadis de Gaul. All about him was enchanted ground; devils glared on himin his "closet wrestlings;" portents blazed in the heavens above him;while he, commissioned and set apart as the watcher, and warder, andspiritual champion of "the chosen people, " stood ever ready for battle, with open eye and quick ear for the detection of the subtle approaches ofthe enemy. No wonder is it that the spirits of evil combined againsthim; that they beset him as they did of old St. Anthony; that they shutup the bowels of the General Court against his long-cherished hope of thepresidency of Old Harvard; that they even had the audacity to lay handson his anti-diabolical manuscripts, or that "ye divil that was in ye girlflewe at and tore" his grand sermon against witches. How edifying is hisaccount of the young bewitched maiden whom he kept in his house for thepurpose of making experiments which should satisfy all "obstinateSadducees"! How satisfactory to orthodoxy and confounding to heresy isthe nice discrimination of "ye divil in ye girl, " who was choked inattempting to read the Catechism, yet found no trouble with a pestilentQuaker pamphlet; who was quiet and good-humored when the worthy Doctorwas idle, but went into paroxysms of rage when he sat down to indite hisdiatribes against witches and familiar spirits!

 (The Quakers appear to have, at a comparatively early period, emancipated themselves in a great degree from the grosser superstitions of their times. William Penn, indeed, had a law in his colony against witchcraft; but the first trial of a person suspected of this offence seems to have opened his eyes to its absurdity. George Fox, judging from one or two passages in his journal, appears to have held the common opinions of the day on the subject; yet when confined in Doomsdale dungeon, on being told that the place was haunted and that the spirits of those who had died there still walked at night in his room, he replied, "that if all the spirits and devils in hell were there, he was over them in the power of God, and feared no such thing. "

 The enemies of the Quakers, in order to account for the power and influence of their first preachers, accused them of magic and sorcery. "The Priest of Wakefield, " says George Fox (one trusts he does not allude to our old friend the Vicar), "raised many wicked slanders upon me, as that I carried bottles with me and made people drink, and that made them follow me; that I rode upon a great black horse, and was seen in one county upon my black horse in one hour, and in the same hour in another county fourscore miles off. " In his account of the mob which beset him at Walney Island, he says: "When I came to myself I saw James Lancaster's wife throwing stones at my face, and her husband lying over me to keep off the blows and stones; for the people had persuaded her that I had bewitched her husband. "

 Cotton Mather attributes the plague of witchcraft in New England in about an equal degree to the Quakers and Indians. The first of the sect who visited Boston, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, --the latter a young girl, --were seized upon by Deputy-Governor Bellingham, in the absence of Governor Endicott, and shamefully stripped naked for the purpose of ascertaining whether they were witches with the Devil's mark on them. In 1662 Elizabeth Horton and Joan Broksop, two venerable preachers of the sect, were arrested in Boston, charged by Governor Endicott with being witches, and carried two days' journey into the woods, and left to the tender mercies of Indians and wolves. )

All this is pleasant enough now; we can laugh at the Doctor and hisdemons; but little matter of laughter was it to the victims on SalemHill; to the prisoners in the jails; to poor Giles Corey, tortured withplanks upon his breast, which forced the tongue from his mouth and hislife from his old, palsied body; to bereaved and quaking families; to awhole community, priest-ridden and spectresmitten, gasping in the sickdream of a spiritual nightmare and given over to believe a lie. We maylaugh, for the grotesque is blended with the horrible; but we must alsopity and shudder. The clear-sighted men who confronted that delusion inits own age, disenchanting, with strong good sense and sharp ridicule, their spell-bound generation, --the German Wierus, the Italian D'Apone, the English Scot, and the New England Calef, --deserve high honors as thebenefactors of their race. It is true they were branded through life asinfidels and "damnable Sadducees;" but the truth which they utteredlived after them, and wrought out its appointed work, for it had a Divinecommission and Godspeed. 

 "The oracles are dumb; No voice nor hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving;

 Apollo from his shrine Can now no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphus leaving. "

Dimmer and dimmer, as the generations pass away, this tremendous terror, this all-pervading espionage of evil, this active incarnation ofmotiveless malignity, presents itself to the imagination. The onceimposing and solemn rite of exorcism has become obsolete in the Church. Men are no longer, in any quarter of the world, racked or pressed underplanks to extort a confession of diabolical alliance. The heretic nowlaughs to scorn the solemn farce of the Church which, in the name of theAll-Merciful, formally delivers him over to Satan. And for the sake ofabused and long-cheated humanity let us rejoice that it is so, when weconsider how for long, weary centuries the millions of professedChristendom stooped, awestricken, under the yoke of spiritual andtemporal despotism, grinding on from generation to generation in adespair which had passed complaining, because superstition, in alliancewith tyranny, had filled their upward pathway to freedom with shapes ofterror, --the spectres of God's wrath to the uttermost, the fiend, andthat torment the smoke of which rises forever. Through fear of a Satanof the future, --a sort of ban-dog of priestcraft, held in its leash andready to be let loose upon the disputers of its authority, --our toilingbrothers of past ages have permitted their human taskmasters to convertGod's beautiful world, so adorned and fitted for the peace and happinessof all, into a great prison-house of suffering, filled with the actualterrors which the imagination of the old poets gave to the realm ofRhadamanthus. And hence, while I would not weaken in the slightestdegree the influence of that doctrine of future retribution, --theaccountability of the spirit for the deeds done in the body, --the truthof which reason, revelation, and conscience unite in attesting as thenecessary result of the preservation in another state of existence of thesoul's individuality and identity, I must, nevertheless, rejoice that themany are no longer willing to permit the few, for their especial benefit, to convert our common Father's heritage into a present hell, where, inreturn for undeserved suffering and toil uncompensated, they can havegracious and comfortable assurance of release from a future one. Betteris the fear of the Lord than the fear of the Devil; holier and moreacceptable the obedience of love and reverence than the submission ofslavish terror. The heart which has felt the "beauty of holiness, " whichhas been in some measure attuned to the divine harmony which now, as ofold in the angel-hymn of the Advent, breathes of "glory to God, peace onearth, and good-will to men, " in the serene atmosphere of that "perfectlove which casteth out fear, " smiles at the terrors which throng the sickdreams of the sensual, which draw aside the nightcurtains of guilt, andstartle with whispers of revenge the oppressor of the poor. 

There is a beautiful moral in one of Fouque's miniature romances, --_DieKohlerfamilie_. The fierce spectre, which rose giant-like, in itsbloodred mantle, before the selfish and mercenary merchant, everincreasing in size and, terror with the growth of evil and impure thoughtin the mind of the latter, subdued by prayer, and penitence, and patientwatchfulness over the heart's purity, became a loving and gentlevisitation of soft light and meekest melody; "a beautiful radiance, attimes hovering and flowing on before the traveller, illuminating thebushes and foliage of the mountain-forest; a lustre strange and lovely, such as the soul may conceive, but no words express. He felt its powerin the depths of his being, --felt it like the mystic breathing of theSpirit of God. "

The excellent Baxter and other pious men of his day deprecated in allsincerity and earnestness the growing disbelief in witchcraft anddiabolical agency, fearing that mankind, losing faith in a visible Satanand in the supernatural powers of certain paralytic old women, woulddiverge into universal skepticism. It is one of the saddest of sights tosee these good men standing sentry at the horn gate of dreams; attemptingagainst the most discouraging odds to defend their poor fallacies fromprofane and irreverent investigation; painfully pleading doubtfulScripture and still more doubtful tradition in behalf of detected andconvicted superstitions tossed on the sharp horns of ridicule, stretchedon the rack of philosophy, or perishing under the exhausted receiver ofscience. A clearer knowledge of the aspirations, capacities, andnecessities of the human soul, and of the revelations which the infiniteSpirit makes to it, not only through the senses by the phenomena ofoutward nature, but by that inward and direct communion which, underdifferent names, has been recognized by the devout and thoughtful ofevery religious sect and school of philosophy, would have saved them muchanxious labor and a good deal of reproach withal in their hopelesschampionship of error. The witches of Baxter and "the black man" ofMather have vanished; belief in them is no longer possible on the part ofsane men. But this mysterious universe, through which, half veiled inits own shadow, our dim little planet is wheeling, with its star worldsand thought-wearying spaces, remains. Nature's mighty miracle is stillover and around us; and hence awe, wonder, and reverence remain to be theinheritance of humanity; still are there beautiful repentances and holydeathbeds; and still over the soul's darkness and confusion rises, starlike, the great idea of duty. By higher and better influences thanthe poor spectres of superstition, man must henceforth be taught toreverence the Invisible, and, in the consciousness of his own weakness, and sin, and sorrow, to lean with childlike trust on the wisdom and mercyof an overruling Providence, --walking by faith through the shadow andmystery, and cheered by the remembrance that, whatever may be hisapparent allotment, --

 "God's greatness flows around our incompleteness; Round our restlessness His rest. "

It is a sad spectacle to find the glad tidings of the Christian faith andits "reasonable service" of devotion transformed by fanaticism andcredulity into superstitious terror and wild extravagance; but, ifpossible, there is one still sadder. It is that of men in our own timeregarding with satisfaction such evidences of human weakness, andprofessing to find in them new proofs of their miserable theory of agodless universe, and new occasion for sneering at sincere devotion ascant, and humble reverence as fanaticism. Alas! in comparison withsuch, the religious enthusiast, who in the midst of his delusion stillfeels that he is indeed a living soul and an heir of immortality, to whomGod speaks from the immensities of His universe, is a sane man. Betteris it, in a life like ours, to be even a howling dervis or a dancingShaker, confronting imaginary demons with Thalaba's talisman of faith, than to lose the consciousness of our own spiritual nature, and look uponourselves as mere brute masses of animal organization, --barnacles on adead universe; looking into the dull grave with no hope beyond it; earthgazing into earth, and saying to corruption, "Thou art my father, " and tothe worm, "Thou art my sister. "

HAMLET AMONG THE GRAVES. (1844. )

AN amiable enthusiast, immortal in his beautiful little romance of Pauland Virginia, has given us in his Miscellanies a chapter on the Pleasuresof Tombs, --a title singular enough, yet not inappropriate; for the meek-spirited and sentimental author has given, in his own flowing andeloquent language, its vindication. "There is, " says he, "a voluptuousmelancholy arising from the contemplation of tombs; the result, likeevery other attractive sensation, of the harmony of two oppositeprinciples, --from the sentiment of our fleeting life and that of ourimmortality, which unite in view of the last habitation of mankind. Atomb is a monument erected on the confines of two worlds. It firstpresents to us the end of the vain disquietudes of life and the image ofeverlasting repose; it afterwards awakens in us the confused sentiment ofa blessed immortality, the probabilities of which grow stronger andstronger in proportion as the person whose memory is recalled was avirtuous character. 

"It is from this intellectual instinct, therefore, in favor of virtue, that the tombs of great men inspire us with a veneration so affecting. From the same sentiment, too, it is that those which contain objects thathave been lovely excite so much pleasing regret; for the attractions oflove arise entirely out of the appearances of virtue. Hence it is thatwe are moved at the sight of the small hillock which covers the ashes ofan infant, from the recollection of its innocence; hence it is that weare melted into tenderness on contemplating the tomb in which is laid torepose a young female, the delight and the hope of her family by reasonof her virtues. In order to give interest to such monuments, there is noneed of bronzes, marbles, and gildings. The more simple they are, themore energy they communicate to the sentiment of melancholy. Theyproduce a more powerful effect when poor rather than rich, antique ratherthan modern, with details of misfortune rather than titles of honor, withthe attributes of virtue rather than with those of power. It is in thecountry principally that their impression makes itself felt in a verylively manner. A simple, unornamented grave there causes more tears toflow than the gaudy splendor of a cathedral interment. There it is thatgrief assumes sublimity; it ascends with the aged yews in the churchyard;it extends with the surrounding hills and plains; it allies itself withall the effects of Nature, --with the dawning of the morning, with themurmuring of wind, with the setting of the sun, and with the darkness ofthe night. "

Not long since I took occasion to visit the cemetery near this city. Itis a beautiful location for a "city of the dead, "--a tract of some fortyor fifty acres on the eastern bank of the Concord, gently undulating, andcovered with a heavy growth of forest-trees, among which the white oak isconspicuous. The ground beneath has been cleared of undergrowth, and ismarked here and there with monuments and railings enclosing "familylots. " It is a quiet, peaceful spot; the city, with its crowded mills, its busy streets and teeming life, is hidden from view; not even asolitary farm-house attracts the eye. All is still and solemn, as befitsthe place where man and nature lie down together; where leaves of thegreat lifetree, shaken down by death, mingle and moulder with the frostedfoliage of the autumnal forest. 

Yet the contrast of busy life is not wanting. The Lowell and BostonRailroad crosses the river within view of the cemetery; and, standingthere in the silence and shadow, one can see the long trains rushingalong their iron pathway, thronged with living, breathing humanity, --theyoung, the beautiful, the gay, --busy, wealth-seeking manhood of middleyears, the child at its mother's knee, the old man with whitened hairs, hurrying on, on, --car after car, --like the generations of man sweepingover the track of time to their last 'still resting-place. 

It is not the aged and the sad of heart who make this a place of favoriteresort. The young, the buoyant, the light-hearted, come and linger amongthese flower-sown graves, watching the sunshine falling in broken lightupon these cold, white marbles, and listening to the song of birds inthese leafy recesses. Beautiful and sweet to the young heart is thegentle shadow of melancholy which here falls upon it, soothing, yet sad, --a sentiment midway between joy and sorrow. How true is it, that, in thelanguage of Wordsworth, --

 "In youth we love the darkling lawn, Brushed by the owlet's wing; Then evening is preferred to dawn, And autumn to the spring. Sad fancies do we then affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness. "

The Chinese, from the remotest antiquity, have adorned and decoratedtheir grave-grounds with shrubs and sweet flowers, as places of popularresort. The Turks have their graveyards planted with trees, throughwhich the sun looks in upon the turban stones of the faithful, andbeneath which the relatives of the dead sit in cheerful converse throughthe long days of summer, in all the luxurious quiet and happyindifference of the indolent East. Most of the visitors whom I met atthe Lowell cemetery wore cheerful faces; some sauntered laughingly along, apparently unaffected by the associations of the place; too full, perhaps, of life, and energy, and high hope to apply to themselves thestern and solemn lesson which is taught even by these flower-garlandedmounds. But, for myself, I confess that I am always awed by the presenceof the dead. I cannot jest above the gravestone. My spirit is silencedand rebuked before the tremendous mystery of which the grave reminds me, and involuntarily pays:

 "The deep reverence taught of old, The homage of man's heart to death. "

Even Nature's cheerful air, and sun, and birdvoices only serve to remindme that there are those beneath who have looked on the same green leavesand sunshine, felt the same soft breeze upon their cheeks, and listenedto the same wild music of the woods for the last time. Then, too, comesthe saddening reflection, to which so many have given expression, thatthese trees will put forth their leaves, the slant sunshine still fallupon green meadows and banks of flowers, and the song of the birds andthe ripple of waters still be heard after our eyes and ears have closedforever. It is hard for us to realize this. We are so accustomed tolook upon these things as a part of our life environment that it seemsstrange that they should survive us. Tennyson, in his exquisitemetaphysical poem of the Two Voices, has given utterance to thissentiment:--

 "Alas! though I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow. 

 "Not less the bee will range her cells, The furzy prickle fire the dells, The foxglove cluster dappled bells. "

"The pleasures of the tombs!" Undoubtedly, in the language of theIdumean, seer, there are many who "rejoice exceedingly and are glad whenthey can find the grave;" who long for it "as the servant earnestlydesireth the shadow. " Rest, rest to the sick heart and the weary brain, to the long afflicted and the hopeless, --rest on the calm bosom of ourcommon mother. Welcome to the tired ear, stunned and confused withlife's jarring discords, the everlasting silence; grateful to the wearyeyes which "have seen evil, and not good, " the everlasting shadow. 

Yet over all hangs the curtain of a deep mystery, --a curtain lifted onlyon one side by the hands of those who are passing under its solemnshadow. No voice speaks to us from beyond it, telling of the unknownstate; no hand from within puts aside the dark drapery to reveal themysteries towards which we are all moving. "Man giveth up the ghost; andwhere is he?"

Thanks to our Heavenly Father, He has not left us altogether without ananswer to this momentous question. Over the blackness of darkness alight is shining. The valley of the shadow of death is no longer "a landof darkness and where the light is as darkness. " The presence of aserene and holy life pervades it. Above its pale tombs and crowdedburial-places, above the wail of despairing humanity, the voice of Himwho awakened life and beauty beneath the grave-clothes of the tomb atBethany is heard proclaiming, "I am the Resurrection and the Life. " Weknow not, it is true, the conditions of our future life; we know not whatit is to pass fromm this state of being to another; but before us in thatdark passage has gone the Man of Nazareth, and the light of His footstepslingers in the path. Where He, our Brother in His humanity, our Redeemerin His divine nature, has gone, let us not fear to follow. He whoordereth all aright will uphold with His own great arm the frail spiritwhen its incarnation is ended; and it may be, that, in language which Ihave elsewhere used, --when Time's veil shall fall asunder, The soul may know No fearful change nor sudden wonder, Nor sink the weight of mystery under, But with the upward rise and with the vastness grow. 

 And all we shrink from now may seem No new revealing; Familiar as our childhood's stream, Or pleasant memory of a dream, The loved and cherished past upon the new life stealing. 

 Serene and mild the untried light May have its dawning; As meet in summer's northern night The evening gray and dawning white, The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning. 

SWEDENBORG (1844. )

THERE are times when, looking only on the surface of things, one isalmost ready to regard Lowell as a sort of sacred city of Mammon, --theBenares of gain: its huge mills, temples; its crowded dwellings, lodging-places of disciples and "proselytes within the gate;" its warehouses, stalls for the sale of relics. A very mean idol-worship, too, unrelievedby awe and reverence, --a selfish, earthward-looking devotion to the"least-erected spirit that fell from paradise. " I grow weary of seeingman and mechanism reduced to a common level, moved by the same impulse, answering to the same bell-call. A nightmare of materialism broods overall. I long at times to hear a voice crying through the streets likethat of one of the old prophets proclaiming the great first truth, --thatthe Lord alone is God. 

Yet is there not another side to the picture? High over soundingworkshops spires glisten in the sun, --silent fingers pointing heavenward. The workshops themselves are instinct with other and subtler processesthan cotton-spinning or carpet-weaving. Each human being who watchesbeside jack or power loom feels more or less intensely that it is asolemn thing to live. Here are sin and sorrow, yearnings for lost peace, outgushing gratitude of forgiven spirits, hopes and fears, which stretchbeyond the horizon of time into eternity. Death is here. The graveyardutters its warning. Over all bends the eternal heaven in its silence andmystery. Nature, even here, is mightier than Art, and God is above all. Underneath the din of labor and the sounds of traffic, a voice, feltrather than beard, reaches the heart, prompting the same fearfulquestions which stirred the soul of the world's oldest poet, --"If a mandie, shall he live again?" "Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?"Out of the depths of burdened and weary hearts comes up the agonizinginquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" "Who shall deliver me from thebody of this death?"

As a matter of course, in a city like this, composed of all classes ofour many-sided population, a great variety of religious sects have theirrepresentatives in Lowell. The young city is dotted over with "steeplehouses, " most of them of the Yankee order of architecture. TheEpiscopalians have a house of worship on Merrimac Street, --a pile of darkstone, with low Gothic doors and arched windows. A plat of grass liesbetween it and the dusty street; and near it stands the dwelling-houseintended for the minister, built of the same material as the church andsurrounded by trees and shrubbery. The attention of the stranger is alsoattracted by another consecrated building on the hill slope ofBelvidere, --one of Irving's a "shingle palaces, " painted in imitation ofstone, --a great wooden sham, "whelked and horned" with pine spires andturrets, a sort of whittled representation of the many-beaded beast ofthe Apocalypse. 

In addition to the established sects which have reared their visiblealtars in the City of Spindles, there are many who have not yet markedthe boundaries or set up the pillars and stretched out the curtains oftheir sectarian tabernacles; who, in halls and "upper chambers" and inthe solitude of their own homes, keep alive the spirit of devotion, and, wrapping closely around them the mantles of their order, maintain theintegrity of its peculiarities in the midst of an unbelieving generation. 

Not long since, in company with a friend who is a regular attendant, Ivisited the little meeting of the disciples of Emanuel Swedenborg. Passing over Chapel Hill and leaving the city behind us, we reached thestream which winds through the beautiful woodlands at the Powder Millsand mingles its waters with the Concord. The hall in which the followersof the Gothland seer meet is small and plain, with unpainted seats, likethose of "the people called Quakers, " and looks out upon the still woodsand that "willowy stream which turns a mill. " An organ of small size, yet, as it seemed to me, vastly out of proportion with the room, filledthe place usually occupied by the pulpit, which was here only a plaindesk, placed modestly by the side of it. The congregation have noregular preacher, but the exercises of reading the Scriptures, prayers, and selections from the Book of Worship were conducted by one of the laymembers. A manuscript sermon, by a clergyman of the order in Boston, wasread, and apparently listened to with much interest. It was well writtenand deeply imbued with the doctrines of the church. I was impressed bythe gravity and serious earnestness of the little audience. There werehere no circumstances calculated to excite enthusiasm, nothing of thepomp of religious rites and ceremonies; only a settled conviction of thetruth of the doctrines of their faith could have thus brought themtogether. I could scarcely make the fact a reality, as I sat among them, that here, in the midst of our bare and hard utilities, in the verycentre and heart of our mechanical civilization, were devoted andundoubting believers in the mysterious and wonderful revelations of theSwedish prophet, --revelations which look through all external and outwardmanifestations to inward realities; which regard all objects in the worldof sense only as the types and symbols of the world of spirit; literallyunmasking the universe and laying bare the profoundest mysteries of life. 

The character and writings of Emanuel Swedenborg constitute one of thepuzzles and marvels of metaphysics and psychology. A man remarkable forhis practical activities, an ardent scholar of the exact sciences, versedin all the arcana of physics, a skilful and inventive mechanician, he hasevolved from the hard and gross materialism of his studies a system oftranscendent spiritualism. From his aggregation of cold and apparentlylifeless practical facts beautiful and wonderful abstractions start forthlike blossoms on the rod of the Levite. A politician and a courtier, aman of the world, a mathematician engaged in the soberest details of thescience, he has given to the world, in the simplest and most naturallanguage, a series of speculations upon the great mystery of being:detailed, matter-of-fact narratives of revelations from the spiritualworld, which at once appall us by their boldness, and excite our wonderat their extraordinary method, logical accuracy, and perfect consistency. These remarkable speculations--the workings of a mind in which a powerfulimagination allied itself with superior reasoning faculties, themarvellous current of whose thought ran only in the diked and guardedchannels of mathematical demonstration--he uniformly speaks of as"facts. " His perceptions of abstractions were so intense that they seemto have reached that point where thought became sensible to sight as wellas feeling. What he thought, that he saw. 

He relates his visions of the spiritual world as he would the incidentsof a walk round his own city of Stockholm. One can almost see him in his"brown coat and velvet breeches, " lifting his "cocked hat" to an angel, or keeping an unsavory spirit at arm's length with that "gold-headedcane" which his London host describes as his inseparable companion inwalking. His graphic descriptions have always an air of naturalness andprobability; yet there is a minuteness of detail at times almostbordering on the ludicrous. In his Memorable Relations he manifestsnothing of the imagination of Milton, overlooking the closed gates ofparadise, or following the "pained fiend" in his flight through chaos;nothing of Dante's terrible imagery appalls us; we are led on from heavento heaven very much as Defoe leads us after his shipwrecked Crusoe. Wecan scarcely credit the fact that we are not traversing our lower planet;and the angels seem vastly like our common acquaintances. We seem torecognize the "John Smiths, " and "Mr. Browns, " and "the old familiarfaces" of our mundane habitation. The evil principle in Swedenborg'spicture is, not the colossal and massive horror of the Inferno, nor thatstern wrestler with fate who darkens the canvas of Paradise Lost, but anaggregation of poor, confused spirits, seeking rest and finding none savein the unsavory atmosphere of the "falses. " These small fry of devilsremind us only of certain unfortunate fellows whom we have known, whoseem incapable of living in good and wholesome society, and who aremanifestly given over to believe a lie. Thus it is that the very"heavens" and "hells" of the Swedish mystic seem to be "of the earth, earthy. " He brings the spiritual world into close analogy with thematerial one. 

In this hurried paper I have neither space nor leisure to attempt ananalysis of the great doctrines which underlie the "revelations" ofSwedenborg. His remarkably suggestive books are becoming familiar to thereading and reflecting portion of the community. They are not unworthyof study; but, in the language of another, I would say, "EmulateSwedenborg in his exemplary life, his learning, his virtues, hisindependent thought, his desire for wisdom, his love of the good andtrue; aim to be his equal, his superior, in these things; but call no manyour master. "

THE BETTER LAND. (1844. )

"THE shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our constitution, "said Charles Lamb, in his reply to Southey's attack upon him in theQuarterly Review. 

He who is infinite in love as well as wisdom has revealed to us the factof a future life, and the fearfully important relation in which thepresent stands to it. The actual nature and conditions of that life Hehas hidden from us, --no chart of the ocean of eternity is given us, --nocelestial guidebook or geography defines, localizes, and prepares us forthe wonders of the spiritual world. Hence imagination has a wide fieldfor its speculations, which, so long as they do not positively contradictthe revelation of the Scriptures, cannot be disproved. 

We naturally enough transfer to our idea of heaven whatever we love andreverence on earth. Thither the Catholic carries in his fancy theimposing rites and time-honored solemnities of his worship. There theMethodist sees his love-feasts and camp-meetings in the groves and by thestill waters and green pastures of the blessed abodes. The Quaker, inthe stillness of his self-communing, remembers that there was "silence inheaven. "

The Churchman, listening to the solemn chant of weal music or the deeptones of the organ, thinks of the song of the elders and the golden harpsof the New Jerusalem. 

The heaven of the northern nations of Europe was a gross and sensualreflection of the earthly life of a barbarous and brutal people. 

The Indians of North America had a vague notion of a sunset land, abeautiful paradise far in the west, mountains and forests filled withdeer and buffalo, lakes and streams swarming with fishes, --the happyhunting-ground of souls. In a late letter from a devoted missionaryamong the Western Indians (Paul Blohm, a converted Jew) we have noticed abeautiful illustration of this belief. Near the Omaha mission-house, ona high luff, was a solitary Indian grave. "One evening, "says the missionary, "having come home with some cattle which I had beenseeking, I heard some one wailing; and, looking in the direction fromwhence I proceeded, I found it to be from the grave near our house. In amoment after a mourner rose up from a kneeling or lying posture, and, turning to the setting sun, stretched forth his arms in prayer andsupplication with an intensity and earnestness as though he would detainthe splendid luminary from running his course. With his body leaningforward and his arms stretched towards the sun, he presented a moststriking figure of sorrow and petition. It was solemnly awful. Heseemed to me to be one of the ancients come forth to teach me how topray. "

A venerable and worthy New England clergyman, on his death-bed, justbefore the close of his life, declared that he was only conscious of anawfully solemn and intense curiosity to know the great secret of deathand eternity. 

The excellent Dr. Nelson, of Missouri, was one who, while on earth, seemed to live another and higher life in the contemplation of infinitepurity and happiness. A friend once related an incident concerning himwhich made a deep impression upon my mind. They had been travellingthrough a summer's forenoon in the prairie, and had lain down to restbeneath a solitary tree. The Doctor lay for a long time, silentlylooking upwards through the openings of the boughs into the stillheavens, when he repeated the following lines, in a low tone, as ifcommuning with himself in view of the wonders he described:--

 "O the joys that are there mortal eye bath not seen! O the songs they sing there, with hosannas between! O the thrice-blessed song of the Lamb and of Moses! O brightness on brightness! the pearl gate uncloses! O white wings of angels! O fields white with roses! O white tents of peace, where the rapt soul reposes O the waters so still, and the pastures so green!"

The brief hints afforded us by the sacred writings concerning the betterland are inspiring and beautiful. Eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive of the good instore for the righteous. Heaven is described as a quiet habitation, --arest remaining for the people of God. Tears shall be wiped away from alleyes; there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neithershall there be any more pain. To how many death-beds have these wordsspoken peace! How many failing hearts have gathered strength from themto pass through the dark valley of shadows!

Yet we should not forget that "the kingdom of heaven is within;" that itis the state and affections of the soul, the answer of a good conscience, the sense of harmony with God, a condition of time as well as ofeternity. What is really momentous and all-important with us is thepresent, by which the future is shaped and colored. A mere change oflocality cannot alter the actual and intrinsic qualities of the soul. Guilt and remorse would make the golden streets of Paradise intolerableas the burning marl of the infernal abodes; while purity and innocencewould transform hell itself into heaven. 

DORA GREEN WELL. 

First published as an introduction to an American edition of thatauthor's _The Patience of Hope_. 

THERE are men who, irrespective of the names by which they are called inthe Babel confusion of sects, are endeared to the common heart ofChristendom. Our doors open of their own accord to receive them. For inthem we feel that in some faint degree, and with many limitations, theDivine is again manifested: something of the Infinite Love shines out ofthem; their very garments have healing and fragrance borrowed from thebloom of Paradise. So of books. There are volumes which perhaps containmany things, in the matter of doctrine and illustration, to which ourreason does not assent, but which nevertheless seem permeated with acertain sweetness and savor of life. They have the Divine seal andimprimatur; they are fragrant with heart's-ease and asphodel; tonic withthe leaves which are for the healing of the nations. The meditations ofthe devout monk of Kempen are the common heritage of Catholic andProtestant; our hearts burn within us as we walk with Augustine underNumidian fig-trees in the gardens of Verecundus; Feuelon from hisbishop's palace and John Woolman from his tailor's shop speak to us inthe same language. The unknown author of that book which Luther lovednext to his Bible, the Theologia Germanica, is just as truly at home inthis present age, and in the ultra Protestantism of New England, as inthe heart of Catholic Europe, and in the fourteenth century. For suchbooks know no limitations of time or place; they have the perpetualfreshness and fitness of truth; they speak out of profound experienceheart answers to heart as we read them; the spirit that is in man, andthe inspiration that giveth understanding, bear witness to them. Thebent and stress of their testimony are the same, whether written in thisor a past century, by Catholic or Quaker: self-renunciation, --reconcilement to the Divine will through simple faith in the Divinegoodness, and the love of it which must needs follow its recognition, thelife of Christ made our own by self-denial and sacrifice, and thefellowship of His suffering for the good of others, the indwellingSpirit, leading into all truth, the Divine Word nigh us, even in ourhearts. They have little to do with creeds, or schemes of doctrine, orthe partial and inadequate plans of salvation invented by humanspeculation and ascribed to Him who, it is sufficient to know, is able tosave unto the uttermost all who trust in Him. They insist upon simplefaith and holiness of life, rather than rituals or modes of worship; theyleave the merely formal, ceremonial, and temporal part of religion totake care of itself, and earnestly seek for the substantial, thenecessary, and the permanent. 

With these legacies of devout souls, it seems to me, the little volumeherewith presented is not wholly unworthy of a place. It assumes thelife and power of the gospel as a matter of actual experience; it bearsunmistakable evidence of a realization, on the part of its author, of thetruth, that Christianity is not simply historical and traditional, butpresent and permanent, with its roots in the infinite past and itsbranches in the infinite future, the eternal spring and growth of Divinelove; not the dying echo of words uttered centuries ago, never to berepeated, but God's good tidings spoken afresh in every soul, --theperennial fountain and unstinted outflow of wisdom and goodness, foreverold and forever new. It is a lofty plea for patience, trust, hope, andholy confidence, under the shadow, as well as in the light, of Christianexperience, whether the cloud seems to rest on the tabernacle, or movesguidingly forward. It is perhaps too exclusively addressed to those whominister in the inner sanctuary, to be entirely intelligible to thevaster number who wait in the outer courts; it overlooks, perhaps, toomuch the solidarity and oneness of humanity;' but all who read it willfeel its earnestness, and confess to the singular beauty of its style, the strong, steady march of its argument, and the wide and variedlearning which illustrates it. 

 ("The good are not so good as I once thought, nor the bad so evil, and in all there is more for grace to make advantage of, and more to testify for God and holiness, than I once believed. "--Baxter. )

To use the language of one of its reviewers in the Scottish press:--

"Beauty there is in the book; exquisite glimpses into the loveliness ofnature here and there shine out from its lines, --a charm wanting whichmeditative writing always seems to have a defect; beautiful gleams, too, there are of the choicest things of art, and frequent allusions by theway to legend or picture of the religious past; so that, while you read, you wander by a clear brook of thought, coining far from the beautifulhills, and winding away from beneath the sunshine of gladness and beautyinto the dense, mysterious forest of human existence, that loves to sing, amid the shadow of human darkness and anguish, its music of heavenbornconsolation; bringing, too, its pure waters of cleansing and healing, yetevermore making its praise of holy affection and gladness; while it isstill haunted by the spirits of prophet, saint, and poet, repeatingsnatches of their strains, and is led on, as by a spirit from above, tojoin the great river of God's truth. . . . 

"This is a book for Christian men, for the quiet hour of holy solitude, when the heart longs and waits for access to the presence of the Master. The weary heart that thirsts amidst its conflicts and its toils forrefreshing water will drink eagerly of these sweet and refreshing words. To thoughtful men and women, especially such as have learnt any of thepatience of hope in the experiences of sorrow and trial, we commend thislittle volume most heartily and earnestly. "

_The Patience of Hope_ fell into my hands soon after its publication inEdinburgh, some two years ago. I was at once impressed by itsextraordinary richness of language and imagery, --its deep and solemn toneof meditation in rare combination with an eminently practical tendency, --philosophy warm and glowing with love. It will, perhaps, be less thefault of the writer than of her readers, if they are not always able toeliminate from her highly poetical and imaginative language the subtlemetaphysical verity or phase of religious experience which she seeks toexpress, or that they are compelled to pass over, without appropriation, many things which are nevertheless profoundly suggestive as vaguepossibilities of the highest life. All may not be able to find in someof her Scriptural citations the exact weight and significance so apparentto her own mind. She startles us, at times, by her novel applications offamiliar texts, by meanings reflected upon them from her own spiritualintuitions, making the barren Baca of the letter a well. If therendering be questionable, the beauty and quaint felicity of illustrationand comparison are unmistakable; and we call to mind Augustine's saying, that two or more widely varying interpretations of Scripture may be aliketrue in themselves considered. "When one saith, Moses meant as I do, 'and another saith, 'Nay, but as I do, ' I ask, more reverently, 'Why notrather as both, if both be true?"

Some minds, for instance, will hesitate to assent to the use of certainScriptural passages as evidence that He who is the Light of men, the Wayand the Truth, in the mystery of His economy, designedly "delays, withdraws, and even hides Himself from those who love and follow Him. "They will prefer to impute spiritual dearth and darkness to humanweakness, to the selfishness which seeks a sign for itself, to evilimaginations indulged, to the taint and burden of some secret sin, or tosome disease and exaggeration of the conscience, growing out of bodilyinfirmity, rather than to any purpose on the part of our Heavenly Fatherto perplex and mislead His children. The sun does not shine the lessbecause one side of our planet is in darkness. To borrow the words ofAugustine "Thou, Lord, forsakest nothing thou hast made. Thou alone artnear to those even who remove far from thee. Let them turn and seekthee, for not as they have forsaken their Creator hast thou forsaken thycreation. " It is only by holding fast the thought of Infinite Goodness, and interpreting doubtful Scripture and inward spiritual experience bythe light of that central idea, that we can altogether escape thedreadful conclusion of Pascal, that revelation has been given us indubious cipher, contradictory and mystical, in order that some, throughmiraculous aid, may understand it to their salvation, and others bemystified by it to their eternal loss. 

I might mention other points of probable divergence between reader andwriter, and indicate more particularly my own doubtful parse andhesitancy over some of these pages. But it is impossible for me to makeone to whom I am so deeply indebted an offender for a word or aScriptural rendering. On the grave and awful themes which she discusses, I have little to say in the way of controversy. I would listen, ratherthan criticise. The utterances of pious souls, in all ages, are to meoften like fountains in a thirsty land, strengthening and refreshing, yetnot without an after-taste of human frailty and inadequateness, a slightbitterness of disappointment and unsatisfied quest. Who has not felt attimes that the letter killeth, that prophecies fail, and tongues cease toedify, and been ready to say, with the author of the Imitation of Christ:"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Let not Moses nor the prophetsspeak to me, but speak thou rather, who art the Inspirer and Enlightenerof all. I am weary with reading and hearing many things; let allteachers hold their peace; let all creatures keep silence: speak thoualone to me. "

The writer of The Patience of Hope had, previous to its publication, announced herself to a fit, if small, audience of earnest and thoughtfulChristians, in a little volume entitled, A Present Heaven. She hasrecently published a collection of poems, of which so competent a judgeas Dr. Brown, the author of _Horae Subsecivae_ and _Rab and his Friends_, thus speaks, in the _North British Review_:--

"Such of our readers--a fast increasing number--as have read and enjoyed_The Patience of Hope_, listening to the gifted nature which, throughsuch deep and subtile thought, and through affection and godliness stilldeeper and more quick, has charmed and soothed them, will not besurprised to learn that she is not only poetical, but, what is more, apoet, and one as true as George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, or our ownCowper; for, with all our admiration of the searching, fearlessspeculation, the wonderful power of speaking clearly upon dark and allbut unspeakable subjects, the rich outcome of 'thoughts that wanderthrough eternity, ' which increases every time we take up that wonderfullittle book, we confess we were surprised at the kind and the amount oftrue poetic _vis_ in these poems, from the same fine and strong hand. There is a personality and immediateness, a sort of sacredness andprivacy, as if they were overheard rather than read, which gives to theseremarkable productions a charm and a flavor all their own. With noeffort, no consciousness of any end but that of uttering the inmostthoughts and desires of the heart, they flow out as clear, as living, asgladdening as the wayside well, coming from out the darkness of thecentral depths, filtered into purity by time and travel. The waters arecopious, sometimes to overflowing; but they are always limpid andunforced, singing their own quiet tune, not saddening, though sometimessad, and their darkness not that of obscurity, but of depth, like that ofthe deep sea. 

"This is not a book to criticise or speak about, and we give no extractsfrom the longer, and in this case, we think, the better poems. Inreading this Cardiphonia set to music, we have been often reminded, notonly of Herbert and Vaughan, but of Keble, --a likeness of the spirit, notof the letter; for if there is any one poet who has given a bent to hermind, it is Wordsworth, --the greatest of all our century's poets, both inhimself and in his power of making poets. "

In the belief that whoever peruses the following pages will besufficiently interested in their author to be induced to turn back andread over again, with renewed pleasure, extracts from her metricalwritings, I copy from the volume so warmly commended a few brief piecesand extracts from the longer poems. 

Here are three sonnets, each a sermon in itself:--

 ASCENDING. 

 They who from mountain-peaks have gazed upon The wide, illimitable heavens have said, That, still receding as they climbed, outspread, The blue vault deepens over them, and, one By one drawn further back, each starry sun Shoots down a feebler splendor overhead So, Saviour, as our mounting spirits, led Along Faith's living way to Thee, have won A nearer access, up the difficult track Still pressing, on that rarer atmosphere, When low beneath us flits the cloudy rack, We see Thee drawn within a widening sphere Of glory, from us further, further back, -- Yet is it then because we are more near. 

 LIFE TAPESTRY. 

 Top long have I, methought, with tearful eye Pored o'er this tangled work of mine, and mused Above each stitch awry and thread confused; Now will I think on what in years gone by I heard of them that weave rare tapestry At royal looms, and hew they constant use To work on the rough side, and still peruse The pictured pattern set above them high; So will I set my copy high above, And gaze and gaze till on my spirit grows Its gracious impress; till some line of love, Transferred upon my canvas, faintly glows; Nor look too much on warp or woof, provide He whom I work for sees their fairer side!

 HOPE. 

 When I do think on thee, sweet Hope, and how Thou followest on our steps, a coaxing child Oft chidden hence, yet quickly reconciled, Still turning on us a glad, beaming brow, And red, ripe lips for kisses: even now Thou mindest me of him, the Ruler mild, Who led God's chosen people through the wild, And bore with wayward murmurers, meek as thou That bringest waters from the Rock, with bread Of angels strewing Earth for us! like him Thy force abates not, nor thine eye grows dim; But still with milk and honey-droppings fed, Thou leadest to the Promised Country fair, Though thou, like Moses, may'st not enter there

There is something very weird and striking in the following lines:--

 GONE. 

 Alone, at midnight as he knelt, his spirit was aware Of Somewhat falling in between the silence and the prayer;

 A bell's dull clangor that hath sped so far, it faints and dies So soon as it hath reached the ear whereto its errand lies;

 And as he rose up from his knees, his spirit was aware Of Somewhat, forceful and unseen, that sought to hold him there;

 As of a Form that stood behind, and on his shoulders prest Both hands to stay his rising up, and Somewhat in his breast, In accents clearer far than words, spake, "Pray yet longer, pray, For one that ever prayed for thee this night hath passed away;

 "A soul, that climbing hour by hour the silver-shining stair That leads to God's great treasure-house, grew covetous; and there

 "Was stored no blessing and no boon, for thee she did not claim, (So lowly, yet importunate!) and ever with thy name

 "She link'd--that none in earth or heaven might hinder it or stay-- One Other Name, so strong, that thine hath never missed its way. 

 "This very night within my arms this gracious soul I bore Within the Gate, where many a prayer of hers had gone before;

 "And where she resteth, evermore one constant song they raise Of 'Holy, holy, ' so that now I know not if she prays;

 "But for the voice of praise in Heaven, a voice of Prayer hath gone From Earth; thy name upriseth now no more; pray on, pray on!"

The following may serve as a specimen of the writer's lighter, half-playful strain of moralizing:--

 SEEKING. 

 "And where, and among what pleasant places, Have ye been, that ye come again With your laps so full of flowers, and your faces Like buds blown fresh after rain?"

 "We have been, " said the children, speaking In their gladness, as the birds chime, All together, --"we have been seeking For the Fairies of olden time; For we thought, they are only hidden, -- They would never surely go From this green earth all unbidden, And the children that love them so. Though they come not around us leaping, As they did when they and the world Were young, we shall find them sleeping Within some broad leaf curled; For the lily its white doors closes But only over the bee, And we looked through the summer roses, Leaf by leaf, so carefully. 

 But we thought, rolled up we shall find them Among mosses old and dry; From gossamer threads that bind them, They will start like the butterfly, All winged: so we went forth seeking, Yet still they have kept unseen; Though we think our feet have been keeping The track where they have been, For we saw where their dance went flying O'er the pastures, --snowy white. "

 Their seats and their tables lying, O'erthrown in their sudden flight. And they, too, have had their losses, For we found the goblets white And red in the old spiked mosses, That they drank from over-night; And in the pale horn of the woodbine Was some wine left, clear and bright; "But we found, " said the children, speaking More quickly, "so many things, That we soon forgot we were seeking, -- Forgot all the Fairy rings, Forgot all the stories olden That we hear round the fire at night, Of their gifts and their favors golden, -- The sunshine was so bright; And the flowers, --we found so many That it almost made us grieve To think there were some, sweet as any, That we were forced to leave; As we left, by the brook-side lying, The balls of drifted foam, And brought (after all our trying) These Guelder-roses home. "

 "Then, oh!" I heard one speaking Beside me soft and low, "I have been, like the blessed children, seeking, Still seeking, to and fro; Yet not, like them, for the Fairies, -- They might pass unmourned away For me, that had looked on angels, -- On angels that would not stay; No! not though in haste before them I spread all my heart's best cheer, And made love my banner o'er them, If it might but keep them here; They stayed but a while to rest them; Long, long before its close, From my feast, though I mourned and prest them The radiant guests arose; And their flitting wings struck sadness And silence; never more Hath my soul won back the gladness, That was its own before. No; I mourned not for the Fairies When I had seen hopes decay, That were sweet unto my spirit So long; I said, 'If they, That through shade and sunny weather Have twined about my heart, Should fade, we must go together, For we can never part!' But my care was not availing; I found their sweetness gone; I saw their bright tints paling;-- They died; yet I lived on. 

 "Yet seeking, ever seeking, Like the children, I have won A guerdon all undreamt of

 When first my quest begun, And my thoughts come back like wanderers, Out-wearied, to my breast; What they sought for long they found not, Yet was the Unsought best. For I sought not out for crosses, I did not seek for pain; Yet I find the heart's sore losses Were the spirit's surest gain. "

In _A Meditation_, the writer ventures, not without awe and reverence, upon that dim, unsounded ocean of mystery, the life beyond:--

 "But is there prayer Within your quiet homes, and is there care For those ye leave behind? I would address My spirit to this theme in humbleness No tongue nor pen hath uttered or made known This mystery, and thus I do but guess At clearer types through lowlier patterns shown; Yet when did Love on earth forsake its own? Ye may not quit your sweetness; in the Vine More firmly rooted than of old, your wine Hath freer flow! ye have not changed, but grown To fuller stature; though the shock was keen That severed you from us, how oft below Hath sorest parting smitten but to show True hearts their hidden wealth that quickly grow The closer for that anguish, --friend to friend Revealed more clear, --and what is Death to rend The ties of life and love, when He must fade In light of very Life, when He must bend To love, that, loving, loveth to the end?

 "I do not deem ye look Upon us now, for be it that your eyes Are sealed or clear, a burden on them lies Too deep and blissful for their gaze to brook Our troubled strife; enough that once ye dwelt Where now we dwell, enough that once ye felt As now we feel, to bid you recognize Our claim of kindred cherished though unseen; And Love that is to you for eye and ear Hath ways unknown to us to bring you near, -- To keep you near for all that comes between; As pious souls that move in sleep to prayer, As distant friends, that see not, and yet share (I speak of what I know) each other's care, So may your spirits blend with ours! Above Ye know not haply of our state, yet Love Acquaints you with our need, and through a way More sure than that of knowledge--so ye pray!

 "And even thus we meet, And even thus we commune! spirits freed And spirits fettered mingle, nor have need To seek a common atmosphere, the air Is meet for either in this olden, sweet, Primeval breathing of Man's spirit, --Prayer!"

I give, in conclusion, a portion of one of her most characteristic poems, _The Reconciler_:--

 "Our dreams are reconciled, Since Thou didst come to turn them all to Truth; The World, the Heart, are dreamers in their youth Of visions beautiful, and strange and wild; And Thou, our Life's Interpreter, dost still At once make clear these visions and fulfil;

 Each dim sweet Orphic rhyme, Each mythic tale sublime Of strength to save, of sweetness to subdue, Each morning dream the few, Wisdom's first lovers told, if read in Thee comes true. 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

 "Thou, O Friend From heaven, that madest this our heart Thine own, Dost pierce the broken language of its moan-- Thou dost not scorn our needs, but satisfy! Each yearning deep and wide, Each claim, is justified; Our young illusions fail not, though they die Within the brightness of Thy Rising, kissed To happy death, like early clouds that lie About the gates of Dawn, --a golden mist Paling to blissful white, through rose and amethyst. 

 "The World that puts Thee by, That opens not to greet Thee with Thy train, That sendeth after Thee the sullen cry, 'We will not have Thee over us to reign, ' Itself Both testify through searchings vain Of Thee and of its need, and for the good It will not, of some base similitude Takes up a taunting witness, till its mood, Grown fierce o'er failing hopes, doth rend and tear Its own illusions grown too thin and bare To wrap it longer; for within the gate Where all must pass, a veiled and hooded Fate, A dark Chimera, coiled and tangled lies, And he who answers not its questions dies, -- Still changing form and speech, but with the same Vexed riddles, Gordian-twisted, bringing shame Upon the nations that with eager cry Hail each new solver of the mystery; Yet he, of these the best, Bold guesser, hath but prest Most nigh to Thee, our noisy plaudits wrong; True Champion, that hast wrought Our help of old, and brought Meat from this eater, sweetness from this strong. 

 "O Bearer of the key That shuts and opens with a sound so sweet Its turning in the wards is melody, All things we move among are incomplete And vain until we fashion them in Thee! We labor in the fire, Thick smoke is round about us; through the din Of words that darken counsel clamors dire Ring from thought's beaten anvil, where within Two Giants toil, that even from their birth With travail-pangs have torn their mother Earth, And wearied out her children with their keen Upbraidings of the other, till between Thou tamest, saying, 'Wherefore do ye wrong Each other?--ye are Brethren. ' Then these twain Will own their kindred, and in Thee retain Their claims in peace, because Thy land is wide As it is goodly! here they pasture free, This lion and this leopard, side by side, A little child doth lead them with a song; Now, Ephraim's envy ceaseth, and no more Doth Judah anger Ephraim chiding sore, For one did ask a Brother, one a King, So dost Thou gather them in one, and bring-- Thou, King forevermore, forever Priest, Thou, Brother of our own from bonds released A Law of Liberty, A Service making free, A Commonweal where each has all in Thee. 

 "And not alone these wide, Deep-planted yearnings, seeking with a cry Their meat from God, in Thee are satisfied; But all our instincts waking suddenly Within the soul, like infants from their sleep That stretch their arms into the dark and weep, Thy voice can still. The stricken heart bereft Of all its brood of singing hopes, and left 'Mid leafless boughs, a cold, forsaken nest With snow-flakes in it, folded in Thy breast Doth lose its deadly chill; and grief that creeps Unto Thy side for shelter, finding there The wound's deep cleft, forgets its moan, and weeps Calm, quiet tears, and on Thy forehead Care Hath looked until its thorns, no longer bare, Put forth pale roses. Pain on Thee doth press Its quivering cheek, and all the weariness, The want that keep their silence, till from Thee They hear the gracious summons, none beside Hath spoken to the world-worn, 'Come to me, ' Tell forth their heavy secrets. 

 "Thou dost hide These in Thy bosom, and not these alone, But all our heart's fond treasure that had grown A burden else: O Saviour, tears were weighed To Thee in plenteous measure! none hath shown That Thou didst smile! yet hast Thou surely made All joy of ours Thine own. 

 "Thou madest us for Thine; We seek amiss, we wander to and fro; Yet are we ever on the track Divine; The soul confesseth Thee, but sense is slow To lean on aught but that which it may see; So hath it crowded up these Courts below With dark and broken images of Thee; Lead Thou us forth upon Thy Mount, and show Thy goodly patterns, whence these things of old By Thee were fashioned; One though manifold. Glass Thou Thy perfect likeness in the soul, Show us Thy countenance, and we are whole!"

No one, I am quite certain, will regret that I have made these liberalquotations. Apart from their literary merit, they have a specialinterest for the readers of The Patience of Hope, as more fullyillustrating the writer's personal experience and aspirations. 

It has been suggested by a friend that it is barely possible that anobjection may be urged against the following treatise, as against allbooks of a like character, that its tendency is to isolate the individualfrom his race, and to nourish an exclusive and purely selfish personalsolicitude; that its piety is self-absorbent, and that it does not takesufficiently into account active duties and charities, and the love ofthe neighbor so strikingly illustrated by the Divine Master in His lifeand teachings. This objection, if valid, would be a fatal one. For, ofa truth, there can be no meaner type of human selfishness than thatafforded by him who, unmindful of the world of sin and suffering abouthim, occupies himself in the pitiful business of saving his own soul, inthe very spirit of the miser, watching over his private hoard while hisneighbors starve for lack of bread. But surely the benevolent unrest, the far-reaching sympathies and keen sensitiveness to the suffering ofothers, which so nobly distinguish our present age, can have nothing tofear from a plea for personal holiness, patience, hope, and resignationto the Divine will. "The more piety, the more compassion, " says IsaacTaylor; and this is true, if we understand by piety, not self-concentredasceticism, but the pure religion and undefiled which visits the widowand the fatherless, and yet keeps itself unspotted from the world, --whichdeals justly, loves mercy, and yet walks humbly before God. Self-scrutiny in the light of truth can do no harm to any one, least of all tothe reformer and philanthropist. The spiritual warrior, like the youngcandidate for knighthood, may be none the worse for his preparatoryordeal of watching all night by his armor. 

Tauler in mediaeval times and Woolman in the last century are among themost earnest teachers of the inward life and spiritual nature ofChristianity, yet both were distinguished for practical benevolence. They did not separate the two great commandments. Tauler strove withequal intensity of zeal to promote the temporal and the spiritual welfareof men. In the dark and evil time in which he lived, amidst the untoldhorrors of the "Black Plague, " he illustrated by deeds of charity andmercy his doctrine of disinterested benevolence. Woolman's whole lifewas a nobler Imitation of Christ than that fervid rhapsody of monasticpiety which bears the name. 

How faithful, yet, withal, how full of kindness, were his rebukes ofthose who refused labor its just reward, and ground the faces of thepoor? How deep and entire was his sympathy with overtasked and ill-paidlaborers; with wet and illprovided sailors; with poor wretchesblaspheming in the mines, because oppression had made them mad; with thedyers plying their unhealthful trade to minister to luxury and pride;with the tenant wearing out his life in the service of a hard landlord;and with the slave sighing over his unrequited toil! What a significancethere was in his vision of the "dull, gloomy mass" which appeared beforehim, darkening half the heavens, and which he was told was "human beingsin as great misery as they could be and live; and he was mixed with them, and henceforth he might not consider himself a distinct and separatebeing"! His saintliness was wholly unconscious; he seems never to havethought himself any nearer to the tender heart of God than the mostmiserable sinner to whom his compassion extended. As he did notlive, so neither did he die to himself. His prayer upon his death-bedwas for others rather than himself; its beautiful humility and simpletrust were marred by no sensual imagery of crowns and harps and goldenstreets, and personal beatific exaltations; but tender and touchingconcern for suffering humanity, relieved only by the thought of thepaternity of God, and of His love and omnipotence, alone found utterancein ever-memorable words. 

In view of the troubled state of the country and the intensepreoccupation of the public mind, I have had some hesitation in offeringthis volume to its publishers. But, on further reflection, it has seemedto me that it might supply a want felt by many among us; that, in thechaos of civil strife and the shadow of mourning which rests over theland, the contemplation of "things unseen which are eternal" might not beunwelcome; that, when the foundations of human confidence are shaken, andthe trust in man proves vain, there might be glad listeners to a voicecalling from the outward and the temporal to the inward and thespiritual; from the troubles and perplexities of time, to the eternalquietness which God giveth. I cannot but believe that, in the heat andglare through which we are passing, this book will not invite in vain tothe calm, sweet shadows of holy meditation, grateful as the green wingsof the bird to Thalaba in the desert; and thus afford something ofconsolation to the bereaved, and of strength to the weary. For surelynever was the Patience of Hope more needed; never was the inner sanctuaryof prayer more desirable; never was a steadfast faith in the Divinegoodness more indispensable, nor lessons of self-sacrifice andrenunciation, and that cheerful acceptance of known duty which shifts notits proper responsibility upon others, nor asks for "peace in its day" atthe expense of purity and justice, more timely than now, when the solemnwords of ancient prophecy are as applicable to our own country as to thatof the degenerate Jew, --"Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thybacksliding reprove thee; know, therefore, it is an evil thing, andbitter, that thou bast forsaken the Lord, and that my fear is not inthee, "--when "His way is in the deep, in clouds, and in thick darkness, "and the hand heavy upon us which shall "turn and overturn until he whoseright it is shall reign, "--until, not without rending agony, the evilplant which our Heavenly Father hath not planted, whose roots have woundthemselves about altar and hearth-stone, and whose branches, like thetree Al-Accoub in Moslem fable, bear the accursed fruit of oppression, rebellion, and all imaginable crime, shall be torn up and destroyedforever. 

AMESBURY, 1st 6th mo. , 1862. 

THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 

The following letters were addressed to the Editor of the Friends' Reviewin Philadelphia, in reference to certain changes of principle andpractice in the Society then beginning to be observable, but which havesince more than justified the writer's fears and solicitude. 

I. 

 AMESBURY, 2d mo. , 1870. 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REVIEW. 

ESTEEMED FRIEND, --If I have been hitherto a silent, I have not been anindifferent, spectator of the movements now going on in our religiousSociety. Perhaps from lack of faith, I have been quite too solicitousconcerning them, and too much afraid that in grasping after new things wemay let go of old things too precious to be lost. Hence I have beenpleased to see from time to time in thy paper very timely and fittingarticles upon a _Hired Ministry_ and _Silent Worship_. 

The present age is one of sensation and excitement, of extreme measuresand opinions, of impatience of all slow results. The world about usmoves with accelerated impulse, and we move with it: the rest we haveenjoyed, whether true or false, is broken; the title-deeds of ouropinions, the reason of our practices, are demanded. Our very right toexist as a distinct society is questioned. Our old literature--theprecious journals and biographies of early and later Friends--iscomparatively neglected for sensational and dogmatic publications. Webear complaints of a want of educated ministers; the utility of silentmeetings is denied, and praying and preaching regarded as matters of willand option. There is a growing desire for experimenting upon the dogmasand expedients and practices of other sects. I speak only of admittedfacts, and not for the purpose of censure or complaint. No one has lessright than myself to indulge in heresy-hunting or impatience of minordifferences of opinion. If my dear friends can bear with me, I shall notfind it a hard task to bear with them. 

But for myself I prefer the old ways. With the broadest possibletolerance for all honest seekers after truth! I love the Society ofFriends. My life has been nearly spent in laboring with those of othersects in behalf of the suffering and enslaved; and I have never felt likequarrelling with Orthodox or Unitarians, who were willing to pull withme, side by side, at the rope of Reform. A very large proportion of mydearest personal friends are outside of our communion; and I have learnedwith John Woolman to find "no narrowness respecting sects and opinions. "But after a kindly and candid survey of them all, I turn to my ownSociety, thankful to the Divine Providence which placed me where I am;and with an unshaken faith in the one distinctive doctrine of Quakerism--the Light within--the immanence of the Divine Spirit in Christianity. Icheerfully recognize and bear testimony to the good works and lives ofthose who widely differ in faith and practice; but I have seen no truertypes of Christianity, no better men and women, than I have known andstill know among those who not blindly, but intelligently, hold thedoctrines and maintain the testimonies of our early Friends. I am notblind to the shortcomings of Friends. I know how much we have lost bynarrowness and coldness and inactivity, the overestimate of externalobservances, the neglect of our own proper work while acting asconscience-keepers for others. We have not, as a society, been activeenough in those simple duties which we owe to our suffering fellow-creatures, in that abundant labor of love and self-denial which is neverout of place. Perhaps our divisions and dissensions might have beenspared us if we had been less "at ease in Zion. " It is in the decline ofpractical righteousness that men are most likely to contend with eachother for dogma and ritual, for shadow and letter, instead of substanceand spirit. Hence I rejoice in every sign of increased activity in doinggood among us, in the precious opportunities afforded of working with theDivine Providence for the Freedmen and Indians; since the more we do, inthe true spirit of the gospel, for others, the more we shall really dofor ourselves. There is no danger of lack of work for those who, with aneye single to the guidance of Truth, look for a place in God's vineyard;the great work which the founders of our Society began is not yet done;the mission of Friends is not accomplished, and will not be until thisworld of ours, now full of sin and suffering, shall take up, in jubilantthanksgiving, the song of the Advent: "Glory to God in the highest!Peace on earth and good-will to men!"

It is charged that our Society lacks freedom and adaptation to the age inwhich we live, that there is a repression of individuality and manlinessamong us. I am not prepared to deny it in certain respects. But, if welook at the matter closely, we shall see that the cause is not in thecentral truth of Quakerism, but in a failure to rightly comprehend it; inan attempt to fetter with forms and hedge about with dogmas that greatlaw of Christian liberty, which I believe affords ample scope for thehighest spiritual aspirations and the broadest philanthropy. If we didbut realize it, we are "set in a large place. "

"We may do all we will save wickedness. "

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. "

Quakerism, in the light of its great original truth, is "exceedingbroad. " As interpreted by Penn and Barclay it is the most liberal andcatholic of faiths. If we are not free, generous, tolerant, if we arenot up to or above the level of the age in good works, in culture andlove of beauty, order and fitness, if we are not the ready recipients ofthe truths of science and philosophy, --in a word, if we are not full-grown men and Christians, the fault is not in Quakerism, but inourselves. We shall gain nothing by aping the customs and trying toadjust ourselves to the creeds of other sects. By so doing we make atthe best a very awkward combination, and just as far as it is successful, it is at the expense of much that is vital in our old faith. If, forinstance, I could bring myself to believe a hired ministry and a writtencreed essential to my moral and spiritual well-being, I think I shouldprefer to sit down at once under such teachers as Bushnell and Beecher, the like of whom in Biblical knowledge, ecclesiastical learning, andintellectual power, we are not likely to manufacture by half a century oftheological manipulation in a Quaker "school of the prophets. " If I mustgo into the market and buy my preaching, I should naturally seek the bestarticle on sale, without regard to the label attached to it. 

I am not insensible of the need of spiritual renovation in our Society. I feel and confess my own deficiencies as an individual member. And Ibear a willing testimony to the zeal and devotion of some dear friends, who, lamenting the low condition and worldliness too apparent among us, seek to awaken a stronger religious life by the partial adoption of thepractices, forms, and creeds of more demonstrative sects. The greatapparent activity of these sects seems to them to contrast very stronglywith our quietness and reticence; and they do not always pause to inquirewhether the result of this activity is a truer type of practicalChristianity than is found in our select gatherings. I think Iunderstand these brethren; to some extent I have sympathized with them. But it seems clear to me, that a remedy for the alleged evil lies not ingoing back to the "beggarly elements" from which our worthy ancestorscalled the people of their generation; not in will-worship; not insetting the letter above the spirit; not in substituting type and symbol, and oriental figure and hyperbole for the simple truths they wereintended to represent; not in schools of theology; not in much speakingand noise and vehemence, nor in vain attempts to make the "plainlanguage" of Quakerism utter the Shibboleth of man-made creeds: but inheeding more closely the Inward Guide and Teacher; in faith in Christ notmerely in His historical manifestation of the Divine Love to humanity, but in His living presence in the hearts open to receive Him; in love forHim manifested in denial of self, in charity and love to our neighbor;and in a deeper realization of the truth of the apostle's declaration:"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visitthe fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himselfunspotted from the world. "

In conclusion, let me say that I have given this expression of myopinions with some degree of hesitation, being very sensible that I haveneither the right nor the qualification to speak for a society whosedoctrines and testimonies commend themselves to my heart and head, whosehistory is rich with the precious legacy of holy lives, and of whoseusefulness as a moral and spiritual Force in the world I am fullyassured. 

II. 

Having received several letters from dear friends in various sectionssuggested by a recent communication in thy paper, and not having time orhealth to answer them in detail, will thou permit me in this way toacknowledge them, and to say to the writers that I am deeply sensible ofthe Christian love and personal good-will to myself, which, whether incommendation or dissent, they manifest? I think I may say in truth thatmy letter was written in no sectarian or party spirit, but simply toexpress a solicitude, which, whether groundless or not, was neverthelessreal. I am, from principle, disinclined to doctrinal disputations andso-called religious controversies, which only tend to separate anddisunite. We have had too many divisions already. I intended no censureof dear brethren whose zeal and devotion command my sympathy, notwithstanding I may not be able to see with them in all respects. Thedomain of individual conscience is to me very sacred; and it seems thepart of Christian charity to make a large allowance for varyingexperiences; mental characteristics, and temperaments, as well as forthat youthful enthusiasm which, if sometimes misdirected, has often beeninstrumental in infusing a fresher life into the body of religiousprofession. It is too much to expect that we can maintain an entireuniformity in the expression of truths in which we substantially agree;and we should be careful that a rightful concern for "the form of soundwords" does not become what William Penn calls "verbal orthodoxy. " Wemust consider that the same accepted truth looks somewhat differentlyfrom different points of vision. Knowing our own weaknesses andlimitations, we must bear in mind that human creeds, speculations, expositions, and interpretations of the Divine plan are but the faint andfeeble glimpses of finite creatures into the infinite mysteries of God. 

 "They are but broken lights of Thee, And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. "

Differing, as we do, more or less as to means and methods, if we indeedhave the "mind of Christ, " we shall rejoice in whatever of good is reallyaccomplished, although by somewhat different instrumentalities than thosewhich we feel ourselves free to make use of, remembering that our Lordrebuked the narrowness and partisanship of His disciples by assuring themthat they that were not against Him were for Him. 

It would, nevertheless, give me great satisfaction to know, as thy kindlyexpressed editorial comments seem to intimate, that I have somewhatoverestimated the tendencies of things in our Society. I have no prideof opinion which would prevent me from confessing with thankfulness myerror of judgment. In any event, it can, I think, do no harm to repeatmy deep conviction that we may all labor, in the ability given us, forour own moral and spiritual well-being, and that of our fellow-creatures, without laying aside the principles and practice of our religiousSociety. I believe so much of liberty is our right as well as ourprivilege, and that we need not really overstep our bounds for theperformance of any duty which may be required of us. When truly calledto contemplate broader fields of labor, we shall find the walls about us, like the horizon seen from higher levels, expanding indeed, but nowherebroken. 

I believe that the world needs the Society of Friends as a testimony anda standard. I know that this is the opinion of some of the best and mostthoughtful members of other Christian sects. I know that any seriousdeparture from the original foundation of our Society would give pain tomany who, outside of our communion, deeply realize the importance of ourtestimonies. They fail to read clearly the signs of the times who do notsee that the hour is coming when, under the searching eye of philosophyand the terrible analysis of science, the letter and the outward evidencewill not altogether avail us; when the surest dependence must be upon theLight of Christ within, disclosing the law and the prophets in our ownsouls, and confirming the truth of outward Scripture by inwardexperience; when smooth stones from the brook of present revelationshall' prove mightier than the weapons of Saul; when the doctrine of theHoly Spirit, as proclaimed by George Fox and lived by John Woolman, shallbe recognized as the only efficient solvent of doubts raised by an age ofrestless inquiry. In this belief my letter was written. I am sorry itdid not fall to the lot of a more fitting hand; and can only hope that noconsideration of lack of qualification on the part of its writer maylessen the value of whatever testimony to truth shall be found in it. 

AMESBURY, 3d mo. , 1870. 

P. S. I may mention that I have been somewhat encouraged by a perusal ofthe Proceedings of the late First-day School Conference in Philadelphia, where, with some things which I am compelled to pause over, and regret, Ifind much with which I cordially unite, and which seems to indicate aprovidential opening for good. I confess to a lively and tender sympathywith my younger brethren and sisters who, in the name of Him who "wentabout doing good, " go forth into the highways and byways to gather up thelost, feed the hungry, instruct the ignorant, and point the sinsick andsuffering to the hopes and consolations of Christian faith, even if, attimes, their zeal goes beyond "reasonable service, " and although theimportance of a particular instrumentality may be exaggerated, and lovelose sight of its needful companion humility, and he that putteth on hisarmor boast like him who layeth it off. Any movement, however irregular, which indicates life, is better than the quiet of death. In theoverruling providence of God, the troubling may prepare the way forhealing. Some of us may have erred on one hand and some on the other, and this shaking of the balance may adjust it. 

JOHN WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL. 

Originally published as an introduction to a reissue of the work. 

To those who judge by the outward appearance, nothing is more difficultof explanation than the strength of moral influence often exerted byobscure and uneventful lives. Some great reform which lifts the world toa higher level, some mighty change for which the ages have waited inanxious expectancy, takes place before our eyes, and, in seeking to traceit back to its origin, we are often surprised to find the initial link inthe chain of causes to be some comparatively obscure individual, thedivine commission and significance of whose life were scarcely understoodby his contemporaries, and perhaps not even by himself. The little onehas become a thousand; the handful of corn shakes like Lebanon. "Thekingdom of God cometh not by observation;" and the only solution of themystery is in the reflection that through the humble instrumentalityDivine power was manifested, and that the Everlasting Arm was beneath thehuman one. 

The abolition of human slavery now in process of consummation throughoutthe world furnishes one of the most striking illustrations of this truth. A far-reaching moral, social, and political revolution, undoing the evilwork of centuries, unquestionably owes much of its original impulse tothe life and labors of a poor, unlearned workingman of New Jersey, whosevery existence was scarcely known beyond the narrow circle of hisreligious society. 

It is only within a comparatively recent period that the journal andethical essays of this remarkable man have attracted the attention towhich they are manifestly entitled. In one of my last interviews withWilliam Ellery Channing, he expressed his very great surprise that theywere so little known. He had himself just read the book for the firsttime, and I shall never forget how his countenance lighted up as hepronounced it beyond comparison the sweetest and purest autobiography inthe language. He wished to see it placed within the reach of all classesof readers; it was not a light to be hidden under the bushel of a sect. Charles Lamb, probably from his friends, the Clarksons, or from BernardBarton, became acquainted with it, and on more than one occasion, in hisletters and Essays of Elia, refers to it with warm commendation. EdwardIrving pronounced it a godsend. Some idea of the lively interest whichthe fine literary circle gathered around the hearth of Lamb felt in thebeautiful simplicity of Woolman's pages may be had from the Diary ofHenry Crabb Robinson, one of their number, himself a man of wide andvaried culture, the intimate friend of Goethe, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. In his notes for First Month, 1824, he says, after a reference to asermon of his friend Irving, which he feared would deter rather thanpromote belief:

"How different this from John Woolman's Journal I have been reading atthe same time! A perfect gem! His is a _schone Seele_, a beautifulsoul. An illiterate tailor, he writes in a style of the most exquisitepurity and grace. His moral qualities are transferred to his writings. Had he not been so very humble, he would have written a still betterbook; for, fearing to indulge in vanity, he conceals the events in whichhe was a great actor. His religion was love. His whole existence andall his passions were love. If one could venture to impute to his creed, and not to his personal character, the delightful frame of mind heexhibited, one could not hesitate to be a convert. His Christianity ismost inviting, it is fascinating! One of the leading British reviews afew years ago, referring to this Journal, pronounced its author the manwho, in all the centuries since the advent of Christ, lived nearest tothe Divine pattern. The author of The Patience of Hope, whose authorityin devotional literature is unquestioned, says of him: 'John Woolman'sgift was love, a charity of which it does not enter into the naturalheart of man to conceive, and of which the more ordinary experiences, even of renewed nature, give but a faint shadow. Every now and then, inthe world's history, we meet with such men, the kings and priests ofHumanity, on whose heads this precious ointment has been so poured forththat it has run down to the skirts of their clothing, and extended overthe whole of the visible creation; men who have entered, like Francis ofAssisi, into the secret of that deep amity with God and with Hiscreatures which makes man to be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field to be at peace with him. In this pure, universal charity there is nothing fitful or intermittent, nothing thatcomes and goes in showers and gleams and sunbursts. Its springs are deepand constant, its rising is like that of a mighty river, its veryoverflow calm and steady, leaving life and fertility behind it. '"

After all, anything like personal eulogy seems out of place in speakingof one who in the humblest self-abasement sought no place in the world'sestimation, content to be only a passive instrument in the hands of hisMaster; and who, as has been remarked, through modesty concealed theevents in which he was an actor. A desire to supply in some sort thisdeficiency in his Journal is my especial excuse for this introductorypaper. 

It is instructive to study the history of the moral progress ofindividuals or communities; to mark the gradual development of truth; towatch the slow germination of its seed sown in simple obedience to thecommand of the Great Husbandman, while yet its green promise, as well asits golden fruition, was hidden from the eyes of the sower; to go back tothe well-springs and fountain-heads, tracing the small streamlet from itshidden source, and noting the tributaries which swell its waters, as itmoves onward, until it becomes a broad river, fertilizing and gladdeningour present humanity. To this end it is my purpose, as briefly aspossible, to narrate the circumstances attending the relinquishment ofslave-holding by the Society of Friends, and to hint at the effect ofthat act of justice and humanity upon the abolition of slavery throughoutthe world. 

At an early period after the organization of the Society, members of itemigrated to the Maryland, Carolina, Virginia, and New England colonies. The act of banishment enforced against dissenters under Charles II. Consigned others of the sect to the West Indies, where their frugality, temperance, and thrift transmuted their intended punishment into ablessing. Andrew Marvell, the inflexible republican statesman, in someof the sweetest and tenderest lines in the English tongue, has happilydescribed their condition:--

 What shall we do but sing His praise Who led us through the watery maze, Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own? He lands us on a grassy stage, Safe from the storms and prelates' rage; He gives us this eternal spring, Which here enamels everything, And sends the fowls to us in care, On daily visits through the air. He hangs in shades the orange bright, Like golden lamps, in a green night, And doth in the pomegranate close Jewels more rich than Ormus shows. 

 . . . . . . . . . 

 And in these rocks for us did frame A temple where to sound His name. Oh! let our voice His praise exalt, Till it arrive at heaven's vault, Which then, perhaps rebounding, may Echo beyond the Mexic bay. '

 "So sang they in the English boat, A holy and a cheerful note; And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept the time. "

Unhappily, they very early became owners of slaves, in imitation of thecolonists around them. No positive condemnation of the evil system hadthen been heard in the British islands. Neither English prelates norexpounders at dissenting conventicles had aught to say against it. Fewcolonists doubted its entire compatibility with Christian profession andconduct. Saint and sinner, ascetic and worldling, united in itspractice. Even the extreme Dutch saints of Bohemia Manor community, thepietists of John de Labadie, sitting at meat with hats on, and pausingever and anon with suspended mouthfuls to bear a brother's or sister'sexhortation, and sandwiching prayers between the courses, were waitedupon by negro slaves. Everywhere men were contending with each otherupon matters of faith, while, so far as their slaves were concerned, denying the ethics of Christianity itself. 

Such was the state of things when, in 1671, George Fox visited Barbadoes. He was one of those men to whom it is given to discern through the mistsof custom and prejudice something of the lineaments of absolute truth, and who, like the Hebrew lawgiver, bear with them, from a higher andpurer atmosphere, the shining evidence of communion with the DivineWisdom. He saw slavery in its mildest form among his friends, but hisintuitive sense of right condemned it. He solemnly admonished those whoheld slaves to bear in mind that they were brethren, and to train them upin the fear of God. "I desired, also, " he says, "that they would causetheir overseers to deal gently and mildly with their negroes, and not usecruelty towards them as the manner of some hath been and is; and that, after certain years of servitude, they should make them free. "

In 1675, the companion of George Fox, William Edmundson, revisitedBarbadoes, and once more bore testimony against the unjust treatment ofslaves. He was accused of endeavoring to excite an insurrection amongthe blacks, and was brought before the Governor on the charge. It wasprobably during this journey that he addressed a remonstrance to friendsin Maryland and Virginia on the subject of holding slaves. It is one ofthe first emphatic and decided testimonies on record against negroslavery as incompatible with Christianity, if we except the Papal bullsof Urban and Leo the Tenth. 

Thirteen years after, in 1688, a meeting of German Quakers, who hademigrated from Kriesbeim, and settled at Germantown, Pennsylvania, addressed a memorial against "the buying and keeping of negroes" to theYearly Meeting for the Pennsylvania and New Jersey colonies. Thatmeeting took the subject into consideration, but declined giving judgmentin the case. In 1696, the Yearly Meeting advised against "bringing inany more negroes. " In 1714, in its Epistle to London Friends, itexpresses a wish that Friends would be "less concerned in buying orselling slaves. " The Chester Quarterly Meeting, which had taken a higherand clearer view of the matter, continued to press the Yearly Meeting toadopt some decided measure against any traffic in human beings. 

The Society gave these memorials a cold reception. The love of gain andpower was too strong, on the part of the wealthy and influential plantersand merchants who had become slaveholders, to allow the scruples of theChester meeting to take the shape of discipline. The utmost that couldbe obtained of the Yearly Meeting was an expression of opinion adverse tothe importation of negroes, and a desire that "Friends generally do, asmuch as may be, avoid buying such negroes as shall hereafter be broughtin, rather than offend any Friends who are against it; yet this is onlycaution, and not censure. "

In the mean time the New England Yearly Meeting was agitated by the samequestion. Slaves were imported into Boston and Newport, and Friendsbecame purchasers, and in some instances were deeply implicated in theforeign traffic. In 1716, the monthly meetings of Dartmouth andNantucket suggested that it was "not agreeable to truth to purchaseslaves and keep them during their term of life. " Nothing was done in theYearly Meeting, however, until 1727, when the practice of importingnegroes was censured. That the practice was continued notwithstanding, for many years afterwards, is certain. In 1758, a rule was adoptedprohibiting Friends within the limits of New England Yearly Meeting fromengaging in or countenancing the foreign slave-trade. 

In the year 1742 an event, simple and inconsiderable in itself, was madethe instrumentality of exerting a mighty influence upon slavery in theSociety of Friends. A small storekeeper at Mount Holly, in New Jersey, amember of the Society, sold a negro woman, and requested the young man inhis employ to make a bill of sale of her. 

 (Mount Holly is a village lying in the western part of the long, narrow township of Northampton, on Rancocas Creek, a tributary of the Delaware. In John Woolman's day it was almost entirely a settlement of Friends. A very few of the old houses with their quaint stoops or porches are left. That occupied by John Woolman was a small, plain, two-story structure, with two windows in each story in front, a four-barred fence inclosing the grounds, with the trees he planted and loved to cultivate. The house was not painted, but whitewashed. The name of the place is derived from the highest hill in the county, rising two hundred feet above the sea, and commanding a view of a rich and level country, of cleared farms and woodlands. Here, no doubt, John Woolman often walked under the shadow of its holly-trees, communing with nature and musing on the great themes of life and duty. 

 When the excellent Joseph Sturge was in this country, some thirty years ago, on his errand of humanity, he visited Mount Holly, and the house of Woolman, then standing. He describes it as a very "humble abode. " But one person was then living in the town who had ever seen its venerated owner. This aged man stated that he was at Woolman's little farm in the season of harvest when it was customary among farmers to kill a calf or sheep for the laborers. John Woolman, unwilling that the animal should be slowly bled to death, as the custom had been, and to spare it unnecessary suffering, had a smooth block of wood prepared to receive the neck of the creature, when a single blow terminated its existence. Nothing was more remarkable in the character of Woolman than his concern for the well-being and comfort of the brute creation. "What is religion?" asks the old Hindoo writer of the Vishnu Sarman. "Tenderness toward all creatures. " Or, as Woolman expresses it, "Where the love of God is verily perfected, a tenderness towards all creatures made subject to our will is experienced, and a care felt that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the Creator intends for them under our government. ")

On taking up his pen, the young clerk felt a sudden and strong scruple inhis mind. The thought of writing an instrument of slavery for one of hisfellow-creatures oppressed him. God's voice against the desecration ofHis image spoke in the soul. He yielded to the will of his employer, but, while writing the instrument, he was constrained to declare, both tothe buyer and the seller, that he believed slave-keeping inconsistentwith the Christian religion. This young man was John Woolman. Thecircumstance above named was the starting-point of a life-long testimonyagainst slavery. In the year 1746 he visited Maryland, Virginia, andNorth Carolina. He was afflicted by the prevalence of slavery. Itappeared to him, in his own words, "as a dark gloominess overhanging theland. " On his return, he wrote an essay on the subject, which waspublished in 1754. Three years after, he made a second visit to theSouthern meetings of Friends. Travelling as a minister of the gospel, hewas compelled to sit down at the tables of slaveholding planters, whowere accustomed to entertain their friends free of cost, and who couldnot comprehend the scruples of their guest against receiving as a giftfood and lodging which he regarded as the gain of oppression. He was apoor man, but he loved truth more than money. He therefore either placedthe pay for his entertainment in the hands of some member of the family, for the benefit of the slaves, or gave it directly to them, as he hadopportunity. Wherever he went, he found his fellow-professors entangledin the mischief of slavery. Elders and ministers, as well as the youngerand less high in profession, had their house servants and field hands. He found grave drab-coated apologists for the slave-trade, who quoted thesame Scriptures, in support of oppression and avarice, which have sincebeen cited by Presbyterian doctors of divinity, Methodist bishops; andBaptist preachers for the same purpose. He found the meetings generallyin a low and evil state. The gold of original Quakerism had become dim, and the fine gold changed. The spirit of the world prevailed among them, and had wrought an inward desolation. Instead of meekness, gentleness, and heavenly wisdom, he found "a spirit of fierceness and love ofdominion. "

 (The tradition is that he travelled mostly on foot during his journeys among slaveholders. Brissot, in his New Travels in America, published in 1788, says: "John Woolman, one of the most distinguished of men in the cause of humanity, travelled much as a minister of his sect, but always on foot, and without money, in imitation of the Apostles, and in order to be in a situation to be more useful to poor people and the blacks. He hated slavery so much that he could not taste food provided by the labor of slaves. " That this writer was on one point misinformed is manifest from the following passage from the Journal: "When I expected soon to leave a friend's house where I had entertainment, if I believed that I should not keep clear from the gain of oppression without leaving money, I spoke to one of the heads of the family privately, and desired them to accept of pieces of silver, and give them to such of their negroes as they believed would make the best use of them; and at other times I gave them to the negroes myself, as the way looked clearest to me. Before I came out, I had provided a large number of small pieces for this purpose, and thus offering them to some who appeared to be wealthy people was a trial both to me and them. But the fear of the Lord so covered me at times that my way was made easier than I expected; and few, if any, manifested any resentment at the offer, and most of them, after some conversation, accepted of them. ")

In love, but at the same time with great faithfulness, he endeavored toconvince the masters of their error, and to awaken a degree of sympathyfor the enslaved. 

At this period, or perhaps somewhat earlier, a remarkable personage tookup his residence in Pennsylvania. He was by birthright a member of theSociety of Friends, but having been disowned in England for someextravagances of conduct and language, he spent several years in the WestIndies, where he became deeply interested in the condition of the slaves. His violent denunciations of the practice of slaveholding excited theanger of the planters, and he was compelled to leave the island. He cameto Philadelphia, but, contrary to his expectations, he found the sameevil existing there. He shook off the dust of the city, and took up hisabode in the country, a few miles distant. His dwelling was a naturalcave, with some slight addition of his own making. His drink was thespring-water flowing by his door; his food, vegetables alone. Hepersistently refused to wear any garment or eat any food purchased at theexpense of animal life, or which was in any degree the product of slavelabor. Issuing from his cave, on his mission of preaching "deliveranceto the captive, " he was in the habit of visiting the various meetings forworship and bearing his testimony against slaveholders, greatly to theirdisgust and indignation. On one occasion he entered the Market StreetMeeting, and a leading Friend requested some one to take him out. Aburly blacksmith volunteered to do it, leading him to the gate andthrusting him out with such force that he fell into the gutter of thestreet. There he lay until the meeting closed, telling the bystandersthat he did not feel free to rise himself. "Let those who cast me hereraise me up. It is their business, not mine. "

His personal appearance was in remarkable keeping with his eccentriclife. A figure only four and a half feet high, hunchbacked, withprojecting chest, legs small and uneven, arms longer than his legs; ahuge head, showing only beneath the enormous white hat large, solemn eyesand a prominent nose; the rest of his face covered with a snowysemicircle of beard falling low on his breast, --a figure to recall theold legends of troll, brownie, and kobold. Such was the irrepressibleprophet who troubled the Israel of slave-holding Quakerism, clinging likea rough chestnut-bur to the skirts of its respectability, and settlinglike a pertinacious gad-fly on the sore places of its conscience. 

On one occasion, while the annual meeting was in session at Burlington, N. J. , in the midst of the solemn silence of the great assembly, theunwelcome figure of Benjamin Lay, wrapped in his long white overcoat, was seen passing up the aisle. Stopping midway, he exclaimed, "Youslaveholders! Why don't you throw off your Quaker coats as I do mine, and show yourselves as you are?" Casting off as he spoke his outergarment, he disclosed to the astonished assembly a military coatunderneath and a sword dangling at his heels. Holding in one hand alarge book, he drew his sword with the other. "In the sight of God, " hecried, "you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, asI do this book!" suiting the action to the word, and piercing a smallbladder filled with the juice of poke-weed (playtolacca decandra), whichhe had concealed between the covers, and sprinkling as with fresh bloodthose who sat near him. John Woolman makes no mention of thiscircumstance in his Journal, although he was probably present, and itmust have made a deep impression on his sensitive spirit. The violenceand harshness of Lay's testimony, however, had nothing in common withthe tender and sorrowful remonstrances and appeals of the former, exceptthe sympathy which they both felt for the slave himself. 

 (Lay was well acquainted with Dr. Franklin, who sometimes visited him. Among other schemes of reform he entertained the idea of converting all mankind to Christianity. This was to be done by three witnesses, --himself, Michael Lovell, and Abel Noble, assisted by Dr. Franklin. But on their first meeting at the Doctor's house, the three "chosen vessels" got into a violent controversy on points of doctrine, and separated in ill-humor. The philosopher, who had been an amused listener, advised the three sages to give up the project of converting the world until they had learned to tolerate each other. )

Still later, a descendant of the persecuted French Protestants, AnthonyBenezet, a man of uncommon tenderness of feeling, began to write andspeak against slavery. How far, if at all, he was moved thereto by theexample of Woolman is not known, but it is certain that the latter foundin him a steady friend and coadjutor in his efforts to awaken theslumbering moral sense of his religious brethren. The Marquis deChastellux, author of _De la Felicite Publique_, describes him as asmall, eager-faced man, full of zeal and activity, constantly engaged inworks of benevolence, which were by no means confined to the blacks. Like Woolman and Lay, he advocated abstinence from intoxicating spirits. The poor French neutrals who were brought to Philadelphia from NovaScotia, and landed penniless and despairing among strangers in tongue andreligion, found in him a warm and untiring friend, through whose aid andsympathy their condition was rendered more comfortable than that of theirfellow-exiles in other colonies. 

The annual assemblage of the Yearly Meeting in 1758 at Philadelphia mustever be regarded as one of the most important religious convocations inthe history of the Christian church. The labors of Woolman and his fewbut earnest associates had not been in vain. A deep and tender interesthad been awakened; and this meeting was looked forward to with variedfeelings of solicitude by all parties. All felt that the time had comefor some definite action; conservative and reformer stood face to face inthe Valley of Decision. John Woolman, of course, was present, --a manhumble and poor in outward appearance, his simple dress of undyedhomespun cloth contrasting strongly with the plain but rich apparel ofthe representatives of the commerce of the city and of the large slave-stocked plantations of the country. Bowed down by the weight of hisconcern for the poor slaves and for the well-being and purity of theSociety, he sat silent during the whole meeting, while other matters wereunder discussion. "My mind, " he says, "was frequently clothed withinward prayer; and I could say with David that 'tears were my meat anddrink, day and night. ' The case of slave-keeping lay heavy upon me; nordid I find any engagement, to speak directly to any other matter beforethe meeting. " When the important subject came up for consideration, manyfaithful Friends spoke with weight and earnestness. No one openlyjustified slavery as a system, although some expressed a concern lest themeeting should go into measures calculated to cause uneasiness to manymembers of the Society. It was also urged that Friends should waitpatiently until the Lord in His own time should open a way for thedeliverance of the slave. This was replied to by John Woolman. "Mymind, " he said, "is led to consider the purity of the Divine Being, andthe justice of His judgments; and herein my soul is covered withawfulness. I cannot forbear to hint of some cases where people have notbeen treated with the purity of justice, and the event has been mostlamentable. Many slaves on this continent are oppressed, and their crieshave entered into the ears of the Most High. Such are the purity andcertainty of His judgments that He cannot be partial in our favor. Ininfinite love and goodness He hath opened our understandings from onetime to another, concerning our duty towards this people; and it is not atime for delay. Should we now be sensible of what He requires of us, andthrough a respect to the private interest of some persons, or through aregard to some friendships which do not stand upon an immutablefoundation, neglect to do our duty in firmness and constancy, stillwaiting for some extraordinary means to bring about their deliverance, God may by terrible things in righteousness answer us in this matter. "

This solemn and weighty appeal was responded to by many in the assembly, in a spirit of sympathy and unity. Some of the slave-holding membersexpressed their willingness that a strict rule of discipline should beadopted against dealing in slaves for the future. To this it wasanswered that the root of the evil would never be reached effectuallyuntil a searching inquiry was made into the circumstances and motives ofsuch as held slaves. At length the truth in a great measure triumphedover all opposition; and, without any public dissent, the meeting agreedthat the injunction of our Lord and Saviour to do to others as we wouldthat others should do to us should induce Friends who held slaves "to setthem at liberty, making a Christian provision for them, " and fourFriends--John Woolman, John Scarborough, Daniel Stanton, and John Sykes--were approved of as suitable persons to visit and treat with such as keptslaves, within the limits of the meeting. 

This painful and difficult duty was faithfully performed. In thatmeekness and humility of spirit which has nothing in common with the"fear of man, which bringeth a snare, " the self-denying followers oftheir Divine Lord and Master "went about doing good. " In the city ofPhiladelphia, and among the wealthy planters of the country, they foundoccasion often to exercise a great degree of patience, and to keep awatchful guard over their feelings. In his Journal for this importantperiod of his life John Woolman says but little of his own services. Howarduous and delicate they were may be readily understood. The number ofslaves held by members of the Society was very large. Isaac Jackson, inhis report of his labors among slave-holders in a single QuarterlyMeeting, states that he visited the owners of more than eleven hundredslaves. From the same report may be gleaned some hints of thedifficulties which presented themselves. One elderly man says he haswell brought up his eleven slaves, and "now they must work to maintainhim. " Another owns it is all wrong, but "cannot release his slaves; histender wife under great concern of mind" on account of his refusal. Athird has fifty slaves; knows it to be wrong, but can't see his way clearout of it. "Perhaps, " the report says, "interest dims his vision. " Afourth is full of "excuses and reasonings. " "Old Jos. Richison hasforty, and is determined to keep them. " Another man has fifty, and"means to keep them. " Robert Ward "wants to release his slaves, but hiswife and daughters hold back. " Another "owns it is wrong, but says hewill not part with his negroes, --no, not while he lives. " The fargreater number, however, confess the wrong of slavery, and agree to takemeasures for freeing their slaves. 

 (An incident occurred during this visit of Isaac Jackson which impressed him deeply. On the last evening, just as he was about to turn homeward, he was told that a member of the Society whom he had not seen owned a very old slave who was happy and well cared for. It was a case which it was thought might well be left to take care of itself. Isaac Jackson, sitting in silence, did not feel his mind quite satisfied; and as the evening wore away, feeling more and more exercised, he expressed his uneasiness, when a young son of his host eagerly offered to go with him and show him the road to the place. The proposal was gladly accepted. On introducing the object of their visit, the Friend expressed much surprise that any uneasiness should be felt in the case, but at length consented to sign the form of emancipation, saying, at the same time, it would make no difference in their relations, as the old man was perfectly happy. At Isaac Jackson's request the slave was called in and seated before them. His form was nearly double, his thin hands were propped on his knees, his white head was thrust forward, and his keen, restless, inquiring eyes gleamed alternately on the stranger and on his master. At length he was informed of what had been done; that he was no longer a slave, and that his master acknowledged his past services entitled him to a maintenance so long as he lived. The old man listened in almost breathless wonder, his head slowly sinking on his breast. After a short pause, he clasped his hands; then spreading them high over his hoary head, slowly and reverently exclaimed, "Oh, goody Gody, oh!"--bringing his hands again down on his knees. Then raising them as before, he twice repeated the solemn exclamation, and with streaming eyes and a voice almost too much choked for utterance, he continued, "I thought I should die a slave, and now I shall die a free man!"

 It is a striking evidence of the divine compensations which are sometimes graciously vouchsafed to those who have been faithful to duty, that on his death-bed this affecting scene was vividly revived in the mind of Isaac Jackson. At that supreme moment, when all other pictures of time were fading out, that old face, full of solemn joy and devout thanksgiving, rose before him, and comforted him as with the blessing of God. )

An extract or two from the Journal at this period will serve to show boththe nature of the service in which he was engaged and the frame of mindin which he accomplished it:--

"In the beginning of the 12th month I joined in company with my friends, John Sykes and Daniel Stanton, in visiting such as had slaves. Some, whose hearts were rightly exercised about them, appeared to be glad ofour visit, but in some places our way was more difficult. I often sawthe necessity of keeping down to that root from whence our concernproceeded, and have cause in reverent thankfulness humbly to bow downbefore the Lord who was near to me, and preserved my mind in calmnessunder some sharp conflicts, and begat a spirit of sympathy and tendernessin me towards some who were grievously entangled by the spirit of thisworld. "

"1st month, 1759. --Having found my mind drawn to visit some of the moreactive members of society at Philadelphia who had slaves, I met my friendJohn Churchman there by agreement, and we continued about a week in thecity. We visited some that were sick, and some widows and theirfamilies; and the other part of the time was mostly employed in visitingsuch as had slaves. It was a time of deep exercise; but looking often tothe Lord for assistance, He in unspeakable kindness favored us with theinfluence of that spirit which crucifies to the greatness and splendor ofthis world, and enabled us to go through some heavy labors, in which wefound peace. "

These labors were attended with the blessing of the God of the poor andoppressed. Dealing in slaves was almost entirely abandoned, and many whoheld slaves set them at liberty. But many members still continuing thepractice, a more emphatic testimony against it was issued by the YearlyMeeting in 1774; and two years after the subordinate meetings weredirected to deny the right of membership to such as persisted in holdingtheir fellow-men as property. 

A concern was now felt for the temporal and religious welfare of theemancipated slaves, and in 1779 the Yearly Meeting came to the conclusionthat some reparation was due from the masters to their former slaves forservices rendered while in the condition of slavery. The following is anextract from an epistle on this subject:

"We are united in judgment that the state of the oppressed people whohave been held by any of us, or our predecessors, in captivity andslavery, calls for a deep inquiry and close examination how far we areclear of withholding from them what under such an exercise may open toview as their just right; and therefore we earnestly and affectionatelyentreat our brethren in religious profession to bring this matter home, and that all who have let the oppressed go free may attend to the furtheropenings of duty. 

"A tender Christian sympathy appears to be awakened in the minds of manywho are not in religious profession with us, who have seriouslyconsidered the oppressions and disadvantages under which those peoplehave long labored; and whether a pious care extended to their offspringis not justly due from us to them is a consideration worthy our seriousand deep attention. "

Committees to aid and advise the colored people were accordinglyappointed in the various Monthly Meetings. Many former owners of slavesfaithfully paid the latter for their services, submitting to the awardand judgment of arbitrators as to what justice required at their hands. So deeply had the sense of the wrong of slavery sunk into the hearts ofFriends!

John Woolman, in his Journal for 1769, states, that having some yearsbefore, as one of the executors of a will, disposed of the services of anegro boy belonging to the estate until he should reach the age of thirtyyears, he became uneasy in respect to the transaction, and, although hehad himself derived no pecuniary benefit from it, and had simply acted asthe agent of the heirs of the estate to which the boy belonged, heexecuted a bond, binding himself to pay the master of the young man forfour years and a half of his unexpired term of service. 

The appalling magnitude of the evil against which he felt himselfespecially called to contend was painfully manifest to John Woolman. Atthe outset, all about him, in every department of life and humanactivity, in the state and the church, he saw evidences of its strength, and of the depth and extent to which its roots had wound their way amongthe foundations of society. Yet he seems never to have doubted for amoment the power of simple truth to eradicate it, nor to have hesitatedas to his own duty in regard to it. There was no groping like Samson inthe gloom; no feeling in blind wrath and impatience for the pillars ofthe temple of Dagon. "The candle of the Lord shone about him, " and hispath lay clear and unmistakable before him. He believed in the goodnessof God that leadeth to repentance; and that love could reach the witnessfor itself in the hearts of all men, through all entanglements of customand every barrier of pride and selfishness. No one could have a morehumble estimate of himself; but as he went forth on his errand of mercyhe felt the Infinite Power behind him, and the consciousness that he hadknown a preparation from that Power "to stand as a trumpet through whichthe Lord speaks. " The event justified his confidence; wherever he wenthard hearts were softened, avarice and love of power and pride of opiniongave way before his testimony of love. 

The New England Yearly Meeting then, as now, was held in Newport, onRhode Island. In the year 1760 John Woolman, in the course of areligious visit to New England, attended that meeting. He saw thehorrible traffic in human beings, --the slave-ships lying at the wharvesof the town, the sellers and buyers of men and women and childrenthronging the market-place. The same abhorrent scenes which a few yearsafter stirred the spirit of the excellent Hopkins to denounce the slave-trade and slavery as hateful in the sight of God to his congregation atNewport were enacted in the full view and hearing of the annualconvocation of Friends, many of whom were themselves partakers in theshame and wickedness. "Understanding, " he says, "that a large number ofslaves had been imported from Africa into the town, and were then on saleby a member of our Society, my appetite failed; I grew outwardly weak, and had a feeling of the condition of Habakkuk: 'When I heard, my bellytrembled, my lips quivered; I trembled in myself, that I might rest inthe day of trouble. ' I had many cogitations, and was sorely distressed. "He prepared a memorial to the Legislature, then in session, for thesignatures of Friends, urging that body to take measures to put an end tothe importation of slaves. His labors in the Yearly Meeting appear tohave been owned and blessed by the Divine Head of the church. The LondonEpistle for 1758, condemning the unrighteous traffic in men, was read, and the substance of it embodied in the discipline of the meeting; andthe following query was adopted, to be answered by the subordinatemeetings:--

"Are Friends clear of importing negroes, or buying them when imported;and do they use those well, where they are possessed by inheritance orotherwise, endeavoring to train them up in principles of religion?"

At the close of the Yearly Meeting, John Woolman requested those membersof the Society who held slaves to meet with him in the chamber of thehouse for worship, where he expressed his concern for the well-being ofthe slaves, and his sense of the iniquity of the practice of dealing inor holding them as property. His tender exhortations were not lost uponhis auditors; his remarks were kindly received, and the gentle and lovingspirit in which they were offered reached many hearts. 

In 1769, at the suggestion of the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, theYearly Meeting expressed its sense of the wrongfulness of holding slaves, and appointed a large committee to visit those members who wereimplicated in the practice. The next year this committee reported thatthey had completed their service, "and that their visits mostly seemed tobe kindly accepted. Some Friends manifested a disposition to set such atliberty as were suitable; some others, not having so clear a sight ofsuch an unreasonable servitude as could be desired, were unwilling tocomply with the advice given them at present, yet seemed willing to takeit into consideration; a few others manifested a disposition to keep themin continued bondage. "

It was stated in the Epistle to London Yearly Meeting of the year 1772, that a few Friends had freed their slaves from bondage, but that others"have been so reluctant thereto that they have been disowned for notcomplying with the advice of this meeting. "

In 1773 the following minute was made: "It is our sense and judgment thattruth not only requires the young of capacity and ability, but likewisethe aged and impotent, and also all in a state of infancy and nonage, among Friends, to be discharged and set free from a state of slavery, that we do no more claim property in the human race, as we do in thebrutes that perish. "

In 1782 no slaves were known to be held in the New England YearlyMeeting. The next year it was recommended to the subordinate meetings toappoint committees to effect a proper and just settlement between themanumitted slaves and their former masters, for their past services. In1784 it was concluded by the Yearly Meeting that any former slave-holderwho refused to comply with the award of these committees should, afterdue care and labor with him, be disowned from the Society. This waseffectual; settlements without disownment were made to the satisfactionof all parties, and every case was disposed of previous to the year 1787. 

In the New York Yearly Meeting, slave-trading was prohibited about themiddle of the last century. In 1771, in consequence of an Epistle fromthe Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, a committee was appointed to visit thosewho held slaves, and to advise with them in relation to emancipation. In1776 it was made a disciplinary offence to buy, sell, or hold slaves uponany condition. In 1784 but one slave was to be found in the limits ofthe meeting. In the same year, by answers from the several subordinatemeetings, it was ascertained that an equitable settlement for pastservices had been effected between the emancipated negroes and theirmasters in all save three cases. 

In the Virginia Yearly Meeting slavery had its strongest hold. Itsmembers, living in the midst of slave-holding communities, werenecessarily exposed to influences adverse to emancipation. I havealready alluded to the epistle addressed to them by William Edmondson, and to the labors of John Woolman while travelling among them. In 1757the Virginia Yearly Meeting condemned the foreign slave-trade. In 1764it enjoined upon its members the duty of kindness towards their servants, of educating them, and carefully providing for their food and clothing. Four years after, its members were strictly prohibited from purchasingany more slaves. In 1773 it earnestly recommended the immediatemanumission of all slaves held in bondage, after the females had reachedeighteen and the males twenty-one years of age. At the same time it wasadvised that committees should be appointed for the purpose ofinstructing the emancipated persons in the principles of morality andreligion, and for advising and aiding them in their temporal concerns. 

I quote a single paragraph from the advice sent down to the subordinatemeetings, as a beautiful manifestation of the fruits of true repentance:--

"It is the solid sense of this meeting, that we of the present generationare under strong obligations to express our love and concern for theoffspring of those people who by their labors have greatly contributedtowards the cultivation of these colonies under the afflictivedisadvantage of enduring a hard bondage, and the benefit of whose toilmany among us are enjoying. "

In 1784, the different Quarterly Meetings having reported that many stillheld slaves, notwithstanding the advice and entreaties of their friends, the Yearly Meeting directed that where endeavors to convince thoseoffenders of their error proved ineffectual, the Monthly Meetings shouldproceed to disown them. We have no means of ascertaining the precisenumber of those actually disowned for slave-holding in the VirginiaYearly Meeting, but it is well known to have been very small. In almostall cases the care and assiduous labors of those who had the welfare ofthe Society and of humanity at heart were successful in inducingoffenders to manumit their slaves, and confess their error in resistingthe wishes of their friends and bringing reproach upon the cause oftruth. 

So ended slavery in the Society of Friends. For three quarters of acentury the advice put forth in the meetings of the Society at statedintervals, that Friends should be "careful to maintain their testimonyagainst slavery, " has been adhered to so far as owning, or even hiring, aslave is concerned. Apart from its first-fruits of emancipation, thereis a perennial value in the example exhibited of the power of truth, urged patiently and in earnest love, to overcome the difficulties in theway of the eradication of an evil system, strengthened by long habit, entangled with all the complex relations of society, and closely alliedwith the love of power, the pride of family, and the lust of gain. 

The influence of the life and labors of John Woolman has by no means beenconfined to the religious society of which he was a member. It may betraced wherever a step in the direction of emancipation has been taken inthis country or in Europe. During the war of the Revolution many of thenoblemen and officers connected with the French army became, as theirjournals abundantly testify, deeply interested in the Society of Friends, and took back to France with them something of its growing anti-slaverysentiment. Especially was this the case with Jean Pierre Brissot, thethinker and statesman of the Girondists, whose intimacy with WarnerMifflin, a friend and disciple of Woolman, so profoundly affected hiswhole after life. He became the leader of the "Friends of the Blacks, "and carried with him to the scaffold a profound hatred, of slavery. Tohis efforts may be traced the proclamation of emancipation in Hayti bythe commissioners of the French convention, and indirectly the subsequentuprising of the blacks and their successful establishment of a freegovernment. The same influence reached Thomas Clarkson and stimulatedhis early efforts for the abolition of the slave-trade; and in after lifethe volume of the New Jersey Quaker was the cherished companion ofhimself and his amiable helpmate. It was in a degree, at least, theinfluence of Stephen Grellet and William Allen, men deeply imbued withthe spirit of Woolman, and upon whom it might almost be said his mantlehad fallen, that drew the attention of Alexander I. Of Russia to theimportance of taking measures for the abolition of serfdom, an object theaccomplishment of which the wars during his reign prevented, but which, left as a legacy of duty, has been peaceably effected by his namesake, Alexander II. In the history of emancipation in our own countryevidences of the same original impulse of humanity are not wanting. In1790 memorials against slavery from the Society of Friends were laidbefore the first Congress of the United States. Not content withclearing their own skirts of the evil, the Friends of that day took anactive part in the formation of the abolition societies of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Jacob Lindley, ElishaTyson, Warner Mifflin, James Pemberton, and other leading Friends wereknown throughout the country as unflinching champions of freedom. One ofthe earliest of the class known as modern abolitionists was BenjaminLundy, a pupil in the school of Woolman, through whom William LloydGarrison became interested in the great work to which his life has beenso faithfully and nobly devoted. Looking back to the humble workshop atMount Holly from the stand-point of the Proclamation of PresidentLincoln, how has the seed sown in weakness been raised up in power!

The larger portion of Woolman's writings is devoted to the subjects ofslavery, uncompensated labor, and the excessive toil and suffering of themany to support the luxury of the few. The argument running through themis searching, and in its conclusions uncompromising, but a tender lovefor the wrong-doer as well as the sufferer underlies all. They aim toconvince the judgment and reach the heart without awakening prejudice andpassion. To the slave-holders of his time they must have seemed like thevoice of conscience speaking to them in the cool of the day. One feels, in reading them, the tenderness and humility of a nature redeemed fromall pride of opinion and self-righteousness, sinking itself out of sight, and intent only upon rendering smaller the sum of human sorrow and sin bydrawing men nearer to God, and to each other. The style is that of a manunlettered, but with natural refinement and delicate sense of fitness, the purity of whose heart enters into his language. There is no attemptat fine writing, not a word or phrase for effect; it is the simpleunadorned diction of one to whom the temptations of the pen seem to havebeen wholly unknown. He wrote, as he believed, from an inward spiritualprompting; and with all his unaffected humility he evidently felt thathis work was done in the clear radiance of

 "The light which never was on land or sea. "

It was not for him to outrun his Guide, or, as Sir Thomas Browneexpresses it, to "order the finger of the Almighty to His will andpleasure, but to sit still under the soft showers of Providence. " Verywise are these essays, but their wisdom is not altogether that of thisworld. They lead one away from all the jealousies, strifes, andcompetitions of luxury, fashion, and gain, out of the close air ofparties and sects, into a region of calmness, --

 "The haunt Of every gentle wind whose breath can teach The wild to love tranquillity, "--

a quiet habitation where all things are ordered in what he calls "thepure reason;" a rest from all self-seeking, and where no man's interestor activity conflicts with that of another. Beauty they certainly have, but it is not that which the rules of art recognize; a certainindefinable purity pervades them, making one sensible, as he reads, of asweetness as of violets. "The secret of Woolman's purity of style, " saidDr. Channing, "is that his eye was single, and that conscience dictatedhis words. "

Of course we are not to look to the writings of such a man for tricks ofrhetoric, the free play of imagination, or the unscrupulousness ofepigram and antithesis. He wrote as he lived, conscious of "the greatTask-master's eye. " With the wise heathen Marcus Aurelius Antoninus hehad learned to "wipe out imaginations, to check desire, and let thespirit that is the gift of God to every man, as his guardian and guide, bear rule. "

I have thought it inexpedient to swell the bulk of this volume with theentire writings appended to the old edition of the Journal, inasmuch asthey mainly refer to a system which happily on this continent is nolonger a question at issue. I content myself with throwing together afew passages from them which touch subjects of present interest. 

"Selfish men may possess the earth: it is the meek alone who inherit itfrom the Heavenly Father free from all defilements and perplexities ofunrighteousness. "

"Whoever rightly advocates the cause of some thereby promotes the good ofthe whole. "

"If one suffer by the unfaithfulness of another, the mind, the most noblepart of him that occasions the discord, is thereby alienated from itstrue happiness. "

"There is harmony in the several parts of the Divine work in the heartsof men. He who leads them to cease from those gainful employments whichare carried on in the wisdom which is from beneath delivers also from thedesire of worldly greatness, and reconciles to a life so plain that alittle suffices. "

"After days and nights of drought, when the sky hath grown dark, andclouds like lakes of water have hung over our heads, I have at timesbeheld with awfulness the vehement lightning accompanying the blessingsof the rain, a messenger from Him to remind us of our duty in a right useof His benefits. "

"The marks of famine in a land appear as humbling admonitions from God, instructing us by gentle chastisements, that we may remember that theoutward supply of life is a gift from our Heavenly Father, and that weshould not venture to use or apply that gift in a way contrary to purereason. "

"Oppression in the extreme appears terrible; but oppression in morerefined appearances remains to be oppression. To labor for a perfectredemption from the spirit of it is the great business of the wholefamily of Jesus Christ in this world. "

"In the obedience of faith we die to self-love, and, our life being 'hidwith Christ in God, ' our hearts are enlarged towards mankind universally;but many in striving to get treasures have departed from this true lightof life and stumbled on the dark mountains. That purity of life whichproceeds from faithfulness in following the pure spirit of truth, thatstate in which our minds are devoted to serve God and all our wants arebounded by His wisdom, has often been opened to me as a place ofretirement for the children of the light, in which we may be separatedfrom that which disordereth and confuseth the affairs of society, and mayhave a testimony for our innocence in the hearts of those who behold us. "

"There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which indifferent places and ages bath had different names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms ofreligion nor excluded from any, when the heart stands in perfectsincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, they becomebrethren. "

"The necessity of an inward stillness hath appeared clear to my mind. Intrue silence strength is renewed, and the mind is weaned from all things, save as they may be enjoyed in the Divine will; and a lowliness inoutward living, opposite to worldly honor, becomes truly acceptable tous. In the desire after outward gain the mind is prevented from aperfect attention to the voice of Christ; yet being weaned from allthings, except as they may be enjoyed in the Divine will, the pure lightshines into the soul. Where the fruits of the spirit which is of thisworld are brought forth by many who profess to be led by the Spirit oftruth, and cloudiness is felt to be gathering over the visible church, the sincere in heart, who abide in true stillness, and are exercisedtherein before the Lord for His name's sake, have knowledge of Christ inthe fellowship of His sufferings; and inward thankfulness is felt attimes, that through Divine love our own wisdom is cast out, and thatforward, active part in us is subjected, which would rise and dosomething without the pure leadings of the spirit of Christ. 

"While aught remains in us contrary to a perfect resignation of ourwills, it is like a seal to the book wherein is written 'that good andacceptable and perfect will of God' concerning us. But when our mindsentirely yield to Christ, that silence is known which followeth theopening of the last of the seals. In this silence we learn to abide inthe Divine will, and there feel that we have no cause to promote exceptthat alone in which the light of life directs us. "

Occasionally, in Considerations on the Keeping of? Negroes, the intenseinterest of his subject gives his language something of passionateelevation, as in the following extract:--

"When trade is carried on productive of much misery, and they who sufferby it are many thousand miles off, the danger is the greater of notlaying their sufferings to heart. In procuring slaves on the coast ofAfrica, many children are stolen privately; wars are encouraged among thenegroes, but all is at a great distance. Many groans arise from dyingmen which we hear not. Many cries are uttered by widows and fatherlesschildren which reach not our ears. Many cheeks are wet with tears, andfaces sad with unutterable grief, which we see not. Cruel tyranny isencouraged. The hands of robbers are strengthened. 

"Were we, for the term of one year only, to be eye-witnesses of whatpasseth in getting these slaves; were the blood that is there shed to besprinkled on our garments; were the poor captives, bound with thongs, andheavily laden with elephants' teeth, to pass before our eyes on their wayto the sea; were their bitter lamentations, day after day, to ring in ourears, and their mournful cries in the night to hinder us from sleeping, --were we to behold and hear these things, what pious heart would not bedeeply affected with sorrow!"

"It is good for those who live in fulness to cultivate tenderness ofheart, and to improve every opportunity of being acquainted with thehardships and fatigues of those who labor for their living, and thus tothink seriously with themselves: Am I influenced by true charity infixing all my demands? Have I no desire to support myself in expensivecustoms, because my acquaintances live in such customs?

"If a wealthy man, on serious reflection, finds a witness in his ownconscience that he indulges himself in some expensive habits, which mightbe omitted, consistently with the true design of living, and which, werehe to change places with those who occupy his estate, he would desire tobe discontinued by them, --whoever is thus awakened will necessarily findthe injunction binding, 'Do ye even so to them. ' Divine Love imposeth norigorous or unreasonable commands, but graciously points out the spiritof brotherhood and the way to happiness, in attaining which it isnecessary that we relinquish all that is selfish. 

"Our gracious Creator cares and provides for all His creatures; Histender mercies are over all His works, and so far as true love influencesour minds, so far we become interested in His workmanship, and feel adesire to make use of every opportunity to lessen the distresses of theafflicted, and to increase the happiness of the creation. Here we have aprospect of one common interest from which our own is inseparable, sothat to turn all we possess into the channel of universal love becomesthe business of our lives. "

His liberality and freedom from "all narrowness as to sects and opinions"are manifest in the following passages:--

"Men who sincerely apply their minds to true virtue, and find an inwardsupport from above, by which all vicious inclinations are made subject;who love God sincerely, and prefer the real good of mankind universallyto their own private interest, --though these, through the strength ofeducation and tradition, may remain under some great speculative errors, it would be uncharitable to say that therefore God rejects them. Theknowledge and goodness of Him who creates, supports, and givesunderstanding to all men are superior to the various states andcircumstances of His creatures, which to us appear the most difficult. Idolatry indeed is wickedness; but it is the thing, not the name, whichis so. Real idolatry is to pay that adoration to a creature which isknown to be due only to the true God. 

"He who professeth to believe in one Almighty Creator, and in His SonJesus Christ, and is yet more intent on the honors, profits, andfriendships of the world than he is, in singleness of heart, to standfaithful to the Christian religion, is in the channel of idolatry; whilethe Gentile, who, notwithstanding some mistaken opinions, is establishedin the true principle of virtue, and humbly adores an Almighty Power, maybe of the number that fear God and work righteousness. "

Nowhere has what is called the "Labor Question, " which is now agitatingthe world, been discussed more wisely and with a broader humanity than inthese essays. His sympathies were with the poor man, yet the rich tooare his brethren, and he warns them in love and pity of the consequencesof luxury and oppression:--

"Every degree of luxury, every demand for money inconsistent with theDivine order, hath connection with unnecessary labors. "

"To treasure up wealth for another generation, by means of the immoderatelabor of those who in some measure depend upon us, is doing evil atpresent, without knowing that wealth thus gathered may not be applied toevil purposes when we are gone. To labor hard, or cause others to do so, that we may live conformably to customs which our Redeemerdiscountenanced by His example, and which are contrary to Divine order, is to manure a soil for propagating an evil seed in the earth. "

"When house is joined to house, and field laid to field, until there isno place, and the poor are thereby straitened, though this is done bybargain and purchase, yet so far as it stands distinguished fromuniversal love, so far that woe predicted by the prophet will accompanytheir proceedings. As He who first founded the earth was then the trueproprietor of it, so He still remains, and though He hath given it to thechildren of men, so that multitudes of people have had their sustenancefrom it while they continued here, yet He bath never alienated it, butHis right is as good as at first; nor can any apply the increase of theirpossessions contrary to universal love, nor dispose of lands in a waywhich they know tends to exalt some by oppressing others, without beingjustly chargeable with usurpation. "

It will not lessen the value of the foregoing extracts in the minds ofthe true-disciples of our Divine Lord, that they are manifestly notwritten to subserve the interests of a narrow sectarianism. They mighthave been penned by Fenelon in his time, or Robertson in ours, dealing asthey do with Christian practice, --the life of Christ manifesting itselfin purity and goodness, --rather than with the dogmas of theology. Theunderlying thought of all is simple obedience to the Divine word in thesoul. "Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into thekingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father in heaven. "In the preface to an English edition, published some years ago, it isintimated that objections had been raised to the Journal on the groundthat it had so little to say of doctrines and so much of duties. One mayeasily understand that this objection might have been forcibly felt bythe slave-holding religious professors of Woolman's day, and that it maystill be entertained by a class of persons who, like the Cabalists, attach a certain mystical significance to words, names, and titles, andwho in consequence question the piety which hesitates to flatter theDivine ear by "vain repetitions" and formal enumeration of sacredattributes, dignities, and offices. Every instinct of his tenderlysensitive nature shrank from the wordy irreverence of noisy profession. His very silence is significant: the husks of emptiness rustle in everywind; the full corn in the ear holds up its golden fruit noiselessly tothe Lord of the harvest. John Woolman's faith, like the Apostle's, ismanifested by his labors, standing not in words but in the demonstrationof the spirit, --a faith that works by love to the purifying of the heart. The entire outcome of this faith was love manifested in reverent waitingupon God, and in that untiring benevolence, that quiet but deepenthusiasm of humanity, which made his daily service to his fellow-creatures a hymn of praise to the common Father. 

However the intellect may criticise such a life, whatever defects it maypresent to the trained eyes of theological adepts, the heart has noquestions to ask, but at once owns and reveres it. Shall we regret thathe who had so entered into fellowship of suffering with the Divine One, walking with Him under the cross, and dying daily to self, gave to thefaith and hope that were in him this testimony of a life, rather than anyform of words, however sound? A true life is at once interpreter andproof of the gospel, and does more to establish its truth in the heartsof men than all the "Evidences" and "Bodies of Divinity" which haveperplexed the world with more doubts than they solved. Shall we ventureto account it a defect in his Christian character, that, under an abidingsense of the goodness and long-suffering of God, he wrought his work ingentleness and compassion, with the delicate tenderness which comes of adeep sympathy with the trials and weaknesses of our nature, neverallowing himself to indulge in heat or violence, persuading rather thanthreatening? Did he overestimate that immeasurable Love, themanifestation of which in his own heart so reached the hearts of others, revealing everywhere unsuspected fountains of feeling and secret longingsafter purity, as the rod of the diviner detects sweet, cool water-springsunder the parched surfaces of a thirsty land? And, looking at thepurity, wisdom, and sweetness of his life, who shall say that his faithin the teaching of the Holy Spirit--the interior guide and light--was amistaken one? Surely it was no illusion by which his feet were so guidedthat all who saw him felt that, like Enoch, he walked with God. "Withoutthe actual inspiration of the Spirit of Grace, the inward teacher andsoul of our souls, " says Fenelon, "we could neither do, will, nor believegood. We must silence every creature, we must silence ourselves also, tohear in a profound stillness of the soul this inexpressible voice ofChrist. The outward word of the gospel itself without this livingefficacious word within would be but an empty sound. " "Thou Lord, " saysAugustine in his Meditations, "communicatest thyself to all: thouteachest the heart without words; thou speakest to it without articulatesounds. "

 "However, I am sure that there is a common spirit that plays within us, and that is the Spirit of God. Whoever feels not the warm gale and gentle ventilation of this Spirit, I dare not say he lives; for truly without this to me there is no heat under the tropic, nor any light though I dwelt in the body of the sun. "--Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici. 

Never was this divine principle more fully tested than by John Wool man;and the result is seen in a life of such rare excellence that the worldis still better and richer for its sake, and the fragrance of it comesdown to us through a century, still sweet and precious. 

It will be noted throughout the Journal and essays that in his lifelongtestimony against wrong he never lost sight of the oneness of humanity, its common responsibility, its fellowship of suffering and communion ofsin. Few have ever had so profound a conviction of the truth of theApostle's declaration that no man liveth and no man dieth to himself. Sin was not to him an isolated fact, the responsibility of which beganand ended with the individual transgressor; he saw it as a part of a vastnetwork and entanglement, and traced the lines of influence convergingupon it in the underworld of causation. Hence the wrong and discordwhich pained him called out pity, rather than indignation. The firstinquiry which they awakened was addressed to his own conscience. How faram I in thought, word, custom, responsible for this? Have none of myfellow-creatures an equitable right to any part which is called mine?Have the gifts and possessions received by me from others been conveyedin a way free from all unrighteousness? "Through abiding in the law ofChrist, " he says, "we feel a tenderness towards our fellow-creatures, anda concern so to walk that our conduct may not be the means ofstrengthening them in error. " He constantly recurs to the importance ofa right example in those who profess to be led by the spirit of Christ, and who attempt to labor in His name for the benefit of their fellow-men. If such neglect or refuse themselves to act rightly, they can but"entangle the minds of others and draw a veil over the face ofrighteousness. " His eyes were anointed to see the common point ofdeparture from the Divine harmony, and that all the varied growths ofevil had their underlying root in human selfishness. He saw that everysin of the individual was shared in greater or less degree by all whoselives were opposed to the Divine order, and that pride, luxury, andavarice in one class gave motive and temptation to the grosser forms ofevil in another. How gentle, and yet how searching, are his rebukes ofself-complacent respectability, holding it responsible, in spite of allits decent seemings, for much of the depravity which it condemned withPharisaical harshness! In his Considerations on the True Harmony ofMankind be dwells with great earnestness upon the importance ofpossessing "the mind of Christ, " which removes from the heart the desireof superiority and worldly honors, incites attention to the DivineCounsellor, and awakens an ardent engagement to promote the happiness ofall. "This state, " he says, "in which every motion from the selfishspirit yieldeth to pure love, I may acknowledge with gratitude to theFather of Mercies, is often opened before me as a pearl to seek after. "

At times when I have felt true love open my heart towards my fellow-creatures, and have been engaged in weighty conversation in the cause ofrighteousness, the instructions I have received under these exercises inregard to the true use of the outward gifts of God have made deep andlasting impressions on my mind. I have beheld how the desire to providewealth and to uphold a delicate life has greviously entangled many, andhas been like a snare to their offspring; and though some have beenaffected with a sense of their difficulties, and have appeared desirousat times to be helped out of them, yet for want of abiding under thehumbling power of truth they have continued in these entanglements;expensive living in parents and children hath called for a large supply, and in answering this call the 'faces of the poor' have been ground away, and made thin through hard dealing. 

"There is balm; there is a physician! and oh what longings do I feel thatwe may embrace the means appointed for our healing; may know that removedwhich now ministers cause for the cries of many to ascend to Heavenagainst their oppressors; and that thus we may see the true harmonyrestored!--a restoration of that which was lost at Babel, and which willbe, as the prophet expresses it, 'the returning of a pure language!'"

It is easy to conceive how unwelcome this clear spiritual insight musthave been to the superficial professors of his time busy in tithing mint, anise, and cummin. There must have been something awful in the presenceof one endowed with the gift of looking through all the forms, shows, andpretensions of society, and detecting with certainty the germs of evilhidden beneath them; a man gentle and full of compassion, clothed in "theirresistible might of meekness, " and yet so wise in spiritualdiscernment, "Bearing a touchstone in his hand And testing all things in the land By his unerring spell. 

 "Quick births of transmutation smote The fair to foul, the foul to fair; Purple nor ermine did he spare, Nor scorn the dusty coat. "

In bringing to a close this paper, the preparation of which has been tome a labor of love, I am not unmindful of the wide difference between theappreciation of a pure and true life and the living of it, and am willingto own that in delineating a character of such moral and spiritualsymmetry I have felt something like rebuke from my own words. I havebeen awed and solemnized by the presence of a serene and beautiful spiritredeemed of the Lord from all selfishness, and I have been made thankfulfor the ability to recognize and the disposition to love him. I leavethe book with its readers. They may possibly make large deductions frommy estimate of the author; they may not see the importance of all hisself-denying testimonies; they may question some of his scruples, andsmile over passages of childlike simplicity; but I believe they will allagree in thanking me for introducing them to the Journal of John Woolman. 

AMESBURY, 20th 1st mo. , 1871. 

HAVERFORD COLLEGE. 

 Letter to President Thomas Chase, LL. D. 

 AMESBURY, MASS. , 9th mo. , 1884. 

THE Semi-Centennial of Haverford College is an event that no member ofthe Society of Friends can regard without deep interest. It would giveme great pleasure to be with you on the 27th inst. , but the years restheavily upon me, and I have scarcely health or strength for such ajourney. 

It was my privilege to visit Haverford in 1838, in "the day of smallbeginnings. " The promise of usefulness which it then gave has been morethan fulfilled. It has grown to be a great and well-establishedinstitution, and its influence in thorough education and moral traininghas been widely felt. If the high educational standard presented in thescholastic treatise of Barclay and the moral philosophy of Dymond hasbeen lowered or disowned by many who, still retaining the name ofQuakerism, have lost faith in the vital principle wherein precioustestimonials of practical righteousness have their root, and have goneback to a dead literalness, and to those materialistic ceremonials forleaving which our old confessors suffered bonds and death, Haverford, atleast, has been in a good degree faithful to the trust committed to it. 

Under circumstances of more than ordinary difficulty, it has endeavoredto maintain the Great Testimony. The spirit of its culture has not beena narrow one, nor could it be, if true to the broad and catholicprinciples of the eminent worthies who founded the State ofPennsylvania, Penn, Lloyd, Pastorius, Logan, and Story; men who weremasters of the scientific knowledge and culture of their age, hospitableto all truth, and open to all light, and who in some instancesanticipated the result of modern research and critical inquiry. 

It was Thomas Story, a minister of the Society of Friends, and member ofPenn's Council of State, who, while on a religious visit to England, wrote to James Logan that he had read on the stratified rocks ofScarborough, as from the finger of God, proofs of the immeasurable ageof our planet, and that the "days" of the letter of Scripture couldonly mean vast spaces of time. 

May Haverford emulate the example of these brave but reverent men, who, in investigating nature, never lost sight of the Divine Ideal, and who, to use the words of Fenelon, "Silenced themselves to hear in thestillness of their souls the inexpressible voice of Christ. " Holdingfast the mighty truth of the Divine Immanence, the Inward Light andWord, a Quaker college can have no occasion to renew the disastrousquarrel of religion with science. Against the sublime faith which shallyet dominate the world, skepticism has no power. No possibleinvestigation of natural facts; no searching criticism of letter andtradition can disturb it, for it has its witness in all human hearts. 

That Haverford may fully realize and improve its great opportunities asan approved seat of learning and the exponent of a Christian philosophywhich can never be superseded, which needs no change to fit it foruniversal acceptance, and which, overpassing the narrow limits of sect, is giving new life and hope to Christendom, and finding its witnesses inthe Hindu revivals of the Brahmo Somaj and the fervent utterances ofChunda Sen and Mozoomdar, is the earnest desire of thy friend. 

CRITICISM: EVANGELINE

 A review of Mr. Longfellow's poem. 

EUREKA! Here, then, we have it at last, --an American poem, with the lackof which British reviewers have so long reproached us. Selecting thesubject of all others best calculated for his purpose, --the expulsion ofthe French settlers of Acadie from their quiet and pleasant homes aroundthe Basin of Minas, one of the most sadly romantic passages in thehistory of the Colonies of the North, --the author has succeeded inpresenting a series of exquisite pictures of the striking and peculiarfeatures of life and nature in the New World. The range of thesedelineations extends from Nova Scotia on the northeast to the spurs ofthe Rocky Mountains on the west and the Gulf of Mexico on the south. Nothing can be added to his pictures of quiet farm-life in Acadie, theIndian summer of our northern latitudes, the scenery of the Ohio andMississippi Rivers, the bayous and cypress forests of the South, themocking-bird, the prairie, the Ozark hills, the Catholic missions, andthe wild Arabs of the West, roaming with the buffalo along the banks ofthe Nebraska. The hexameter measure he has chosen has the advantage of aprosaic freedom of expression, exceedingly well adapted to a descriptiveand narrative poem; yet we are constrained to think that the story ofEvangeline would have been quite as acceptable to the public taste had itbeen told in the poetic prose of the author's Hyperion. 

In reading it and admiring its strange melody we were not without fearsthat the success of Professor Longfellow in this novel experiment mightprove the occasion of calling out a host of awkward imitators, leading usover weary wastes of hexameters, enlivened neither by dew, rain, norfields of offering. 

Apart from its Americanism, the poem has merits of a higher and universalcharacter. It is not merely a work of art; the pulse of humanity throbswarmly through it. The portraits of Basil the blacksmith, the oldnotary, Benedict Bellefontaine, and good Father Felician, fairly glowwith life. The beautiful Evangeline, loving and faithful unto death, isa heroine worthy of any poet of the present century. 

The editor of the Boston Chronotype, in the course of an appreciativereview of this poem, urges with some force a single objection, which weare induced to notice, as it is one not unlikely to present itself to theminds of other readers:--

"We think Mr. Longfellow ought to have expressed a much deeperindignation at the base, knavish, and heartless conduct of the Englishand Colonial persecutors than he has done. He should have put far bolderand deeper tints in the picture of suffering. One great, if not thegreatest, end of poetry is rhadamanthine justice. The poet should meteout their deserts to all his heroes; honor to whom honor, and infamy towhom infamy, is due. 

"It is true that the wrong in this case is in a great degree fatheredupon our own Massachusetts; and it maybe said that it is afoul bird thatpollutes its own nest. We deny the applicability of the rather mustyproverb. All the worse. Of not a more contemptible vice is what iscalled American literature guilty than this of unmitigated self-laudation. If we persevere in it, the stock will become altogether toosmall for the business. It seems that no period of our history has beenexempt from materials for patriotic humiliation and national self-reproach; and surely the present epoch is laying in a large store of thatsort. Had our poets always told us the truth of ourselves, perhaps itwould now be otherwise. National self-flattery and concealment of faultsmust of course have their natural results. "

We must confess that we read the first part of Evangeline with somethingof the feeling so forcibly expressed by Professor Wright. The naturaland honest indignation with which, many years ago, we read for the firsttime that dark page of our Colonial history--the expulsion of the Frenchneutrals--was reawakened by the simple pathos of the poem; and we longedto find an adequate expression of it in the burning language of the poet. We marvelled that he who could so touch the heart by his description ofthe sad suffering of the Acadian peasants should have permitted theauthors of that suffering to escape without censure. The outburst of thestout Basil, in the church of Grand Pre, was, we are fain to acknowledge, a great relief to us. But, before reaching the close of the volume, wewere quite reconciled to the author's forbearance. The design of thepoem is manifestly incompatible with stern "rhadamanthine justice" andindignant denunciation of wrong. It is a simple story of quiet pastoralhappiness, of great sorrow and painful bereavement, and of the enduranceof a love which, hoping and seeking always, wanders evermore up and downthe wilderness of the world, baffled at every turn, yet still retainingfaith in God and in the object of its lifelong quest. It was no part ofthe writer's object to investigate the merits of the question at issuebetween the poor Acadians and their Puritan neighbors. Looking at thematerials before him with the eye of an artist simply, he has arrangedthem to suit his idea of the beautiful and pathetic, leaving to somefuture historian the duty of sitting in judgment upon the actors in theatrocious outrage which furnished them. With this we are content. Thepoem now has unity and sweetness which might have been destroyed byattempting to avenge the wrongs it so vividly depicts. It is a psalm oflove and forgiveness: the gentleness and peace of Christian meekness andforbearance breathe through it. Not a word of censure is directlyapplied to the marauding workers of the mighty sorrow which it describesjust as it would a calamity from the elements, --a visitation of God. Thereader, however, cannot fail to award justice to the wrong-doers. Theunresisting acquiescence of the Acadians only deepens his detestation ofthe cupidity and religious bigotry of their spoilers. Even in thelanguage of the good Father Felician, beseeching his flock to submit tothe strong hand which had been laid upon them, we see and feel themagnitude of the crime to be forgiven:--

 "Lo, where the crucified Christ from his cross is gazing upon you! See in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion! Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, O Father, forgive them! Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked assail us; Let us repeat it now, and say, O Father, forgive them!"

How does this simple prayer of the Acadians contrast with the "deepdamnation of their taking off!"

The true history of the Puritans of New England is yet to be written. Somewhere midway between the caricatures of the Church party and theself-laudations of their own writers the point may doubtless be foundfrom whence an impartial estimate of their character may be formed. Theyhad noble qualities: the firmness and energy which they displayed in thecolonization of New England must always command admiration. We would notrob them, were it in our power to do so, of one jot or tittle of theirrightful honor. But, with all the lights which we at present possess, wecannot allow their claim of saintship without some degree ofqualification. How they seemed to their Dutch neighbors at NewNetherlands, and their French ones at Nova Scotia, and to the poorIndians, hunted from their fisheries and game-grounds, we can very wellconjecture. It may be safely taken for granted that their gospel claimto the inheritance of the earth was not a little questionable to theCatholic fleeing for his life from their jurisdiction, to the banishedBaptist shaking off the dust of his feet against them, and to themartyred Quaker denouncing woe and judgment upon them from the steps ofthe gallows. Most of them were, beyond a doubt, pious and sincere; butwe are constrained to believe that among them were those who wore thelivery of heaven from purely selfish motives, in a community wherechurch-membership was an indispensable requisite, the only open sesamebefore which the doors of honor and distinction swung wide to needy orambitious aspirants. Mere adventurers, men of desperate fortunes, bankrupts in character and purse, contrived to make gain of godlinessunder the church and state government of New England, put on the austereexterior of sanctity, quoted Scripture, anathematized heretics, whippedQuakers, exterminated Indians, burned and spoiled the villages of theirCatholic neighbors, and hewed down their graven images and "houses ofRimmon. " It is curious to observe how a fierce religious zeal againstheathen and idolaters went hand in hand with the old Anglo-Saxon love ofland and plunder. Every crusade undertaken against the Papists of theFrench colonies had its Puritan Peter the Hermit to summon the saints tothe wars of the Lord. At the siege of Louisburg, ten years before theonslaught upon the Acadian settlers, one minister marched with theColonial troops, axe in hand, to hew down the images in the Frenchchurches; while another officiated in the double capacity of drummer andchaplain, --a "drum ecclesiastic, " as Hudibras has it. 

At the late celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims in New York, theorator of the day labored at great length to show that the charge ofintolerance, as urged against the colonists of New England, is unfoundedin fact. The banishment of the Catholics was very sagaciously passedover in silence, inasmuch as the Catholic Bishop of New York was one ofthe invited guests, and (hear it, shade of Cotton Mather!) one of theregular toasts was a compliment to the Pope. The expulsion of RogerWilliams was excused and partially justified; while the whipping, ear-cropping, tongue-boring, and hanging of the Quakers was defended, as theonly effectual method of dealing with such devil-driven heretics, asMather calls them. The orator, in the new-born zeal of his amateurPuritanism, stigmatizes the persecuted class as "fanatics and ranters, foaming forth their mad opinions;" compares them to the Mormons and thecrazy followers of Mathias; and cites an instance of a poor enthusiast, named Eccles, who, far gone in the "tailor's melancholy, " took it intohis head that he must enter into a steeple-house pulpit and stitchbreeches "in singing time, "--a circumstance, by the way, which took placein Old England, --as a justification of the atrocious laws of theMassachusetts Colony. We have not the slightest disposition to deny thefanaticism and folly of some few professed Quakers in that day; and hadthe Puritans treated them as the Pope did one of their number whom hefound crazily holding forth in the church of St. Peter, and consignedthem to the care of physicians as religious monomaniacs, no sane mancould have blamed them. Every sect, in its origin, and especially in itstime of persecution, has had its fanatics. The early Christians, if wemay credit the admissions of their own writers or attach the slightestcredence to the statements of pagan authors, were by no means exempt fromreproach and scandal in this respect. Were the Puritans themselves themen to cast stones at the Quakers and Baptists? Had they not, in theview at least of the Established Church, turned all England upside downwith their fanaticisms and extravagances of doctrine and conduct? Howlook they as depicted in the sermons of Dr. South, in the sarcastic pagesof Hudibras, and the coarse caricatures of the clerical wits of the timesof the second Charles? With their own backs scored and their earscropped for the crime of denying the divine authority of church and statein England, were they the men to whip Baptists and hang Quakers for doingthe same thing in Massachusetts?

Of all that is noble and true in the Puritan character we are sincereadmirers. The generous and self-denying apostleship of Eliot is, ofitself, a beautiful page in their history. The physical daring andhardihood with which, amidst the times of savage warfare, they laid thefoundations of mighty states, and subdued the rugged soil, and made thewilderness blossom; their steadfast adherence to their religiousprinciples, even when the Restoration had made apostasy easy andprofitable; and the vigilance and firmness with which, under allcircumstances, they held fast their chartered liberties and extorted newrights and privileges from the reluctant home government, --justly entitlethem to the grateful remembrance of a generation now reaping the fruitsof their toils and sacrifices. But, in expressing our gratitude to thefounders of New England, we should not forget what is due to truth andjustice; nor, for the sake of vindicating them from the charge of thatreligious intolerance which, at the time, they shared with nearly allChristendom, undertake to defend, in the light of the nineteenth century, opinions and practices hostile to the benignant spirit of the gospel andsubversive of the inherent rights of man. 

MIRTH AND MEDICINE

 A review of Poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

IF any of our readers (and at times we fear it is the case with all) needamusement and the wholesome alterative of a hearty laugh, we commendthem, not to Dr. Holmes the physician, but to Dr. Holmes the scholar, thewit, and the humorist; not to the scientific medical professor'sbarbarous Latin, but to his poetical prescriptions, given in choice oldSaxon. We have tried them, and are ready to give the Doctor certificatesof their efficacy. 

Looking at the matter from the point of theory only, we should say that aphysician could not be otherwise than melancholy. A merry doctor! Why, one might as well talk of a laughing death's-head, --the cachinnation of amonk's _memento mori_. This life of ours is sorrowful enough at its bestestate; the brightest phase of it is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast"of the future or the past. But it is the special vocation of the doctorto look only upon the shadow; to turn away from the house of feasting andgo down to that of mourning; to breathe day after day the atmosphere ofwretchedness; to grow familiar with suffering; to look upon humanitydisrobed of its pride and glory, robbed of all its fictitious ornaments, --weak, helpless, naked, --and undergoing the last fearful metempsychosisfrom its erect and godlike image, the living temple of an enshrineddivinity, to the loathsome clod and the inanimate dust. Of what ghastlysecrets of moral and physical disease is he the depositary! There is woebefore him and behind him; he is hand and glove with misery byprescription, --the ex officio gauger of the ills that flesh is heir to. He has no home, unless it be at the bedside of the querulous, thesplenetic, the sick, and the dying. He sits down to carve his turkey, and is summoned off to a post-mortem examination of another sort. Allthe diseases which Milton's imagination embodied in the lazar-house doghis footsteps and pluck at his doorbell. Hurrying from one place toanother at their beck, he knows nothing of the quiet comfort of the"sleek-headed men who sleep o' nights. " His wife, if he has one, has anundoubted right to advertise him as a deserter of "bed and board. " Hisideas of beauty, the imaginations of his brain, and the affections of hisheart are regulated and modified by the irrepressible associations of hisluckless profession. Woman as well as man is to him of the earth, earthy. He sees incipient disease where the uninitiated see onlydelicacy. A smile reminds him of his dental operations; a blushing cheekof his hectic patients; pensive melancholy is dyspepsia; sentimentalism, nervousness. Tell him of lovelorn hearts, of the "worm I' the bud, " ofthe mental impalement upon Cupid's arrow, like that of a giaour upon thespear of a janizary, and he can only think of lack of exercise, oftightlacing, and slippers in winter. Sheridan seems to have understoodall this, if we may judge from the lament of his Doctor, in St. Patrick's Day, over his deceased helpmate. "Poor dear Dolly, " says he. "I shall never see her like again; such an arm for a bandage! veins thatseemed to invite the lancet! Then her skin, --smooth and white as agallipot; her mouth as round and not larger than that of a penny vial;and her teeth, --none of your sturdy fixtures, --ache as they would, it wasonly a small pull, and out they came. I believe I have drawn half ascore of her dear pearls. (Weeps. ) But what avails her beauty? She hasgone, and left no little babe to hang like a label on papa's neck!"

So much for speculation and theory. In practice it is not so bad afterall. The grave-digger in Hamlet has his jokes and grim jests. We haveknown many a jovial sexton; and we have heard clergymen laugh heartily atsmall provocation close on the heel of a cool calculation that the greatmajority of their fellow-creatures were certain of going straight toperdition. Why, then, should not even the doctor have his fun? Nay, isit not his duty to be merry, by main force if necessary? Solomon, who, from his great knowledge of herbs, must have been no mean practitionerfor his day, tells us that "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine;"and universal experience has confirmed the truth of his maxim. Hence itis, doubtless, that we have so many anecdotes of facetious doctors, distributing their pills and jokes together, shaking at the same time thecontents of their vials and the sides of their patients. It is merelyprofessional, a trick of the practice, unquestionably, in most cases; butsometimes it is a "natural gift, " like that of the "bonesetters, " and"scrofula strokers, " and "cancer curers, " who carry on a sort of guerillawar with human maladies. Such we know to be the case with Dr. Holmes. He was born for the "laughter cure, " as certainly as Priessnitz was forthe "water cure, " and has been quite as successful in his way, while hisprescriptions are infinitely more agreeable. 

The volume now before us gives, in addition to the poems and lyricscontained in the two previous editions, some hundred or more pages of thelater productions of the author, in the sprightly vein, and marked by thebrilliant fancy and felicitous diction for which the former werenoteworthy. His longest and most elaborate poem, _Urania_, is perhapsthe best specimen of his powers. Its general tone is playful andhumorous; but there are passages of great tenderness and pathos. Witnessthe following, from a description of the city churchgoers. The wholecompass of our literature has few passages to equal its melody andbeauty. 

 "Down the chill street, which winds in gloomiest shade, What marks betray yon solitary maid? The cheek's red rose, that speaks of balmier air, The Celtic blackness of her braided hair; The gilded missal in her kerchief tied; Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side! Sister in toil, though born of colder skies, That left their azure in her downcast eyes, See pallid Margaret, Labor's patient child, Scarce weaned from home, a nursling of the wild, Where white Katahdin o'er the horizon shines, And broad Penobscot dashes through the pines; Still, as she hastes, her careful fingers hold The unfailing hymn-book in its cambric fold: Six days at Drudgery's heavy wheel she stands, The seventh sweet morning folds her weary hands. Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loved the poor. "

This is but one of many passages, showing that the author is capable ofmoving the heart as well as of tickling the fancy. There is no strainingfor effect; simple, natural thoughts are expressed in simple andperfectly transparent language. 

_Terpsichore_, read at an annual dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society atCambridge, sparkles throughout with keen wit, quaint conceits, and satireso good-natured that the subjects of it can enjoy it as heartily as theirneighbors. Witness this thrust at our German-English writers:--

 "Essays so dark, Champollion might despair To guess what mummy of a thought was there, Where our poor English, striped with foreign phrase, Looks like a zebra in a parson's chaise. "

Or this at our transcendental friends:--

 "Deluded infants! will they never know Some doubts must darken o'er the world below Though all the Platos of the nursery trail Their clouds of glory at the go-cart's tail?"

The lines _On Lending a Punch-Bowl_ are highly characteristic. Nobodybut Holmes could have conjured up so many rare fancies in connection withsuch a matter. Hear him:--

 "This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times, Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes; They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true, That dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new. 

 "A Spanish galleon brought the bar; so runs the ancient tale; 'T was hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail; And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail, He wiped his brow, and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale. 

 "'T was purchased by an English squire to please his loving dame, Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found, 'T was filled with candle spiced and hot and handed smoking round. 

 "But, changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan divine, Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine, But hated punch and prelacy; and so it was, perhaps, He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and schnaps. 

 "And then, of course, you know what's next, --it left the Dutchman's shore With those that in the Mayflower came, --a hundred souls and more, -- Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes, -- To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred loads. 

 "'T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing dim, When brave Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to the brim; The little Captain stood and stirred the posset with his sword, And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board. 

 "He poured the fiery Hollands in, --the man that never feared, -- He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard; And one by one the musketeers--the men that fought and prayed-- All drank as 't were their mother's milk, and not a man afraid. 

 "That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle flew, He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild halloo; And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith and kin, 'Run from the white man when you find he smells of Hollands gin!'"

In his _Nux Postcoenatica_ he gives us his reflections on being invitedto a dinner-party, where he was expected to "set the table in a roar" byreading funny verses. He submits it to the judgment and common sense ofthe importunate bearer of the invitation, that this dinner-going, ballad-making, mirth-provoking habit is not likely to benefit his reputation asa medical professor. 

 "Besides, my prospects. Don't you know that people won't employ A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a boy, And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot, As if Wisdom's oldpotato could not flourish at its root?

 "It's a very fine reflection, when you're etching out a smile On a copperplate of faces that would stretch into a mile. That, what with sneers from enemies and cheapening shrugs from friends, It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labor lends. "

There are, as might be expected, some commonplace pieces in the volume, --a few failures in the line of humor. The _Spectre Pig_, the _DorchesterGiant_, the _Height of the Ridiculous_, and one or two others might beomitted in the next edition without detriment. They would do well enoughfor an amateur humorist, but are scarcely worthy of one who stands at thehead of the profession. 

It was said of James Smith, of the Rejected Addresses, that "if he hadnot been a witty man, he would have been a great man. " Hood's humor anddrollery kept in the background the pathos and beauty of his soberproductions; and Dr. Holmes, we suspect, might have ranked higher among alarge class of readers than he now does had he never written his _Balladof the Oysterman_, his _Comet_, and his _September Gale_. Such lyrics as_La Grisette_, the _Puritan's Vision_, and that unique compound of humorand pathos, _The Last Leaf_; show that he possesses the power of touchingthe deeper chords of the heart and of calling forth tears as well assmiles. Who does not feel the power of this simple picture of the oldman in the last-mentioned poem?

 "But now he walks the streets, And he looks at all he meets Sad and wan, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, 'They are gone. '

 "The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb. "

Dr. Holmes has been likened to Thomas Hood; but there is little in commonbetween them save the power of combining fancy and sentiment withgrotesque drollery and humor. Hood, under all his whims and oddities, conceals the vehement intensity of a reformer. The iron of the world'swrongs had entered into his soul; there is an undertone of sorrow in hislyrics; his sarcasm, directed against oppression and bigotry, at timesbetrays the earnestness of one whose own withers have been wrung. Holmeswrites simply for the amusement of himself and his readers; he deals onlywith the vanity, the foibles, and the minor faults of mankind, goodnaturedly and almost sympathizingly suggesting excuses for the follywhich he tosses about on the horns of his ridicule. In this respect hediffers widely from his fellow-townsman, Russell Lowell, whose keen witand scathing sarcasm, in the famous Biglow Papers, and the notes ofParson Wilbur, strike at the great evils of society and deal with therank offences of church and state. Hosea Biglow, in his way, is asearnest a preacher as Habakkuk Mucklewrath or Obadiah Bind-their-kings-in-chains-and-their-nobles-in-fetters-of-iron. His verse smacks of theold Puritan flavor. Holmes has a gentler mission. His careless, genialhumor reminds us of James Smith in his _Rejected Addresses_ and of Horacein _London_. Long may he live to make broader the face of our care-ridden generation, and to realize for himself the truth of the wise man'sdeclaration that a "merry heart is a continual feast. "

FAME AND GLORY. 

Notice of an Address before the Literary Society of Amherst College, byCharles Sumner. 

THE learned and eloquent author of the pamphlet lying before us with theabove title belongs to a class, happily on the increase in our country, who venture to do homage to unpopular truths in defiance of the socialand political tyranny of opinion which has made so many of our statesmen, orators, and divines the mere playthings and shuttlecocks of popularimpulses for evil far oftener than for good. His first production, the_True Grandeur of Nations_, written for the anniversary of AmericanIndependence, was not more remarkable for its evidences of a highlycultivated taste and wide historical research than for its inculcation ofa high morality, --the demand for practical Christianity in nations aswell as individuals. It burned no incense under the nostrils of analready inflated and vain people. It gratified them by no rhetoricalfalsehoods about "the land of the free and the home of the brave. " Itdid not apostrophize military heroes, nor strut "red wat shod" over theplains of battle, nor call up, like another Ezekiel, from the valley ofvision the dry bones thereof. It uttered none of the precious scoundrelcant, so much in vogue after the annexation of Texas was determined upon, about the destiny of the United States to enter in and possess the landsof all whose destiny it is to live next us, and to plant everywhere the"peculiar institutions" of a peculiarly Christian and chosen people, thelandstealing propensity of whose progressive republicanism is declared tobe in accordance with the will and by the grace of God, and who, like theScotch freebooter, --

 "Pattering an Ave Mary When he rode on a border forray, "--

while trampling on the rights of a sister republic, and re-creatingslavery where that republic had abolished it, talk piously of "thedesigns of Providence" and the Anglo-Saxon instrumentalities thereof in"extending the area of freedom. " On the contrary, the author portrayedthe evils of war and proved its incompatibility with Christianity, --contrasting with its ghastly triumphs the mild victories of peace andlove. Our true mission, he taught, was not to act over in the New Worldthe barbarous game which has desolated the Old; but to offer to thenations of the earth, warring and discordant, oppressed and oppressing, the beautiful example of a free and happy people studying the thingswhich make for peace, --Democracy and Christianity walking hand in hand, blessing and being blessed. 

His next public effort, an Address before the Literary Society of hisAlma Mater, was in the same vein. He improved the occasion of the recentdeath of four distinguished members of that fraternity to delineate hisbeautiful ideal of the jurist, the scholar, the artist, and thephilanthropist, aided by the models furnished by the lives of such men asPickering, Story, Allston, and Channing. Here, also, he makes greatnessto consist of goodness: war and slavery and all their offspring of evilare surveyed in the light of the morality of the New Testament. He lookshopefully forward to the coming of that day when the sword shall devourno longer, when labor shall grind no longer in the prison-house, and thepeace and freedom of a realized and acted-out Christianity shalloverspread the earth, and the golden age predicted by the seers and poetsalike of Paganism and Christianity shall become a reality. 

The Address now before us, with the same general object in view, is moredirect and practical. We can scarcely conceive of a discourse betteradapted to prepare the young American, just issuing from his collegiateretirement, for the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. Ittreats the desire of fame and honor as one native to the human heart, felt to a certain extent by all as a part of our common being, --a motive, although by no means the most exalted, of human conduct; and the lessonit would inculcate is, that no true and permanent fame can be foundedexcept in labors which promote the happiness of mankind. To use thelanguage of Dr. South, "God is the fountain of honor; the conduit bywhich He conveys it to the sons of men are virtuous and generouspractices. " The author presents the beautiful examples of St. Pierre, Milton, Howard, and Clarkson, --men whose fame rests on the firmfoundation of goodness, --for the study and imitation of the youngcandidate for that true glory which belongs to those who live, not forthemselves, but for their race. "Neither present fame, nor war, norpower, nor wealth, nor knowledge alone shall secure an entrance to thetrue and noble Valhalla. There shall be gathered only those who havetoiled each in his vocation for the welfare of others. " "Justice andbenevolence are higher than knowledge and power It is by His goodnessthat God is most truly known; so also is the great man. When Moses saidto the Lord, Show me Thy glory, the Lord said, I will make all mygoodness pass before thee. "

We copy the closing paragraph of the Address, the inspiring sentiment ofwhich will find a response in all generous and hopeful hearts:--

"Let us reverse the very poles of the worship of past ages. Men havethus far bowed down before stocks, stones, insects, crocodiles, goldencalves, --graven images, often of cunning workmanship, wrought withPhidian skill, of ivory, of ebony, of marble, but all false gods. Letthem worship in future the true God, our Father, as He is in heaven andin the beneficent labors of His children on earth. Then farewell to thesiren song of a worldly ambition! Farewell to the vain desire of mereliterary success or oratorical display! Farewell to the distemperedlongings for office! Farewell to the dismal, blood-red phantom ofmartial renown! Fame and glory may then continue, as in times past, thereflection of public opinion; but of an opinion sure and steadfast, without change or fickleness, enlightened by those two sons of Christiantruth, --love to God and love to man. From the serene illumination ofthese duties all the forms of selfishness shall retreat like evil spiritsat the dawn of day. Then shall the happiness of the poor and lowly andthe education of the ignorant have uncounted friends. The cause of thosewho are in prison shall find fresh voices; the majesty of peace othervindicators; the sufferings of the slave new and gushing floods ofsympathy. Then, at last, shall the brotherhood of man stand confessed;ever filling the souls of all with a more generous life; ever promptingto deeds of beneficence; conquering the heathen prejudices of country, color, and race; guiding the judgment of the historian; animating theverse of the poet and the eloquence of the orator; ennobling humanthought and conduct; and inspiring those good works by which alone we mayattain to the heights of true glory. Good works! Such even now is theheavenly ladder on which angels are ascending and descending, while wearyhumanity, on pillows of storfe, slumbers heavily at its feet. "

We know how easy it is to sneer at such anticipations of a better futureas baseless and visionary. The shrewd but narrow-eyed man of the worldlaughs at the suggestion that there car: be any stronger motive thanselfishness, any higher morality than that of the broker's board. Theman who relies for salvation from the consequences of an evil and selfishlife upon the verbal orthodoxy of a creed presents the depravity andweakness of human nature as insuperable obstacles in the way of thegeneral amelioration of the condition of a world lying in wickedness. Hecounts it heretical and dangerous to act upon the supposition that thesame human nature which, in his own case and that of his associates, canconfront all perils, overcome all obstacles, and outstrip the whirlwindin the pursuit of gain, --which makes the strong elements its servants, taming and subjugating the very lightnings of heaven to work out its ownpurposes of self-aggrandizement, --must necessarily, and by an ordinationof Providence, become weak as water, when engaged in works of love andgoodwill, looking for the coming of a better day for humanity, with faithin the promises of the Gospel, and relying upon Him, who, in calling manto the great task-field of duty, has not mocked him with the mournfulnecessity of laboring in vain. We have been pained more than words canexpress to see young, generous hearts, yearning with strong desires toconsecrate themselves to the cause of their fellow-men, checked andchilled by the ridicule of worldly-wise conservatism, and the solemnrebukes of practical infidelity in the guise of a piety which professesto love the unseen Father, while disregarding the claims of His visiblechildren. Visionary! Were not the good St. Pierre, and Fenelon, andHoward, and Clarkson visionaries also?

What was John Woolman, to the wise and prudent of his day, but an amiableenthusiast? What, to those of our own, is such an angel of mercy asDorothea Dix? Who will not, in view of the labors of suchphilanthropists, adopt the language of Jonathan Edwards: "If these thingsbe enthusiasms and the fruits of a distempered brain, let my brain beevermore possessed with this happy distemper"?

It must, however, be confessed that there is a cant of philanthropy toogeneral and abstract for any practical purpose, --a morbidsentimentalism, --which contents itself with whining over real orimaginary present evil, and predicting a better state somewhere in thefuture, but really doing nothing to remove the one or hasten the comingof the other. To its view the present condition of things is all wrong;no green hillock or twig rises over the waste deluge; the heaven above isutterly dark and starless: yet, somehow, out of this darkness which maybe felt, the light is to burst forth miraculously; wrong, sin, pain, andsorrow are to be banished from the renovated world, and earth become avast epicurean garden or Mahometan heaven. 

 "The land, unploughed, shall yield her crop; Pure honey from the oak shall drop; The fountain shall run milk; The thistle shall the lily bear; And every bramble roses wear, And every worm make silk. "

 (Ben Jenson's Golden Age Restored. )

There are, in short, perfectionist reformers as well as religionists, whowait to see the salvation which it is the task of humanity itself to workout, and who look down from a region of ineffable self-complacence ontheir dusty and toiling brethren who are resolutely doing whatsoevertheir hands find to do for the removal of the evils around them. 

The emblem of practical Christianity is the Samaritan stooping over thewounded Jew. No fastidious hand can lift from the dust fallen humanityand bind up its unsightly gashes. Sentimental lamentation over evil andsuffering may be indulged in until it becomes a sort of melancholyluxury, like the "weeping for Thammuz" by the apostate daughters ofJerusalem. Our faith in a better day for the race is strong; but we feelquite sure it will come in spite of such abstract reformers, and not byreason of them. The evils which possess humanity are of a kind which gonot out by their delicate appliances. 

The author of the Address under consideration is not of this class. Hehas boldly, and at no small cost, grappled with the great social andpolitical wrong of our country, --chattel slavery. Looking, as we haveseen, hopefully to the future, he is nevertheless one of those who canrespond to the words of a true poet and true man:--

 "He is a coward who would borrow A charm against the present sorrow From the vague future's promise of delight As life's alarums nearer roll, The ancestral buckler calls, Self-clanging, from the walls In the high temple of the soul!"

 (James Russell Lowell. )

FANATICISM. 

THERE are occasionally deeds committed almost too horrible and revoltingfor publication. The tongue falters in giving them utterance; the pentrembles that records them. Such is the ghastly horror of a late tragedyin Edgecomb, in the State of Maine. A respectable and thriving citizenand his wife had been for some years very unprofitably engaged inbrooding over the mysteries of the Apocalypse, and in speculations uponthe personal coming of Christ and the temporal reign of the saints onearth, --a sort of Mahometan paradise, which has as little warrant inScripture as in reason. Their minds of necessity became unsettled; theymeditated self-destruction; and, as it appears by a paper left behind inthe handwriting of both, came to an agreement that the husband shouldfirst kill his wife and their four children, and then put an end to hisown existence. This was literally executed, --the miserable man strikingoff the heads of his wife and children with his axe, and then cutting hisown throat. 

Alas for man when he turns from the light of reason and from the simpleand clearly defined duties of the present life, and undertakes to pryinto the mysteries of the future, bewildering himself with uncertain andvague prophecies, Oriental imagery, and obscure Hebrew texts! Simple, cheerful faith in God as our great and good Father, and love of Hischildren as our brethren, acted out in all relations and duties, iscertainly best for this world, and we believe also the best preparationfor that to come. Once possessed by the falsity that God's design isthat man should be wretched and gloomy here in order to obtain rest andhappiness hereafter; that the mental agonies and bodily tortures of Hiscreatures are pleasant to Him; that, after bestowing upon us reason forour guidance, He makes it of no avail by interposing contradictoryrevelations and arbitrary commands, --there is nothing to prevent one of amelancholic and excitable temperament from excesses so horrible as almostto justify the old belief in demoniac obsession. 

Charles Brockden Brown, a writer whose merits have not yet beensufficiently acknowledged, has given a powerful and philosophicalanalysis of this morbid state of mind--this diseased conscientiousness, obeying the mad suggestions of a disordered brain as the injunctions ofDivinity--in his remarkable story of Wieland. The hero of this strangeand solemn romance, inheriting a melancholy and superstitious mentalconstitution, becomes in middle age the victim of a deep, and tranquilbecause deep, fanaticism. A demon in human form, perceiving his state ofmind, wantonly experiments upon it, deepening and intensifying it by afearful series of illusions of sight and sound. Tricks of jugglery andventriloquism seem to his feverish fancies miracles and omens--the eyeand the voice of the Almighty piercing the atmosphere of supernaturalmystery in which he has long dwelt. He believes that he is called uponto sacrifice the beloved wife of his bosom as a testimony of the entiresubjugation of his carnal reason and earthly affections to the Divinewill. In the entire range of English literature there is no morethrilling passage than that which describes the execution of this balefulsuggestion. The coloring of the picture is an intermingling of thelights of heaven and hell, --soft shades of tenderest pity and warm tintsof unextinguishable love contrasting with the terrible outlines of aninsane and cruel purpose, traced with the blood of murder. The mastersof the old Greek tragedy have scarcely exceeded the sublime horror ofthis scene from the American novelist. The murderer confronted with hisgentle and loving victim in her chamber; her anxious solicitude for hishealth and quiet; her affectionate caress of welcome; his own relentingsand natural shrinking from his dreadful purpose; and the terriblestrength which he supposes is lent him of Heaven, by which he puts downthe promptings and yearnings of his human heart, and is enabled toexecute the mandate of an inexorable Being, --are described with anintensity which almost stops the heart of the reader. When the deed isdone a frightful conflict of passions takes place, which can only be toldin the words of the author:--

"I lifted the corpse in my arms and laid it on the bed. I gazed upon itwith delight. Such was my elation that I even broke out into laughter. I clapped my hands, and exclaimed, 'It is done! My sacred duty isfulfilled! To that I have sacrificed, O God, Thy last and best gift, mywife!'

"For a while I thus soared above frailty. I imagined I had set myselfforever beyond the reach of selfishness. But my imaginations were false. This rapture quickly subsided. I looked again at my wife. My joyousebullitions vanished. I asked myself who it was whom I saw. Methoughtit could not be my Catharine; it could not be the woman who had lodgedfor years in my heart; who had slept nightly in my bosom; who had bornein her womb and fostered at her breast the beings who called me father;whom I had watched over with delight and cherished with a fondness evernew and perpetually growing. It could not be the same!

"The breath of heaven that sustained me was withdrawn, and I sunk intomere man. I leaped from the floor; I dashed my head against the wall; Iuttered screams of horror; I panted after torment and pain. Eternal fireand the bickerings of hell, compared with what I felt, were music and abed of roses. 

"I thank my God that this was transient; that He designed once more toraise me aloft. I thought upon what I had done as a sacrifice to duty, and was calm. My wife was dead; but I reflected that, although thissource of human consolation was closed, others were still open. If thetransports of the husband were no more, the feelings ofthe father had still scope for exercise. When remembrance of theirmother should excite too keen a pang, I would look upon my children andbe comforted. 

"While I revolved these things new warmth flowed in upon my heart. I waswrong. These feelings were the growth of selfishness. Of this I was notaware; and, to dispel the mist that obscured my perceptions, a new lightand a new mandate were necessary. 

"From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray which was shot into theroom. A voice spoke like that I had before heard: 'Thou hast done well;but all is not done--the sacrifice is incomplete--thy children must beoffered--they must perish with their mother!'"

The misguided man obeys the voice; his children are destroyed in theirbloom and innocent beauty. He is arrested, tried for murder, andacquitted as insane. The light breaks in upon him at last; he discoversthe imposture which has controlled him; and, made desperate by the fullconsciousness of his folly and crime, ends the terrible drama by suicide. 

Wieland is not a pleasant book. In one respect it resembles the moderntale of Wuthering Heights: it has great strength and power, but nobeauty. Unlike that, however, it has an important and salutary moral. Itis a warning to all who tamper with the mind and rashly experiment uponits religious element. As such, its perusal by the sectarian zealots ofall classes would perhaps be quite as profitable as much of their presentstudies. 

THE POETRY OF THE NORTH. 

THE Democratic Review not long since contained a singularly wild andspirited poem, entitled the Norseman's Ride, in which the writer appearsto have very happily blended the boldness and sublimity of the heathensaga with the grace and artistic skill of the literature of civilization. The poetry of the Northmen, like their lives, was bold, defiant, and fullof a rude, untamed energy. It was inspired by exhibitions of powerrather than of beauty. Its heroes were beastly revellers or cruel andferocious plunderers; its heroines unsexed hoidens, playing the ugliesttricks with their lovers, and repaying slights with bloody revenge, --verydangerous and unsatisfactory companions for any other than the fire-eating Vikings and redhanded, unwashed Berserkers. Significant of areligion which reverenced the strong rather than the good, and whichregarded as meritorious the unrestrained indulgence of the passions, itdelighted to sing the praises of some coarse debauch or pitilessslaughter. The voice of its scalds was often but the scream of thecarrion-bird, or the howl of the wolf, scenting human blood:--

 "Unlike to human sounds it came; Unmixed, unmelodized with breath; But grinding through some scrannel frame, Creaked from the bony lungs of Death. "

Its gods were brutal giant forces, patrons of war, robbery, and drunkenrevelry; its heaven a vast cloud-built ale-house, where ghostly warriorsdrank from the skulls of their victims; its hell a frozen horror ofdesolation and darkness, --all that the gloomy Northern imagination couldsuperadd to the repulsive and frightful features of arctic scenery:volcanoes spouting fire through craters rimmed with perpetual frost, boiling caldrons flinging their fierce jets high into the air, and hugejokuls, or ice-mountains, loosened and upheaved by volcanic agencies, crawling slowly seaward, like misshapen monsters endowed with life, --aregion of misery unutterable, to be avoided only by diligence in robberyand courage in murder. 

What a work had Christianity to perform upon such a people as theIcelanders, for instance, of the tenth century!--to substitute in rude, savage minds the idea of its benign and gentle Founder for that of theThor and Woden of Norse mythology; the forgiveness, charity, and humilityof the Gospel for the revenge, hatred, and pride inculcated by the Eddas. And is it not one of the strongest proofs of the divine life and power ofthat Gospel, that, under its influence, the hard and cruel Norse hearthas been so softened and humanized that at this moment one of the bestillustrations of the peaceful and gentle virtues which it inculcates isafforded by the descendants of the sea-kings and robbers of the middlecenturies? No one can read the accounts which such travellers as SirGeorge Mackenzie and Dr. Henderson have given us of the peacefuldisposition, social equality, hospitality, industry, intellectualcultivation, morality, and habitual piety of the Icelanders, without agrateful sense of the adaptation of Christianity to the wants of ourrace, and of its ability to purify, elevate, and transform the worstelements of human character. In Iceland Christianity has performed itswork of civilization, unobstructed by that commercial cupidity which hascaused nations more favored in respect to soil and climate to lapse intoan idolatry scarcely less debasing and cruel than that which preceded theintroduction of the Gospel. Trial by combat was abolished in 1001, andthe penalty of the imaginary crime of witchcraft was blotted from thestatutes of the island nearly half a century before it ceased to disgracethose of Great Britain. So entire has been the change wrought in thesanguinary and cruel Norse character that at the present day no Icelandercan be found who, for any reward, will undertake the office ofexecutioner. The scalds, who went forth to battle, cleaving the skullsof their enemies with the same skilful hands which struck the harp at thefeast, have given place to Christian bards and teachers, who, likeThorlakson, whom Dr. Henderson found toiling cheerfully with his belovedparishioners in the hay-harvest of the brief arctic summer, combine withthe vigorous diction and robust thought of their predecessors the warmand genial humanity of a religion of love and the graces and amenities ofa high civilization. 

But we have wandered somewhat aside from our purpose, which was simply tointroduce the following poem, which, in the boldness of its tone andvigor of language, reminds us of the Sword Chant, the Wooing Song, andother rhymed sagas of Motherwell. 

THE NORSEMAN'S RIDE. BY BAYARD TAYLOR. 

 The frosty fires of northern starlight Gleamed on the glittering snow, And through the forest's frozen branches The shrieking winds did blow; A floor of blue and icy marble Kept Ocean's pulses still, When, in the depths of dreary midnight, Opened the burial hill. 

 Then, while the low and creeping shudder

 Thrilled upward through the ground, The Norseman came, as armed for battle, In silence from his mound, -- He who was mourned in solemn sorrow By many a swordsman bold, And harps that wailed along the ocean, Struck by the scalds of old. 

 Sudden a swift and silver shadow Came up from out the gloom, -- A charger that, with hoof impatient, Stamped noiseless by the tomb. "Ha! Surtur, !* let me hear thy tramping, My fiery Northern steed, That, sounding through the stormy forest, Bade the bold Viking heed!"

 He mounted; like a northlight streaking The sky with flaming bars, They, on the winds so wildly shrieking, Shot up before the stars. "Is this thy mane, my fearless Surtur, That streams against my breast?

 (*The name of the Scandinavian god of fire. )

 Is this thy neck, that curve of moonlight Which Helva's hand caressed? "No misty breathing strains thy nostril; Thine eye shines blue and cold; Yet mounting up our airy pathway I see thy hoofs of gold. Not lighter o'er the springing rainbow Walhalla's gods repair Than we in sweeping journey over The bending bridge of air. 

 "Far, far around star-gleams are sparkling Amid the twilight space; And Earth, that lay so cold and darkling, Has veiled her dusky face. Are those the Normes that beckon onward As if to Odin's board, Where by the hands of warriors nightly The sparkling mead is poured?

 "'T is Skuld:* I her star-eye speaks the glory That wraps the mighty soul, When on its hinge of music opens The gateway of the pole; When Odin's warder leads the hero To banquets never o'er, And Freya's** glances fill the bosom With sweetness evermore. 

 "On! on! the northern lights are streaming In brightness like the morn, And pealing far amid the vastness I hear the gyallarhorn *** The heart of starry space is throbbing With songs of minstrels old; And now on high Walhalla's portal Gleam Surtur's hoofs of gold. "

* The Norne of the future. 

** Freya, the Northern goddess of love. 

*** The horn blown by the watchers on the rainbow, the bridge over whichthe gods pass in Northern mythology.