The First Rebellion in the Hebrew Commonwealth

Events often occur which make it the duty of the ministry of reconciliation to extend its instructions beyond the ordinary limits of Christian truth. There are great principles which lie at the basis of good government, and are so intimately inwoven with the best interests of the state, that they are the common inheritance of every citizen, and are in the keeping of every friend to his country. They are so inseparably allied to great religious and moral principles, that the pulpit has no right to stand aloof from them, and leave them to be defended only by statesmen, and upon principles of equity and expediency. To weigh them in a higher balance, to bring them to the ordeal which scrutinizes the relations of man to his Maker, cannot be considered as lying out of the sphere of Christianity.

In the following observations we shall make no ultimate appeal, but to the word of God; and if our remarks are submitted with freedom and firmness, it will be because we may appeal to such a standard, and because such is the state of our public affairs, that there is a special call in the providence of God for the ministers of religion to “magnify their office” by magnifying the supremacy of the laws.

There have been few such rulers as the great Jewish lawgiver; few such philosophers, few such patriots, few such men. Though not faultless, his character is the most pure and immaculate ever drawn, either by profane or sacred historians. Yet was there nothing in his acknowledged integrity and heroism, nor in his well-known devotement to the best interests of the people of which he was the leader — nothing in his divine legation, which shielded Mm from the slanderous imputation of arrogance and the love of power, or the government he so wisely administered from mutiny and rebellion. At the head of these restless and seditious spirits were Korah, Datha?i, and Abirarn; the most distinguished and turbulent of them, strange to say, belonging to the “house of Levi.” They were competitors for power with Moses and Aaron; they aimed to excite a popular tumult; they formed a regular conspiracy, which threatened to overturn the whole system, civil and religious, which God had established among them;

a conspiracy which aspired after lawless independence, and which was prepared to trample all law and order under their feet. Their sagacious prince saw, at a glance, the dark cloud that overshadowed the nation, and it affected him to solicitude, to humiliation, to prayer. He foresaw that the consequences might be disastrous, portending evil to the commonwealth of Israel; and he “fell upon his face” before God, to deprecate his wrath, and seek his direction in this new and unexpected crisis of his country’s history.

Such is the position of these American states at the present crisis. In the midst of prosperity such as is enjoyed by few, if any nations on the face of the earth, and with prospects such as never yet dawned even upon our own favored land; we are at the same time in the midst of those agitating scenes by which republics have been so often beguiled, misled, and betrayed into dissensions which were premonitory of their ruin. Our single object in the present chapter, is to pursue a course which may have the greatest tendency to make us familiar with our high duties as citizens; which may teach us to set a high value upon our institutions, and lead us to hand down to those who come after us a firm and compact government, wisely dispensed, not over a disunited, but a united people.

That we may lay the basis of our conclusions as deep and broad as those conclusions themselves, our first object shall be to advert to the general PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT AS THEY ARE REVEALED IN THE SACRED WRITINGS.

It would be not a little remarkable, if that God, who is the governor among the nations, had given no instructions in his word, in relation to the government of the nations themselves. Hence we find the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testaments by no means barren of instruction on this important article of human duty.

The first great truth which strikes us on opening the sacred volume, in relation to civil government is, that it is an institution which God approves, and of his own appointment. Look where we will over his vast universe, we see one class of existences subordinated to another class. Heaven itself is a governed community. Intelligences are there that are superior to other intelligences; some angelic minds that are superior to other angelic minds; “one star differing from another star in glory.” There are “thrones and dominions,” cherubim and seraphim, while one Lord God omnipotent rules over them all. The different physical and intellectual endowments of the human race, as well as their diverse condition in the world, all which are by the ordering of his wise providence, indicate that he designed them for a state of subordination. In a world like our own, fallen by its iniquity, and

where evil passions in every form are the ruling impulses of the human heart, government is essential to man’s existence; perfect anarchy would in a short time depopulate the earth.

The fact that the state of man everywhere is a state of subordination, speaks volumes in favor of the truth that his Maker designed him for such a state. The idea of subordination seems to be a sort of human instinct. The reason why the many are so easily governed by the few, is, that the necessity of government has so deep a lodgment in the human mind. For the most part, the superior power is on the side of the governed; the strongest hold which rulers have of their subjects is their own sense of the absolute necessity of government. It is this which gives power to law; and but for this, the many would be the governors, and the few the governed.

The only civil government of which the Scriptures give any account, was organized by God himself. They ascribe the civil institutions of the Hebrew State to the same divine Author, with its system of religion. Its basis was a true and proper theocracy; God himself was their immediate sovereign, and they his subjects; so that idolatry was a capital offence, and treason against the state.

Nowhere do we learn the qualifications of civil rulers, or the duties of their subjects, as we learn them from the Bible; nor should we find these instructions there, if civil government were not approved of God. The doctrine of the New Testament is, that “there is no power but of God;” that “the powers that be are ordained of God;” and that* human government is “the ordinance of God.” God announces in his word, “By me kings reign and princes decree justice.” All government, in all the varied social relations, rests upon the same basis; it is of divine right. If this principle is denied, there is no such thing as lawful government in the world.

It is altogether a mistaken, unscriptural, and mischievous notion, that civil government has its origin in nothing higher than human compact. The particular form of government is of men; it is at the option of men, and the result of conventional arrangement and social compact; while government is of God. It is a divine institution; God is its author; that it should exist is not merely the decision of his providence, but his commanded will. A sheriff, no less than a king, acts by a divine commission.

The next truth which the Scriptures reveal on this subject, instructs us what it is that constitutes civil government. What this is, is a vexed question, and one to which philosophical and ethical writers have given very different answers; but to which the Bible invariably gives but one. The Scriptures inculcate the doctrine, that that which constitutes the government is the government which is in actual possession of the civil authority; “the powers that be.” They may come into power by the election of the people, by hereditary right, by ancient usage, by statute, by the nomination of their predecessors, by last will and testament, or even by conquest and usurpation; but so long as they are thejpowers that be, they constitute the divinely authorized government. The authority of the government is decided by the Scriptures; what the government is, is decided by providence. It is no proof that the Scriptures justify fraud and usurpation, because they give authority to the usurper and deceiver. The reigning prince may have adopted the most unwarrantable means for coming into power; but when the power is once confirmed and established in his hands, whether the people have been constrained to acknowledge his supremacy by circumvention on his part, or bad policy on their own; by his force, or their disunion and effeminacy; the government he exercises is the real government. Men are born under allegiance to their existing rulers, as truly as they are born under the bonds of reverence and duty to their parents.

Nor is it difficult to perceive that the only safe principle for a conscientious man to adopt in order to acknowledge the supremacy of the laws, is that they are the laws of the existing government.

The perplexity would be endless, if, in order to secure his allegiance, he must institute and decide the inquiry, who possesses, dejare, the civil power. The fact is, that almost all the governments that now exist, or of which there remains any records in history, were originally founded in usurpation or conquest. There never was in any one family, any long, regular succession in the Roman empire; their line of princes was continually broken, either by private assassinations, or public rebellions. The Pretorian guards, on the death of one emperor, set up another; the legions in the East a second; those in Germany a third; and the sword alone could decide the contest. John the Baptist recognized the authority of an usurper, when he said to the soldiers of Augustus, “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages.” The Saviour recognized the authority of an usurper, when he said of the tribute money of Tiberius, “Render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar’s.” William the Norman came to the throne of England by violence and usurpation; yet the existing government was the authorized government. The house of Lancaster governed England for sixty years, and was expelled by the house of York; both were usurpers; while both the red rose and the white were the badges of power, so long as their supremacy was recognized. Usurpers also have often made the best of rulers; far better than many whose thrones they usurped. Augustus Caesar came to the throne by violence; yet because the Roman dominion had become too unwieldy to be controlled by the republic, it was a blessing to Rome that, with all his faults, he came to the throne. Perhaps there never was a greater usurper than Oliver Cromwell; yet England was never better governed, and never more respected abroad, than during the Commonwealth. “Promotion cometh neither from the north, nor from the south, nor from the west; but God is the judge, he setteth up one, and putteth down another.” God speaks to the people in his providence, when he thus sets kings upon their thrones; and his voice thus uttered is made law by the Bible. Even where usurpers are the worst of men and the worst of kings, they are God’s ministers; and not until a nation reaches the point which calls for revolution and the overthrow of the existing government, may they practically call in question its supremacy.

Another truth, equally obvious from the Bible is, that civil government is instituted for the good of the people. The proper sphere and appropriate business of civil government are the civil and social relations of men. Its benevolent objects are secured by such a policy as tends to increase the population, promote the wealth, the knowledge, the moral virtue, the internal enterprise and external influence and honor of the governed, and in every way secure their temporal rights, quietude and welfare. It secures its objects just in the measure in which it makes obedience to the laws, the highest interest of the subject. In other and better language, it is “a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to them that do well.” Rulers are “ministers of God” for this end, and are appointed for “this very thing.” Their legitimate object is, not to seek their own advantage, but the general welfare of the people. Sains populi, suprema lex. Civil society is composed of so many distinct parts, and combines so many local, and often conflicting interests, that it requires great wisdom and impartiality, and not unfrequently makes exacting demands upon the spirit of mutual concession and compromise, so to consult, compare, and combine these interests, as to produce the highest good of the whole. The doctrine, of which we hear not a little in our day, that government may legislate for a part, and not for the whole, is not the doctrine of the Bible. Its whole spirit and the entire system of truth it reveals is a standing rebuke to this political error. The basis of all legislation by general laws admits of partial evil for the general good; and this is the only practical legislation.

In wise governments, the civil power is so employed as to promote the objects of government; its laws are fit, and suited to wise ends, and are proper under the circumstances. They are the security of honest men; they guarantee property, peace, life; and are like “a city which hath gates and bars.” That is more than a doubtful patriotism which loses sight of the general good as its ultimate object, and only seeks it so far as it will have a favorable aspect upon local, partial, or individual interests. Every lover of his country will seek the general good in preference to his own, and when the occasion demands it, at the sacrifice of his own partialities. It may be a difficult task to administer civil government upon this high and disinterested principle; it is certainly no enviable task; for it has very little else than virtue’s own reward, and little other gratification than the indulgence, and expression, and results of a self-sacrificing spirit. There have been such rulers. Such was Moses; such was David; such was Sweden’s pride, Gustavus Adolphus; and such was America’s glory when her stripes and stars wafted far the fame of Washington. Such men and such governments are beautiful objects to look upon, and worthy to be remembered. Bad as the world is, it loves to cherish such sacred memories. “They are as the light of morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”

Still another principle is clearly revealed in the

Scriptures, nor is it one of minor consideration. It is, that the authority of civil government is binding on the conscience, and that obedience to it is no less a moral, titan a political duty. This would be a fair and logical deduction from the foregoing remarks; but we may not dismiss so important a thought without establishing and enforcing it. We affirm that the Bible establishes the supremacy of the laws; and that the subjects of every recognized government ought to obey them from a sense of moral obligation. The rights of the government and the duty of the subject rest on the same foundation — the revealed will of God. The government of law, so far as it regards its obligations on the conscience, is God’s government.

There are important reasons why submission to the authority of civil government should be strongly inculcated in the sacred Scriptures. God would have those who fear him and love his Son, the known friends of law and order. It were a blow Christianity could never survive, if it were a disloyal religion, and if those who profess and those who preach it were disorganizers. If there be those who

“Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war,”

they must not be Christian men. Christian men must be men of peace. Modern infidels, and heathen politicians in times of old, were wont to represent the disciples of Jesus as a seditious community, as the enemies of Caesar, and rebels against the laws of the land. Many a Christian has gone to the stake, and to the amphitheatre to be the sport of beasts of prey, because pagan disorganizes had the address to cast upon them the odium of their own seditions. Christianity, therefore, most distinctly disclaims all sympathy with the spirit and artifices of sedition in every form and degree. Wherever it exists, she condemns it. Whether found in the church, or out of it, she washes her hands of all this class of sins. She throws her guardianship alike around the emperor’s throne, the mandate of every court of law, the exactions of the custom-house, and the execution of the constable.

The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Christians at Rome, and then under the government of one of her most arbitrary and cruel tyrants, uses such language as the following: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers; whoso resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.” His example is one of the reasons why so many ministers of the gospel in this land have recently been employed in inculcating fidelity to the government, and the supremacy of the laws. It is a part of the gospel they preach, and a most important part of it; for where would be the unmolested opportunity of preaching that gospel,

14* and where its triumphs, without the protection of human laws? When the great Apostle of the Gentiles, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, was writing to a youthful minister of Christ, with a view of directing him how to conduct himself in his sacred office, instead of cautioning him not to intermeddle with political subjects, he solemnly requires him to admonish men everywhere of their duty to the civil power. He knew that the Christians would often be scandalized by the measures of the government; that they would be sufficiently sensitive to the wrongs they must suffer, and under strong temptations to a complaining, if not a mutinous spirit. And he knew that the inexperienced and warm-hearted young preacher to whom he was writing, would be far from being officious on so delicate a topic; and therefore he says to him, “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities, and powers, and to obey magistrates.” The language of the Bible to Christians everywhere is, “Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake; whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors.”

If you ask the question, do then the teachings of the Bible bind men to obey a wicked law, and one that requires them to violate the law of God? It were easy to give a categorical answer to this question, and quite as easy for that answer to be perverted or abused. The law of God is superior to all other laws. When the only alternative is to obey God, or man; conscience has but one course to pursue. Here every man’s conscience is supreme. His personal responsibility to God must forever remain untouched by human laws. “God alone is Lord of the conscience.”

But when we say these things, we desire to be explicitly understood. A man may be conscientious in doing wrong; for we are told in the Scriptures, that “there is a way that seemeth right to a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.” When we say that God alone is Lord of the conscience, we may not forget, that for this reason he is above conscience. Men may err; God alone cannot err, and therefore his word alone is the ultimate resort. No man may appeal from God’s word to conscience, or follow conscience in opposition to God’s word. It is not enough for men to think they are right; they must know they are so before they may confide in the dictates of conscience; nor can they know this without knowing the mind and will of God.

It is true that no immoral law may bind the conscience; but it is not true that every man must judge of the morality of the laws of the land, unless he judges right, and in accordance with the Bible. If he has the word of God in his hands, and his conscience misleads him, he is without excuse. Men may present false views to conscience; they may deceive conscience; and conscience is then no safe guide. There is no objection to men being “a law unto themselves,” so long as they are right; if they are wrong, conscience is no law. The more erroneous a man’s conscience is, and the more opposed to the Bible, and the more exacting and obdurate; the more fearfully does he sin.

We see no safe position to assume on this subject unless it be, that conscience is a safe guide only when it harmonizes with the word of God. Conscience, in India, requires the widow to burn herself on the funeral pile of her husband; in the South Sea Islands, it requires infanticide; in Africa, it requires that children destroy their aged parents. God himself pronounces a woe upon “them who call good evil, and evil good.” Conscience may pronounce a perverted judgment, because it does not submit itself to the law of God. This moral chronometer must be rectified by the sun, else is it a false guide.

It is, therefore, very doubtful ground for a man to occupy, in such a land as this, where all the tendencies are to anarchy, and none of them to absolutism, when he undertakes to balance the obligation between those revealed laws, one of which requires him to obey the moral law, and the other of which requires him to obey the civil government.

Facts in abundance teach us, that in political dissensions, conscience is a very pliable and changeful thing. It may be impossible for civil government to frame its laws so as to suit every maris conscience; this would make individual conscience the law of the land, and be subversive of all civil government. When, therefore, conscience sits in judgment upon the mandates of the civil law, and purchases her freedom at the expense of penalty, the case must be as clear and palpable as that which drove Daniel to the den of lions, his three friends to the fiery furnace, and the apostles to the block. Even then, a conscientious man would be content to save his own single conscience harmless, without becoming an open revolter or the preacher of revolt. He would tread softly on such ground as this. All have not the same light; nor the same freedom from passion and prejudice; nor the same purity of motive and benevolence of spirit. If the government were to pass a law that no day should be regarded as sacred but the Lord’s-day; it would admit of a question whether the Jew or the Mohammedan would be justified in the sight of God in resisting the law. Men should sometimes distrust their own consciences, and have some respect to the conscience of enlightened and good men. The instances are exceedingly rare in which a man is justified in disregarding all other consciences except his own. If he has a doubt upon his mind, that doubt should preponderate in favor of the civil government; because God requires him to be a loyal subject. Cases of the kind which justify even his submission to penalty, can hardly occur under a Christian government, because there is a remedy in law itself.

We would be slow in endorsing the broad position, “that the action of civil governments within their appropriate jurisdiction is final and conclusive upon the citizen f for the obvious reason that civil governments even in their jurisdiction over the social relations, may require that which the moral law forbids, and forbid that which the moral law requires. If the state requires me to sin against God, I may not sin against him; nor may I sin against him in violating the obligations of the second table of the law, any more than the first table. This is certainly a sound principle of morals; and so far as I am informed, a sound principle of law. So says Hooker in his “Ecclesiastical Polity;” “The public power of all societies, is above every soul contained in the same societies. And the principal use of that power is to give laws unto all that are under it; which laws in such case we must obey; unless there be reason showed which may necessarily enforce, that the law of reason, or God doth enjoin the contrary? Blackstone affirms, that “no human laws are of any validity if contrary to the laws of God. If any human law should allow, or enjoin us to commit murder, we are bound to transgress that human law.” The principle on which we are animadverting would be sound, if civil governments never interfered with the divine law in matters which relate to the social rights and duties of men.

A wicked law is not law / it is of the nature of law “to command what is right, and prohibit what is wrong.” Whether any particular law be, or be not contrary to the law of God can be legally decided only by that department of the government which has a constitutional right to decide this grave question; and while every man’s conscience must, in the last resort, reserve this question for its own adjudication, he will rarely act amiss, if he suspects his own conscience rather than the conscience of more able and better men, and the conscience of the law.

The question is a more serious one, whether it is not inconsistent with the instructions which the Bible gives on the subject of civil government, ever to revolutionize and overthrow the government itself? Yet to this question, it appears to us, but one answer can be given. The Bible nowhere advocates the doctrine of “passive obedience and non-resistance,” to such an extent, as to forbid all hope of relief from a wicked and tyrannical government, or to condemn the efforts of an enlightened and long-oppressed people in rising in their majesty to shake off a tyrannical yoke. The .principles to which we have referred, abundantly justify such an effort.

When the Scriptures instruct us, that civil government is of divine authority, they do not interdict any such modifications, or changes, or revolutions in the government as the mass of the people may demand. The fact that the Bible establishes the authority of a government when thus revolutionized, recognizes the right of revolution. There are rights of the people which are superior to the rights of their rulers, and which, when incorrigibly abused, justify the people in throwing themselves back upon those principles of self-preservation which underlie all human laws, which are written deep and indelibly on the fleshly tables of the human heart, and are inseparably entwined with the bone and sinew of an oppressed and injured community. When the Scriptures teach us, that that which constitutes the government is the actual and peaceable possession of the civil authority; they leave the way open for change when the exigency of the times calls for it, and the spirit of complaint and dissatisfaction is so rife among the people, that the government can no longer be endured. When the Scriptures also teach us that civil government is instituted /w the good of the people; they implicitly teach us, that where the good of the people is the sport of the government, there is redress somewhere; and if it cannot be found in the government, it must be found in the people themselves. And when the Scriptures teach us, that the authority of civil government is binding on the conscience; though they ’ do not suppose that the government is always thus lawfully exercised, yet do they inculcate this duty; and where there is no such exercise of it, they leave it to the sound discretion of an aggrieved people to submit to the penalty of the laws, or to effect a change in the government. There is a difference between the legitimate design of government and the abuse of power by wicked men. When a government becomes so corrupt as to lose sight of its legitimate ends; when it becomes a terror to the good and a praise to the bad; when it becomes so degenerate as even to require palpable disobedience to the laws of God; disobedience is not only lawful, but change, revolt, and revolution are lawful, if they are expedient. It is simply, in such a crisis, a question of expediency, whether the refusal to obey the government shall assume the form of revolution, or submission to penalty.

This, all agree in regarding as a nice and a dimcult question. If there is danger to be apprehended from any quarter, it is from a revolutionary spirit; as a general fact, there is no more criminal, or dangerous spirit that ever reigns in the human heart. It is the most desperate spirit, and like hurricane and fire, its consequences are waste and havoc. It is inflamed by success and reckless by despair. There is fearful responsibility in braving the fury of revolution, and the convulsion and overturning of established governments. There may be evils in human governments; there may be institutions and laws that are unwise and injurious, and such as every friend to God and man may wish to see abolished; while a rash and furious war upon them may perpetuate the evil, and entail, not only accumulated woes, but accumulated sins. Yet, full of responsibility as this question is, there are conjunctures and crises when it must be decided in favor of revolt and revolution. Just as there are instances in which disobedience to parents is a duty, are there instances in which it is a duty to revolt against the civil government. But it must not be forgotten, that as loyalty is the rule, and disloyalty the exception, nothing can be more baneful than an overweening solicitude to discover the exceptions.

The circumstances in which revolt is justifiable should be most clear, and the necessity absolute. The oppression must be grievous and intolerable; for nothing less than this would justify an undertaking which must necessarily be fraught with so many calamities. It must be general, because partial oppression oftentimes cannot be avoided in securing the greatest amount of good to the -nation. The evil, too, which is complained of, should be permanent, or have the prospect of permanency. A single passing cloud will not justify revolt. Men can afford to exercise a little patience, lest in rashly fleeing from the iron weapon, they rush on the bow of steel. There should also exist ufair and reasonable prospect, a well-founded expectation that the effort will be crowned with success. Although men of high and noble daring may consent to hazard their own fortunes and lives in resisting tyranny, they have no right to put in jeopardy the fortunes, and well-being, and lives of others; of their wives and children; of future generations, or of the welfare of their common country, in an enterprise which, at the best, may be very doubtful. When circumstances offer no hope, or slight hopes of success, it is their duty to suffer patiently and “bide their time.” And then, who is to be the judge of this existing condition, and this present emergency? Individuals? Most certainly not so. A section, or sections of the common country? They as little. It is only when the nation, as a man, are impressed with a sense of their wrongs, that these conditions exist; impressed, not by the instigations of the few, not by the intrigues of ambitious chieftains, but by that deep and abiding sense of right, that sense of oppression which exists in the popular mind which can no longer be resisted. It is when the nation are animated by one feeling, which intuitively pervades the masses; when, without a word, man knows the one thought of his fellow-man, and vows of fidelity and courage are superfluous and undemanded; then, and not till then, can a people decide, and decide as it were by intuition, that resistance to the powers that be is lawful. Then, and not till then, will they see, with that consciousness of strength and courage, and that confidence in a higher power, which are the surest pledges that their efforts will not be for naught, the sweet promise that through suffering and trial, they will work out a brighter day — a day they themselves indeed may never see, but which will dawn upon their children, and reflect its meridian brightness over unborn millions. It is often said, that rebellion, when successful, becomes revolution. But though mere success is no proof of the rectitude and goodness of the cause on which it lights; yet here it proves that it was but the consequences of those conjunctures, the result of that spirit, which alone could justify the attempt. Seditious leaders cannot judge of the expediency of resistance to human laws; neither can sectional interests; neither can the few pure patriots who lament the disorders of the times; neither can the profound jurist and statesman, who prove clear as the light of day, that the government oversteps its lawful authority. It must be the people; the national mind must think; the national heart must beat with one common thought, and hope, and consciousness of right. Then this true arbiter has spoken; “vox populi, vox Dei.” Yet would we be slow and cautious in inculcating these truths. It was a weighty remark of Fox, then the first nobleman in the English empire, that “the doctrine of resistance is a principle which we should wish kings never to forget, and their subjects seldom to remember.”

Such are some of the principles of civil government as revealed in the Scriptures. Our second object is, to direct our thoughts to some of the

MEANS BY WHICH THESE PRINCIPLES ARE BROUGHT INTO DISREPUTE AND LOSE THEIR INFLUENCE.

It is no easy matter to administer civil government wisely. Moses, accomplished statesman as he was, found it difficult to satisfy the nation of Israel, even though the authority under which he acted was of divine appointment, miraculously revealed, and the laws he published received the sanction of heavenly wisdom. Man is naturally prone to a lawless spirit; he is an insubordinate being; nor is it until after long discipline, and until the voice of reason and conscience gains a hearing above the clamors of passion, that he learns to be cheerfully subject to the laws of God or man. Some of the means by which the doctrines of the Bible on this subject are countervailed, are common to all ages of the world; and some of them have a more special character, and are relevant rather to a particular age. It may perhaps be the best service we can perform to take notice of those, some of which are peculiar to our own times.

One of these is, the spirit of religious fanaticism. We are not infidels. The world ha9 seen enough of the baleful influence of irreligious and infidel principles upon the civil government. Never do politicians give greater proof of their own ignorance and weakness, than in giving currency to the principles of infidelity and irreligion. Spread this poison throughout the body politic, and you diffuse an unhinging agency throughout all the social relations, and become the propagators of duplicity, intrigue, and disorganization. If the sinews of human government are ever weakened, it is by the subtle and powerful influence of irreligion and infidelity.

But there is an opposite extreme, which is just as ignorant, if not quite so irreligious. There is a so-called spirit of reform which partakes so largely of the radical principles of disorganization, that it is not only a misguided, but a wicked spirit, and is intent on doing right even at the expense of doing wrong. Political errors, especially when they find a lodgment in the minds of religious men, are near of kin to religious errors, and do immense mischief in the world. Hooker, in his “Ecclesiastical Polity,” alluding to such religionists, makes the remark, that such men “are not always the best in regard of society; the reason whereof is, that the law of men’s actions is one, if they be respected only as men; and another when they are considered as parts of a politic body. There are those whose betters among men would hardly be found, if they did not live amongst men, but in some wilderness by themselves.” Those who are resolved, at every hazard, to be controlled by their religious impulses, and who rush to their conclusions with fanatical recklessness, are very apt to be under the guidance of a perverted conscience and will. It is a mawkish sentimentalism, a transcendental benevolence that governs them, and not the sober truths of the Bible. Not a few of them are good men; but they are misguided men, and in their political sphere, unsafe men. Their opinions are more than questionable; nor is the danger small, that they will persist in them, even after they are secretly convinced that they are erroneous. Their very impulsiveness, their combinations, and their infuriate zeal cast a suspicion upon their judgment and their motives. Men, who, like Saul of Tarsus, are “mad” in doing, what they “verily think,” is right, scarcely ever fail to do wrong. When I see those who are so hurried on by conscience, as to “breathe out threatenings and slaughter,” I cannot suppress the thought that they would do well to sit in severer judgment upon their own motives, and catechize the spirit that governs them somewhat more closely.

There is no small amount of sophistical reasoning on the subject of civil government, and of the duty of its citizens to the laws, and more especially among religious men. The discussions in Parliament, during the Commonwealth under Cromwell, furnish an instructive lesson to Christian statesmen. The error of not a few in our own day lies in reasoning correctly from false principles. They assume that it is the province of human governments to adopt a.pe?fect system of legislation, and one which tolerates nothing that is ‘wrong. Yet is there no more unsound principle than this, if it once be employed in human legislation. Who does not see that it transforms the state into the charcli, and invests it with inquisitorial power?

The sacred writers were too well instructed to overlook the distinction between moral and civil laws. Moral law lays down rules that are fit for individual conscience; civil law contemplates men as formed into communities, and existing in a social state. Moral law requires absolute perfection; it tolerates no evil, either in the heart, or in the life. Civil law must fall far short of this, or defeat its own ends. Moral law makes men responsible to God; civil law makes them responsible to the state. The civil law of the Jews, prescribed by God himself, tolerated usages that were inconsistent with the moral law, because it is not the province of any civil code to establish a sinless community. If this were the object of civil government, it would need no other system of legislation than the ten commandments. We do not say that human laws may ever require men to do wrong; but it does not follow that they ought to require them to do all that is right. Nor does it follow that they ought to forbid all that is wrong; for it is impossible for them to reach all that is wrong; human justice can never be so active, vigilant, and cautious. Such laws could never be enforced. In such a system of legislation, the intention would be the corpus delecti, and this would have to be tried by fallible judges, liable to partiality and corruption, and by means of witnesses perhaps still more liable.

In a civil government, men and times must be taken as they are, and governed by laws as wise and good as a sound policy can execute. Unexecuted laws are the bane of government, and never-failing badge of its weakness. Human governments may legislate too much, as well as too

VOL. II. 15 little. Laws that are wise and good, not onlyhave a good, but an attainable object, and one of sufficient importance to demand their enactment. When human governments attempt to do more than this, they are Utopian, and attempt what is impracticable. I can imagine no state of anarchy, or contention worse than that which would be produced by civil laws attempting to enforce all that is right, and to prohibit all that is wrong. It is fanaticism to dream of such legislation, and not the religion of the Bible. I am afraid of this wild and fanatical spirit, not only because it thus loses sight of the necessity of adapting the institutions of civil government to the character and condition of the people, but because it gives such currency to a lawless state of mind. “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” The step from loyalty to disloyalty crosses an extent of ground beneath which may be a thousand volcanic fires. We say to those who are governed by such a spirit, “If the Lord have stirred thee up against us, let him accept an offering; but if they be the children of men, cursed be they before the Lord!”

I speak earnestly on this topic, because the evil on which I am animadverting is a growing evil. They are not the leaders of revolt merely, who have drank deep into this spirit; the cup goes round insidiously among the people. Nor are they a few visionary theorists in the religious world, nor a few ambitious politicians, that can overturn our institutions. If this fearful catastrophe is ever effected, it will be effected by the people. If the public mind can become so perverted and debauched as to be convinced that it is under religious obligations to set the laws of the land at defiance, faction and discord will have triumphed, and triumphed under the badge of sanctity. Yet will we hope for better things. The character of the people is, we trust, under the divine favor, some security against this foul contagion. We are not yet prepared to endorse the notion that the sacred writers are behind the spirit of the age, nor to tread in the footsteps of those who profess to be better than the Bible.

The church of God has, for the most part, hitherto exerted a conservatory influence in this land. It is one of the hio;h commendations of Christianity, that it is no innovator except upon customs and usages which God’s word forbids; and it ought to be one of the high encomiums upon Christian men, that they are not agitators. There is no state of society, and no form of government to which the Christian religion is not adapted; and if it finds institutions in any community that are unwise and inconsistent with the benevolent spirit it inculcates, it has a more silent and effective method of reform, than furious denunciation, violent convulsion, and resistance to the laws of the land.

Another of the means by which these salutary principles are in danger of losing their efficacy, is a perversion of the doctrine of human rights. It is of evil omen, in a country like this, when the principles which the Bible inculcates in relation to civil government are considered as an attack on the rights and liberties of the people. It is our pride and our happiness, that there are so many uninterrupted links between the administration of national power and its constituents, that so long as the government is protected, the rights of the people are safe. It is not merely by the enaction of wholesome laws, in its legislative capacity, that a nation is free; but in the fact, that the laws are an expression of the mind and will of the nation. Fruitful as our history is in lessons of political wisdom, it offers none more instructive than that whenever the voice of the law is heard it triumphs. There are no civil rights, which such a government does not secure.

True it is, that men have rights — natural, essential, and unalienable rights; but it is also true, that there are rights which they do not naturally possess, and which are given them by the laws of their social organization. The rights which they thus obtain from the protection of the laws, are more in number and not less valuable than those which they enjoy as the inheritance of their common humanity. No man has a right to be governed as he pleases to be governed; this is no government. There were days when “there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which seemed right in his own eyes.” He was his own governor; his own will, his passions, his caprice were his law. Is this the true doctrine of human rights; or does that doctrine involve those rights of the government, and those duties of subordination, which, with even-handed justice, protect alike the government and the governed? If the subject has his rights, the ruler has his. If the child, the wife, the ward, the slave have their rights, the parent, the husband, the guardian, and the master have theirs. This is God’s arrangement, as the God of nature, the God of providence, and the author of civil government. Where these reciprocal rights and their corellative obligations are understood, and protected from lawless encroachment, there is the government which the Bible recognizes; and where they are best protected, and best enforced, there is the best exemplification of the doctrine of human rights.

There is nothing more easily perverted than this doctrine; and nothing that indicates greater obtuseness of conscience, and greater obduracy of heart, than this perversion. The devil perverted it in Paradise. The revolting confederates of Korah perverted it, when they said to Moses and Aaron,” Ye take too much upon you; seeing all the congregation are holy, wherefore lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord V

This nation stands forth before the world as the intelligent and consistent advocate of the rights of the peojrie; but of what value are these rights where the spirit of liberty is recreant to law? We have no truer conceptions of human liberty than that it is that state of society where the laws are good, and the laws govern. A liberty that falls short of this, degenerates into despotism; a liberty that goes beyond it, terminates in wild misrule and lawless licentiousness.

Men may bluster and talk stoutly about liberty and the rights of man, and the galling chains of slavery, who, if they “lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty,” would famish surer pledges that they knew how to value the benign influences and true glory of good government. True liberty is a quiet and noiseless thing; it comes ilke the gentle dew of heaven. Noisy and turbulent men are not her truest friends. The rights of man are in better keeping than in the guardianship of those who, while they profess to be watching them with a vigilant eye, begin a crusade on the government and laws. I have not much confidence in these high-sounding pretensions,

“Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes.”

“Their words are softer than oil, yet are they drawn swords.” If the rights of man are exposed to danger, it is from that deficiency of public virtue, that want of real patriotism, that disregard of right, which expresses itself in disobedience to the laws. Such attacks as these are an assault upon the citadel; and if encouraged, we may “sing a requiem over the tomb of liberty.” Men know not the fury of the flame which they are thus kindling; nor how easily it is ignited; nor with what difficulty it is extinguished. When it has burnt the land over, and made it a desert, and they begin to mourn over their own infatuation, they have no authority left them to say, “Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further.” It is the fury of the mind, and not policy, or conscience. “Liberty with order,” the liberty of law, this is liberty. I rejoice that there is that in the American bosom which shrinks instinctively from every species of tyranny, and which is not deaf to “the sighing of the prisoner;” but I rejoice, too, that there is some love of right, — some remaining love of order.

Another means by which the principles of good government are depreciated is, the complaint of the dissatisfied and restive, that the laws themselves are arbitrary and unjust. After what we have said, it can scarcely be needful for us to affirm, that rulers are responsible to the people; and that it is the privilege of a free people, with the calmness, impartiality and dignity of men who know how to estimate the blessings of good government, to scrutinize the official conduct of their rulers. To limit, or circumscribe their prerogative of discussing the measures of the government and the equity of its laws, is but preliminary to the vilest bondage. Through all the channels by which the sense of the people may be made to act upon those who hold offices of power and trust, is it their duty to indicate their views, and make their influence distinctly felt. This is one of the checks upon the misapplication of power which they have in their own hand; while it is at the same time one of the flues by which the pent-up vapors of an excited populace, which might otherwise explode with the force of an earthquake, are let off. Yet is there great caution, and more practical wisdom than most men possess, in asserting this privilege; because, more especially in seasons of excitement, they so readily throw themselves back upon these primordial elements of their social organization, and are so prompt in remedying one evil, even though it be by the production of a greater.

It may not be forgotten, that those who form, and those who administer the laws, not only have a most arduous work to perform, but a most ungrateful, as well as responsible trust. They have need of wisdom, self-denial, and firmness, such as do not always fall to the lot of men. It is cause for gratitude to the God of nations, that amid all their local peculiarities and institutions, and rival interests, their laws are so wise. Had there not been great wisdom, experience, and integritybrought to their national counsels, as well as a spirit of mutual concession and compromise which do honor to the heart and head of noble men; many a fair land had been more often plunged in all the horrors of civil war. The kind providence of the Most High has watched over them in the dark hours of their history, and but for this watchful care, our world would have been a field of blood.

The best government in the world may be brought into disrepute, if the people allow their minds to be inflamed by the artful and busy suggestions of its foes. When Absalom was resolved to subvert the throne of David, his artifices, his wealth, and his eloquence were employed in finding fault with the men in power. He knew too well how to produce dissatisfaction in the minds of the people, and to make use of that class of troublesome men, enough of which are found in every community, in order to weaken the public confidence in the government. When the traitor Korah raised the mutiny against Moses and Aaron, he resorted to the same mean artifice of diffusing 15* a seditious spirit among the people. Multitudes rallied around their standard; and in the true spirit of anarchy, they never relinquished their purpose until the earth opened and swallowed them up. All history shows that, base and detestable as it is, there is a remarkable uniformity in this method of resistance to the powers that be. It is an easy thing for a single turbulent and talented man, who has access to the public mind through the press, or through the pulpit, or through excited assemblies of his fellow-citizens, and in seasons of alarm and apprehension, to impugn the character, the motives, the laws of civil rulers, and to ascribe real, or apprehended calamity to the abuse of power. The object of this clamor is obvious; it is to disunite the people, to detach their affections from the government, and prepare the way for those more radical agitations which spread discord and misery. The means does indeed seem inadequate to the end; but experience and observation teach us, that no weight of reason, and no power of worth and character can stop their course.

The friends of good government sometimes count too much on the good sense and intelligence of the people. When a distinguished debater in the British House of Lords, closed a noble speech in favor of an important measure of the government with the words, “My appeal is to the good sense of the people;” the earl of Chesterfield replied, “And I appeal to their nonsense.” It is not to the good sense of the people that demagogues make their appeal. Yet is the good sense of the American people the great hope of honest men. We have never seen the political horizon so dark, but light has broken in from this quarter. The people are sound, and for the most part incorruptible. And while they can never be very long blind to the great political truths we have been contemplating, because they cannot be long deceived in relation to their own interests; it is no impossible thing that they may open their eyes too late. Though the reign of delusion may be short, it may be long enough for the people, in their phrensy, to withdraw their confidence from wise and able statesmen, to forget their long-tried services, and marshal themselves under some leader of sedition, who has recklessness enough to embark in the storm; or who has not discernment enough to see the danger; or who, if he foresee the torrent of blood which may flow, steady to the purpose of his aggrandizement, calculate that his own paltry bark may float upon the deluge and settle upon high places. Thus it is that men sweep away the foundations of public safety and happiness, involve nations in confusion, and fill the world with consternation and distress. And when these threaten us, it is time for all classes of men to open their eyes upon their danger, and to be wide awake to the signs of the times.

In our concluding observations, we have more to say than time and opportunity would justify us in uttering, were we to give full expression to our views in relation to the present position of our public affairs. If we have the moral virtue to appreciate it, we have the best government in the world. The venerable framers of our federal compact were among the wisest of men, and accomplished as much as human wisdom could accomplish to combine and consolidate the various interests of all classes of men, and the various interests of the several states into one common and national interest. The different branches of the general government are so constituted as to operate as a check and control upon -each other in support of the government they are authorized to administer; while the rights of the several states, in the enaction of their own laws, the framing and support of their own institutions, and the general conduct of their own local and domestic interests, are left in their own hands, not only untouched, but to the full extent in which they do not interfere with the stipulations of the common confederacy, fortified by this confederacy, and by law entitled to the countenance and support of the united powers of the land.

Thus far in our history, the principles of this confederation have proved effective, not only in the preservation of individual liberty, state rights, and the authority of the general government, but in the unrivalled prosperity of the people. We are under better advantages than any other people have been, to appreciate the excellence of a republican government, when wisely and faithfully administered. We can testify by experience, to its mild and beneficent influence; to the occupation it. affords, and the habits of industry it encourages; to the excitement of intellect it calls for, and the development of genius and talent it promotes; to its elevation of spirit, its high-minded valor, and its augmenting resources; and though last, not least, to the religious freedom and privileges it secures. We have seen days of trial, and have survived them; stormy conflict, and have breasted the storm. Struggles there have been between the different branches of the government itself; struggles between some of the states, and between the state governments and the general government. There have also been dissensions among the people, and local complaints because local interests were disregarded; while these complaints and struggles have served to draw still more closely the bonds of our union, and exemplify the conservative power of the constitution under which we have so eminently prospered.

Yet have we reached a crisis of deep interest in the history of these states. The time has come which the friends of law and order have often predicted, in which all other distinctions ought to be lost sight of, and the people of this land arrange themselves as the friends, or the enemies of good government, in accordance with their honest purpose to support, or not to support the constitution. This is now the great test of every man’s political principles.

Those who administer the government have been called to their places of trust by the voice of the people. Whatever department they occupy, they are those in whom the majority of the nation is united, and to whom the nation has pledged its support. They have been called to this responsibility under circumstances which have put to the test both their moral and political integrity. And it has been a cheering spectacle, to see men venerable for age, talent, and character; men separated by rivers and mountains; men long distinguished by strong differences of political opinion, and accustomed to the arena of political chivalry; simultaneously and promptly throwing down their gloves before the common enemy, and putting their lances at rest in defence of the commonwealth. Never since the eventful day on which our independence of the mother country was declared, has it been more obvious than during the struggle of the year 1850, that sound wisdom and discretion, and sweet and heavenly charity, that guardian angel of our union, was hovering, though sometimes with fluttering wings, over our honored capitol. Those there were who would fain have sundered the bonds which hold together these confederated states, even at the sacrifice of that charter of our hopes which they had sworn to maintain; and those there were, the true representatives of the nation, who remembered the struggle and the compact of our fathers, and who, filled with apprehension for the still more bitter struggles of their children, proved themselves true to their oaths, true to the constitution, and true to the country. And God prospered the right.

It often happens, that in the administration of human governments, a choice of evils is all that is left to human wisdom. Of the statute of the last Congress, in regard to fugitive slaves, perhaps it does not become me to speak. It is the proper business of those “learned in the law,” to interpret its provisions, and decide on the question of its constitutionality. While I am free to confess that it is a law capable of great abuse in the hands of a partial and corrupt court, and what law in such hands is not capable of abuse, with the light I have, I do not perceive that it transcends the constitutional powers of the national legislature, nor am I now prepared to impugn its rectitude, or its wisdom, or to unite with those who defame its authors. Of this one thing I am convinced, that in the circumstances in which the providence of God placed them — with the constitution on the one hand, sanctioning and protecting the rights of the slave-holding states, and the reasonable demand of those states, that these rights should be protected; and on the other hand, the preservation of our union as a federal government, and the accession of new states, free from the evils of domestic slavery — they did as their fathers had done, the best that was left to human wisdom to accomplish; the best they could for the master and the slave, for the north and the south, for the country and for the world.

The morality of this law is supposed to depend upon the question, whether slavery is itself a sin. The subject does not thus present itself to my own mind. Let it be assumed, for the sake of the argument, that in every form and degree, slavery is a sin against God. Human laws allow of sin; they must allow it, or adopt a system of perfect legislation, and one that requires all that is right and forbids all that is wrong. But this is not the object, nor the proper business of human laws; this is the high prerogative of the divine law and the divine law alone; and the most that human laws can do, after having adopted those rules of conduct which a sound policy suggests, is to turn the transgressors of the divine law over to their responsibility to the Supreme Lawgiver. Why the sin of slavery should embarrass human legislation more than other sins, remains to be shown. What if there are states in this union which are allowed by law to open the theatre on the Lord’s-day; or which legalize gambling, or incest, or polygamy; has the general government any official and authoritative concern in this matter? Such laws are sin; but it does not belong to the general government to apply the remedy; it is an affair of their own; it lies between them and the great Lawgiver, nor will he hold them guiltless.

But ought we not in all fairness to look at the other part of the alternative? Is it so clear a truth that slavery is a sin f That it is a great political evil, few deny; that the relation between the master and the slave may be, and often is so abused, as to stamp the master’s conduct with sin and infamy, will not be called in question. But this does not prove that this relation, apart from all abuses, and oppression, and unkindness, is sinful. There was no sin in Abraham’s being a slaveholder; for if there had been, God would not have directed him to put the seal of his covenant upon his slaves, and train them up in his fear. There was no sin in the Jews being slaveholders; else would the moral law never have legislated on the subject of slavery.

It is not a little surprising to see, how the men “of one idea” will allow themselves to be carried away by their idol thought. It does not require much to make that man an infidel, who permits his confidence in the sacred Scriptures to be shaken by the fact that they nowhere condemn slavery as sinful. That they do not so regard it every fair mind must concede. There is no getting away from this fact,* if there were nothing that decides

* The Hebrew word which the Septuagint translates <5«Xo?, and the Greek cJsXos as used in the New Testament, most certainly mean slave. Schleusner says it denotes homo non liber, ncc sui juris. In Matthew viii. 9, xiii. 27 and 28, in 1 Cor. vii. 21 and 22, and xii. 13, it is used in opposition to the word free. For the classical use of it in this sense, see Schleusner’s Lexicon.

Bretschneider gives the same view. It is, says he, servus, qui sui juris non est, cui opponitur b c’XevSnpos. It is homo vilis c.onditionis — homo vilis — homo libertate voluntatis privatus — subjectus, ad obedientiam obstrictus.

Donnigan, who, according to Hallam in his History of the Literature of Europe, appears to have taken more pains, and to have enjoyed greater facilities in the preparation of his Lexicon, than most lexicographers, translates the word by our English word slave — slave as opposed to master. The Greek word which signifies to reduce to slavery; also the word which denotes slavery, the condition of a slave; also the word which denotes a little slave; also the word which denotes servitude, are all derived from the substantive <?t.X«s.

It is worthy of remark also, that when the Scriptures speak of servants who are not slaves, they designate them as hired servants — ^sflwroi — merccnarii. See Septuagint, Exod. xii. 45; Lev. xxii. 10 and 25, vi. 40, 50 and 53; Deut. xv. 8, and xxiv. 14. Rosenmuller defines this class of servants as those qui in domo Israelite pro mercede servunt. The words which denote voluntary service of different kinds are altogether different <5»loj; the larpcvi and the oikct were not always slaves.

Stephens, in his Thesaurus, puts the meaning of these words beyond doubt See these different words in locis. If Stephens be good authority, d*los ia it besides Paul’s Epistle to Philemon. Onesimus was a fugitive slave, who ran away from Colosse to Rome, at that time the capital of the world, and the resort for refugees from almost all lands. Here he became a converted man under the preaching of Paul. He had been an unprofitable servant, but was now profitable to Paul, and would be equally profitable to his master. Paul might have retained him, had he not been mindful that he was bound to “render every man his due.” Onesimus was still a slave, though he had become a Christian man. He was bound by that great law of Christianity, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward;” with “good- will doing service, knowing that whatsoever good thing a man doeth, the same shall receive of the Lord, whether bond or free” This Apostle was very far from teaching the doctrine that Christianity was inconsistent with slavery; and that from the hour in which a man becomes a Christian, his mission is to revolutionize the established principles of social order, and break down the distinctions between the master and the slave. He therefore required Onesimus to return to his rnasservux — the correllative of feBnoTm, and the opposite of elcn6cpos. Xenophon, Homer, Plutarch, Lucian, and other classical writers referred to, define it quasi vinctus vel vincta habens. Notwithstanding the bold assertions of a late writer in the New Englander, no scholar will deny that the Greek word Moj signifies a slave.

ter, and by repairing the evils of his former negligence, to conduct himself as a faithful servant. And Onesimus did so. He put into practice the precept,” Let every man abide in the same calling in which he was called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for it; for he that is called in the Lord, being a slave, is the Lord’s freeman?

Paul had a tender regard for this fugitive; he loved him as one of the favored few whom he had begotten in his bonds. He calls him his son; and on his part Onesimus appears to be no less attached to Paul as his spiritual father. Paul no doubt would like to have retained him near his own person, that he might have ministered to his wants during his tedious captivity, and stood by him at the end of his course. Indeed, he says as much, when he writes, “Whom I would have retained with me, that he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel.” But he saw that this would have been wrong. His circumstances were peculiar, and he determined to set an example to the church at Colosse, and to the church to the end of the world, what was the duty of a Christian man under such circumstances. What if he had retained him? What conclusions would have been drawn from this fact at the present day? And what conclusions ought we to draw from it, now we know that he did not retain him? Let not this lesson be lost upon us. Let this Epistle to Philemon “be read, and let those who read it tell us why it forms a part of the sacred volume. It inculcates no Christian doctrine; it has no object but to enforce the lesson that Christianity is nicely delicate in refraining from all interference in the rights of others. It seems to us, that one reason why God converted Onesimus was, that he might be thus sent back to his master a reformed man, and thus hand down the truth that Christianity, however much it may meliorate the condition of the slave, does not interfere with, but distinctly recognizes the rights of the master. It is perfectly obvious that Onesimus was the slave of Philemon*

* I am happy to confirm these views of the apostle Paul on the subject of slavery by a reference to the views of the late Dr. Buckmiii9ter, of Boston, who was one of the most accomplished scholars of his age. “What ideas,” says this elegant writer, “would the reader of this letter to Philemon form of the nature and spirit of Christianity? I think, that even from this short epistle, he would learn to reverence and love the cause which could form such men and dictate such sentiments. Here he would see the distinctions of master and slave, of the chief apostle and his meanest convert, vanishing in their common relation to Jesus and his gospel. Yet in remarkable coincidence with the doctrine of the apostle in other epistles, he would find that Christianity made no alterations in the civil or political relations of the converts, for Paul demands, not the emancipation of the slave, but on the contrary, returns him to the service of his master.” — Buckminster’s Sermons.

Our Methodist friends may also learn something on this subject from their deservedly esteemed champion, Dr. Adam Clarke. In his commentary upon the Epistle to Philemon, he says,” The Christian religion never cancels any civil relations. A slave, on being converted, and becoming a freeman of Christ, has no right to claim on that ground emancipation from the service of his master. Justice therefore required St. Paul to send

So general was slavery in Greece, that in the famous war of Platea there were but 5,000 Spartans and 35,000 slaves; while in the Spartan fleet, they composed the mass of the sailors. In Sparta there were 500,000 slaves to 150,000 freemen. At the time Paul wrote this epistle, Colosse was under the proconsulship of Rome. Slaves under the Roman empire were the most abject of slaves. Single masters in the Roman senate had as many as 10,000, and some as many as 20,000.

Paulus Emilius sold 150,000 prisoners of war as slaves, and Julius Csesar half a million. According to Mr. Gibbon, they comprised one half of the empire, and could not have been less than

back Onesimus to his master; and conscience obliged Onesimus to agree in the propriety of the measure.” The 16th verse of this epistle, says he, “refers to the right which Philemon had in Onesimus; he was a part of his property, and of his family, as a slave.” Again he says, “No servant should be taken, or retained from his own master, without his master’s consent.” The learned commentator’s counsel to his Methodist brethren in New York, at the close of the whole is, “Reader, go thou and do likewise.”

Dr. McKnight, in his literal translation and notes upon this epistle says,” Onesimus was Philemon’s slave. It belonged to Philemon to dispose of his own slave in the way he thought proper. Such was the apostle’s regard to justice and to the rights of mankind Christianity makes no alteration in men’s political state. Onesimus the slave did not become a freeman by embracing Christianity, but was still obliged to be Philemon’s slave forever, unless his master gave him his freedom.

Dr. Scott, in his commentary on this epistle, also speaks of Onesimus as “the slave of Philemon,” and his “legal property.”

Rosenmuller, in bis “Scholia in Epistolam ad Philemonem” says, “Onesimus certe scrvus Philemonis fait a domino suo profugus.” Remarking upon the 15th verse he says, “Ut eum retineas pcrpe luo servum bonum, tibiqueutilem.”

sixty millions. As a body of men they were considered dangerous to the state, and therefore their bondage was severe. They were the most unfortunate class of human beings, excluded from every privilege of society, and from almost every blessing of life. They were entirely at the disposal of their masters; torture them, maim them, or put them to death they might, and be amenable to no human laws. It is true that the changes which subsequently took place in the moral and political condition of the empire greatly meliorated the condition of the slave; and we find them employed in honorable occupations, and well cared for. But it was not until the time of the emperor Adrian that masters were deprived of the power they possessed over their slaves in the days of the Republic and the Caesars. This was long after Paul’s letter was addressed to Philemon.

Here, then, in view of the character of Roman and Grecian slavery, we have a fact of some consequence to our own times. No less a man than the apostle Paul, writing to a Christian minister in Phrygia, at a period of the Roman empire when slavery existed in its most exceptionable forms, sends bach this fugitive slave. He does not secrete him; he does not tell him to resist the public authorities; he does not “help him” to escape his bondage; he sends him bach. Modern abolitionists would have branded Paul as a “slavecatcher.” But there his character stands in its high and unsullied integrity and loveliness; not as the advocate and friend of Roman slavery, but as the friend of law and good government. He was far from attempting to revolutionize the established principles of social order. If there were evils in the Roman empire, the way in which he desired to remedy them was by preaching the gospel; by diffusing its spirit of love and gentleness, and leaving it to work the cure of evils, by the gradual melioration of them, which he knew it could not suddenly remove. And, therefore, he says not a word on the subject of slavery; utters not a hint of rebuke to Philemon for being a slaveholder; not one intimation about giving Onesimus his freedom; but simply a request that he would receive and treat him as a Christian man ought to treat a Christian slave. Would that Paul’s mantle had fallen on all the ministers of the gospel, ami that the example of this great Apostle might speak in these ends of the earth! Slavery, what is it? What has it been? what is it now? What is the slavery of the South compared with the tenfold more extensive and more absolute servitude of the myriads of the Russian despot? What is it, in mental, and moral, and physical degradation compared with the condition of operatives in the manufactories, and more especially in the coal mines of England? Let the British quarterlies answer these inquiries. The word slavery is not the evil; it is the amount of sin and suffering that it so often occasions which we deplore. And if this be the evil, the most judicious writers on the other side of the water instruct us, that the working classes of Great Britain “have as great an amount of toil, and as few bodily comforts to remunerate them as the slaves of ancient Egypt or Rome.”* Cruelty is always sinful; slavery not always. I do not see how any Christian can affirm that slavery under Christian influences is sinful. I have no desire to be a slaveholder; but if I were such a slaveholder as Job, Abraham, and Philemon, my conscience would not condemn me. If all masters were like these, where would be the sin of slavery?

There is great want of consideration on this subject in the minds of some who are otherwise wise and sober men. If slavery were’ a sin per se, we should never find, in the New Testament, so many counsels to masters and slaves in regard to their mutual obligations. A northern abolitionist could not go into the Southern states and address a promiscuous assembly of masters and slaves in such language as the following: — “Let as many slaves as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and

* McCosh on the Divine Government. VOL. II. — 16 his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful.” Yet the direction of the Bible is to all the ministers of the gospel in such circumstances, “These things teach and exhort.” And what if some abolitionist preacher had protested against this Christian doctrine; — and what if he had declared that slavery is a sin, and that he never could “teach and exhort such things V Let us listen to what the next sentence addresses to such a man.” If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, and perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds? Could the Apostle have furnished a more graphic description of modern abolitionists, than in these few words? Are not such instructions a marvel, if slavery is necessarily a sin? And what shall we say of the fugitive slave law, if such instructions as these are binding?

Very different views I know are taken of this subject. A religious paper in our own city, not ouy adopts, but justifies itself in adopting the following language: — “To the fugitives themselves.. this law is no law... and to resist it even unto death, is their right, and it may be their duty

To each individual fugitive, to every man

or woman, who, having escaped from bondage and tasted liberty, is in hourly peril of being seized and dragged back to slavery, we say, — Be fully prepared for your own defence. If to you death seems better than slavery, then refuse not to die — whether on the wayside, at your own threshold, or even as a felon upon the gallows. Defend your liberty and the liberty of your wife and children, as you would defend your life and theirs against the assassin. If you die thus, you die nobly, and your blood shall be the redemption of your race. Should you destroy the life of your assailant, you will pass into the custody of the criminal law... under an indictment for murder; but the verdict of the community, and the verdict of almost any jury will be, justifiable homicide in self-defence

Or should a different verdict be found,

and you be condemned to die as a murderer, your ignominious death shall be luminous with the halo of a martyr, and your sacrifice shall be for the deliverance of your people.”

It would seem that the laws of the land are literally to be resisted vi et armis. And what is worse, such teaching, if we have been rightly informed, comes from the lips of ministers of the gospel. We can scarcely believe our eyes when we read such things; and when we read them, we confess we feel somewhat as Moses felt when he fell vpo?i his face before God’s throne. Has it come to this, that any of Christ’s ministers are preaching the seditious doctrine of open resistance to the laws of the land, and resistance unto blood! Is it so, that the fugitive slave is religiously incited by the ambassadors of peace, to hill and slay, rather than submit to the laws of the land? Is this the religion of the Bible? Is this the teaching of Christ and his apostles? Is this the Christianity of the JVorth; and shall our Southern friends read such things and say, this is just what we are to look for from Northern. Christians? If so, it is no marvel they advocate a disunion of the states. “Who would bind his destiny with communities whose religious papers are the hot-beds of bloody revolt? It is well for this piratical navigator, that he does not show his colors, and that if he has ecclesiastical relations, he is careful to conceal them. “Stat nominis umbra.” It sometimes happens, that those who make light of their obligations to the Supreme Lawgiver, think more seriously of their responsibilities to their fellow-men.

For myself, I fear for the state of my country, and look to the God of my fathers for protection from this religious frenzy, and for the wisdom that is profitable to direct us. My countrymen, where are we? In what land do we live? By what sort of men are we surrounded? What genius of wickedness is this, which thus utters its bloody counsels from God’s altars? We look upon such teaching as subversive of all religious, moral, and social obligations. And our own single voice is but the utterance of millions, when we say that there is yet piety enough at the North, and wisdom, and patriotism, and fidelity to our social compact, to disavow such wicked and mischievous counsels.

In the memorable struggle for our national independence, it is well known that we were not, at first, a united people. There was slavery in the North, as well as in the South; but it was the policy of the North to eradicate their entire system of domestic servitude. In that event, the slave-holding states of the South would be exposed to unfriendly influences from the free states; and before the South would consent to unite heart and hand in organizing and establishing the government we now enjoy, they demanded of the North some honest pledge that their rights, as slave-holding states, should be protected by the proposed constitution. The North had been the great slavetrading community, and had filled the Southern market with slaves; they felt the force of the appeal from their Southern brethren; and justice to the South constrained them to consent to that constitutional protection of the slave-holding states, which lies at the basis of that subsequent legislation which now agitates the land. The compact was a bona fide compact; and without it, the independence of these United States is a fact that never would have been recorded in American history.

I demand then, in the name of common honesty, if we are not religiously bound by this compact? When our fathers pledged their fortunes, their lives and their sacred honor to support this constitution, they did well; in the sight of God, they did just as they ought to have done; and we do well to maintain the inheritance intact and unsullied. If I understand the teachings of the Bible, it enjoins upon all men the duty of being faithful to their engagements. It places “covenant breakers1’ in the same category with the boldest transgressors and the most mischievous of men. I shall be greatly disappointed in my views of the North, if the result does not bear me out in saying, on behalf of the great mass of Northern men, we are no truce-breakers. We are honest men, and the friends of good order. We are friends of the South, and make no war upon their domestic institutions. Whatever reasons we may have had for abolishing slavery among ourselves, their domestic institutions are not our business. We are not responsible for them, even if they are wrong; any more than we are responsible for other sins over which their own laws have the exclusive control. And if they are right, what have we to do, in interfering with them? There are unreasonable and misguided men among us; but the South does us great injustice, if it allows itself to believe that these men are the true indices of the Northern character. We do not disturb the rights of the South. To the free colored man we open our doors and our charities; but we would have it understood, that the North is not the place for fugitive slaves. Some of them are no doubt good citizens; but, prima facie, they are bad. They are a trouble to us; they corrupt our population, overload our prisons, are a nuisance to our almshouses, and had better be at home where they are better employed and better governed. Nor is it among the least of the benefits of the “Fugitive Slave Law,” that they are so rapidly disappearing from the midst of us. Most sincerely do we say to the South, keep your slaves at home; and forget not that there is One Being in the universe to whom you are responsible, and that you also have a Master in heaven.

We believe these to be the general, though not the unanimous, views of the North. That there should be a difference of opinion on the subject of slavery, does not surprise us; but that there should be men in the midst of us who adopt extensive measures to resist the government, throw the land into confusion, and separate what God has joined together by a common descent, a common language, common interests, common laws, a common honor, common intermarriages, a common system of Christian benevolence, common churches, common rivers and railroads, a solemn compact, sealed by the blood of our fathers, ratified by ourselves, smiled upon by the God of providence, and envied by the nations; cannot be accounted for except by the most unaccountable delusion. One of “the seven things which the Lord hateth,” is he that “soweth discord among brethren.” We deplore such divisive measures. If we are resolved to have no alliance with States where slavery is countenanced by one of the most sacred of earthly compacts; to show them no favor, and give their legitimate claims no quarter; if we mean to introduce the iron-bed of Procrustes, and make our own opinions, whether long or short, the rigid measure of theirs, then farewell to peace; “instruments of cruelty are in our habitations.”

Men talk about the division of the States; but Jwiv is this division to be effected? Have we at the North forgotten, that, on the question of slavery, the advantage lies with the South; that the Constitution recognizes the right of the master to the service of his slave; and that we ourselves are bound by this Constitution, so long as we form an integral part of the Union? Let this point be once settled, and we ourselves have no alternative but to abide by the Constitution, or secede from these confederated States. Why should the South secede? They utter no complaints against the Constitution; and only ask that its stipulations be faithfully observed. Are the North prepared to assume the responsibility of seceding? A few may be prepared for it; misguided and misguiding men — men who are prepared for anything; but is the North prepared for this? Millions of voices respond, God forbid that any such reckless and unhallowed hands should invade the sanctuary of our sacred Union! Never! No, never, till our fathers’ God abandons to national suicide! Every feeling of humanity echoes the response; the echo is reverberated by our solemn oaths; nor dare we appeal to a higher law, with this oath upon our lips. Conscience affords no refuge from this dilemma.

Besides, has the nation no conscience? and is not the law of the land an expression of the conscience of the nation? I would not resist the fugitive slave law, even if it scandalized my conscience. Much less should I be excused in stimulating others to resistance, unless my single conscience is more enlightened than the conscience of the wisest and the best. I may feel that I am right; yet other men have a conscience as well as myself. In matters of high national interest and safety, 16* my own conscience may not be clamorous in the presence of the higher conscience of the law and the nation. For myself, I would quit the land I love so well, as my fathers did theirs, rather than dwell where I could not conscientiously obey its laws, or be the instigator of rebellion. And when this unbending conscience of mine has sought a refuge in other lands, and finds that, go where it will, there are evils in civil government which it must wink at; it may, perhaps, seek out a land where there is no law, and where every man’s conscience is a law to himself. And if I shrink from this, then let me remain an obedient subject in a land where, by the testimony of my own conscience, the laws are wiser and more equitable than in any other country on the globe. What sane man would wish to live under a government in which the dictates of each man’s conscience formed each man’s law? There may be instances in which the conscience of the one or the few might be safely trusted; but if we look for this one or these few, shall we find them among those, who, upon the rights of private judgment and conscience, build the right of revolt and resistance to authority?

Conscience has its claims on the subject of slavery. It instructs us that we should be kind to the slave. We owe a debt of justice to injured Africa and her sons. We ought to meliorate their condition by every expedient of Christian love and wisdom. And this every Christian slaveholder does; nor are we always sensible to what an extent the slaves are thus cared for. My own conscience is pressed with the question, what can be ultimately done with the slaves of the South; but for myself, I have no such conscience as would permit me to give them their freedom. I have no hesitation in saying that it would be a sin at once to set them at liberty; they would be friendless and homeless, and wander as vagabonds in the earth. There is not so miserable a population in the land, as the fugitive slaves, supported by charity and exposed to crime. Could I liberate all the slaves in these states by a prayer, I could not offer that prayer in love to the slave. The way is not yet prepared for so wild a project as the immediate abolition of slavery. The British government made the experiment, and perhaps they did well to make it. But by its exacting apprenticeship it has been ruinous to the slave; and were the question now to be decided by the British parliament, in the opinion of the best judges in England and Scotland, the result would be very different from what it was before experience taught them that a sickly sympathy and an ill-judged philanthropy sometimes miss their aims.

Southern slaveholders have consciences as well as other men; and they ask us, to tell them what to do with their slaves? They are in earnest in this inquiry, and their language is, before you declaim so unqualifiedly against slave-holding as a

Sin, TELL US WHAT TO DO WITH OUR SLAVES. Are

you not bound to tell them, or” ever after to hold your peace V If you say, emancipate them; thousands are willing to do this; but greater thousands who control their laws forbid their emancipation. If you say, emancipate them in defiance of the laws; the consequence is, that they become the property of the law, and are sold to the highest bidder. If you say, send them to the free states, the free states will not receive them. Indiana will not. Ohio will not. When a colony of them, freed by their masters, was not long since sent to anti-slavery Ohio, that high-minded state would not give them a place for the soles of their feet. Yet these very people, in Congress and out of Congress, are all the while intent on the infuriate cry of emancipation. Is it to be wondered at, that such things as these are, to the last degree, galling to the South?

There is this one fact, on this subject, that may not be overlooked. The slave-holding states are unhappily placed in such a condition, that the slaves must be either slaves or masters: and that what under other circumstances seems to many persons unkind, falls within the bounds of self-preservation. This burden is laid upon the South, laid upon them in our early history, not by their own fault only, but by the cupidity of Northern slave-traders. Instead of being goaded to phrensy, as they are by Northern abolitionists, they have demands upon our sympathy.

There are men among us who are deliberately prepared to dissolve the union, rather than submit to the fugitive slave law; this doctrine they publicly avow and defend. But I entreat them to consider, if this would he kindness to the slave. Will the slaves become freemen by such a measure as this, or will they, by such a course, find one link of their bondage broken? What if such a disunion cannot be effected without a civil war, which is certainly no unreasonable supposition? Can an enlightened conscience be satisfied with this crusade against the union, if it should thus prove a crusade in favor of slavery? Again, I’ demand, what does the slave gain by it? What does conscience gain, what does a benevolent spirit toward the slave gain, by turning this land into a battle-field? Is this sympathy with the slave, or is this washing our hands of the sin of slavery? Where will the poor slaves be, when this work of death is accomplished? Nay, fear comes upon me, when I ask, what will they be about, while these instruments of death are preparing, and this work of death is going on? Abolitionists know well what they will be about, because they foresee and have predicted it. They will just he cutting the throats of their masters. Is this wise? Is conscience satisfied with this? We know it is sufficiently cruel to the master; but is it kind to the slave? After all the wrongs you have inflicted upon him, can you counsel him to become thus a wholesale murderer, and go to the judgment, and sink to perdition thus stained with blood?

If this is the dark side of the picture, look then at the fairer side. Suppose you are able to effect a peaceable disunion of the states, and consent to establish a distinct southern confederacy. Do you help the slave by this; or do you most effectively rivet his bondage, and perpetuate his chains? If by allowing such a confederacy, you could secure the abolition of slavery, so far as slavery is concerned, you would be the gainers by such disunion. This you do not expect thus to accomplish. You gain nothing by it; you even shut the door against those kind influences by which slavery has been so rapidly melting away in the Northern States.

Nay farther, if when these states are once divided, there should exist any international intercourse between them, do you not perceive that no treaty could be formed between these distinct confederations, except one which rests upon your acknowledgment of slave-holding rights, your engagement to protect them, and your obligation to some fugitive slave law, which would place you certainly in no better condition than you now are? There is no possible view, in which the slave population would be the gainers by a severance of the union. It is no easy matter for us to divine what it is that abolitionism is seeking after. Are its advocates governed by the law of love, and doing as they would be done by? To us it seems that it is high time for this mad spirit to take counsel of conscience. It would have a melancholy triumph in the severance of the union. It will have done its work then; and what it has been doing for a series of years — unwittingly have made the land of freedom the permanent house of bondage.

But it is not the bright side of the picture, that we are allowed to look at. Separate these states, peaceably, or not peaceably; and you draw an air line steeped in blood. You establish a thousand cities of refuge for the fugitive slave at the North, by which you augment the vigilance of his owners and his own bondage, and you commence a border warfare, where mutual hatred and recriminating, retaliating vengeance will perform their accursed work. Nay more; you lay open the different sections of the land to those foreign alliances which will embroil other nations, and invite the English lion and the Russian eagle to their prey.

There is one thought more which I may not suppress. “Charity seeketh not her own.” Christian love values the whole more than a part. The slave population of this land has cost us dear already. It has cost us time and money that ought to have been better employed; it has cost us divided counsels, mutual love and confidence, embittered feelings, and unsleeping jealousy. It may cost us the peace and prosperity of the fairest land on which the sun shines. In the name of that charity which “worketh no ill to his neighbor,” I ask, has it not cost us enough? Shall we sacrifice the harmony, the good faith, the honor of these states for the fugitive slave? To me it seems, this is asking too much. Our fathers lavished their blood and treasure to very little purpose, if the prosperity of these states is to be thus disturbed. I have yet to learn from the Bible that I must become a rebel against the government which protects me, and array myself with the enemies of my country, in order to protect a fugitive slave. So long as it is the law of the land, I will stand by the “Fugitive Slave Law.” I am willing to meet the issue even in the strongest case, and one which none but a blinded conscience and a sophistical reasoner would present, and say, I love my country, and love her laws more than I love the fugitive slave. He may have been unrighteously brought to our shores; but I am not responsible for that unrighteousness. He may be a sufferer; but I am not under obligations to relieve the suffering, if by so doing I produce a greater amount of suffering. For the crushed and deserted African, I would do and suffer much, if thereby I could make him better and more happy. But it is a deplorable fact, that the African race has for ages presented the most discouraging field for the efforts of the Christian church. True religion has never flourished among them, and they remain to this day almost entire strangers to Christianity. We have no doubt, that under the reign of Jesus Christ, they will be elevated to the true worship of God; nor can we suppress the hope, that the early curse pronounced upon them will be alleviated. But we cannot forget that there is a judicial harrier between them and the two other races. We are far from asserting that there is any inferiority of nature, or original deficiency of intellect in the posterity of Ham. There is no evidence of this. Had we ourselves, for three thousand years, been “the common spoil of the world,” and subjected to their degradation, I much doubt if we should have risen higher in intellect than they. We cheerfully give them this intellectual equality; but we cannot rescue them from the ancient curse. We have given them the gospel; nor have we any doubt that a brighter day will arise upon them.” Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God f but she shall be Ethiopia still. If I read the curse denounced against her rightly, and as all the commentators to whom I have had access read it, even in the millennium she will be the subordinate and serving race.* While, therefore, God’s purposes

* See all the Commentaries. I quote two passages from Adam Clark. Gen. ix. 25. “God had wise and powerful reasons to induce him to sentence the descendants of Ham to perpetual servitude.” Josh. ix. 23. “Did not the curse of Ham imply slavery and nothing else? Does it not sufficiently appear that nothing else than perpetual slavery is implied in the curse of the Gibeonites? Those of the Canaanitish race who would not renounce their idolatry were to be extirpated; those who did were to be preserved alive, on condition of their becoming tributary and serving as slaves.”

This view of the curse upon Canaan has been questioned, I believe, by none but infidels. Did God, it has been asked, employ this “drunken sinner,” just awakened from his wine, to utter the language of prophecy? To this scurrilous demand, I answer, God has employed wicked men to utter truths and predictions that have been fulfilled; he so employed Balak. But I reply again, Noah was no “drunken sinner.” See the commentators on the passage which speaks of his conduct. Listen to God’s testimony also, “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee I have seen righteous before me in this generation” The Apostle Paul speaks of him in the following language: — “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is of faith.”

The author has made this reference to the curse upon Ham, because it is God’s truth; the truth of that God who is himself the great and essential charity. That he is not mistaken in his views, he is led to believe from the perfect conformity of all the commentators to which he has access, in the views he has expressed. Henry, Scott, Clark, Patrick, Poole in his Synopsis, and Rosenmuller all give the same view of the passage. And is not the interpretation abundantly verified by historical facts? Men who, merely from their sympathy with the colored race, cast contempt upon this prediction, must be driven to infidelity. In the relations of this are not the rule of human conduct, and no excuse for human wickedness, we may not be heedless observers of his providence, nor rashly enter into a controversy with him at the peril of the descendants of Shem and Japheth. We may contend for the Ethiopian race, and contend for them till the land is covered with gore and dismembered; but there the record will stand, “God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.”

I have done. I may, perhaps, be criminated for this interference with a subject which seems to fall more directly within the province of the legislator and the statesman. Be it so. For humanity’s sake and for truth’s sake, I have spoken. Happy for the country, had there been no call for us to travel out of our appropriate sphere. While the men in England and the men from Scotland, who are always harping on the subject of American slavery, are playing a game in this country sufficiently obvious to reflecting men; and while they are encouraged in their seditious spirit by so many of the unreflecting among ourselves, we may

general truth to the question of American slavery, a bold writer in one of our public papers, says,” If this be Christianity, is it not a virtue to reject it? If these are the authentic expounders of the will and word of Christ, let us turn to Mohammed and the Gentiles. If it be the work of God to keep our brethren in chains, knowing no motive but the lash, no hope but death or escape, and then to replunge them into the hell they have fled from to us — then let us diligently k?iow and endeavor to do the will of the

DEVIL.”

not keep silence. I have lived long enough to see, that, on the great subject of republican liberty, the United States are at issue with the world; and that if, on this question of slavery, they can triumph over us as a divided people, they will have given the finishing stroke to civil and religious freedom. The crisis has come. The eyes of the world are upon us. If completed at all, the tragedy will be completed soon. These are not groundless fears. There is a deep current setting the wrong way; and men are not wanting who know well how to avail themselves of it, both for ecclesiastical and political ends. Our most important interests are at stake; and if we are undone, we shall deserve our chains. Our only hope is in Him, whose province it is to frustrate the destructive counsels of men, to change, or defeat their purposes, and not suffer any weapon formed against us to prosper.