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unflinching, uncompromising hearts of the Covenanters, who, amid rocks and hills, beneath the shadow of the mountain and the cope of heaven, lifted up their voices amid the silence of the night, and whose solemn hymns have rolled over the cairn and the heather in the holy Sabbath morning; chased and hunted like wolves (no very incorrect simile), they braved the iron storm, and in their simple worship and struggle for a broken covenant, adored the Being who received the praises of the "morning stars when they sang together for joy," did they not, while gazing into the "holy face of the universe" invest themselves with a bold rugged virtue, stern and lofty as the mountains that were as altars to them; and when the storms of winter were loosed, while the roll of mighty waters mingled with the deep song of the winds and the roar of the elements, did they not, with a rapt joy, hear their voices blending with the rejoicing anthems, feeling happy in their inmost souls, and "that it was good for them to be there ?"

This is no wild rhapsody-it is truth; history, the history of the Covenanters will show it. Enthusiasts they were; mad, if you please, they were-sanguinary and desperate; wrong in doctrine, wrong in discipline, wrong in practice; but we do not believe that they were hypocrites-that sin was spared them, even when their hands were red with the blood of an Archbishop. It will be said that we are fond of drawing pictures, of limning to ourself the proportions of a realized happiness-be it so; but it is one which is not abstracted from nature. We do so love to gaze upon the ideal, which some erringly suppose not paralleled by the real. We do see a deep-seated philosophy in religion, where others would find none, and we have a saving faith in the correctness of our views; we do say that our pictures are not overdrawn, and that we believe all we have said to be true.

Religion, then, is the fostering nurse of all that is grand or great; free, or enlightened by its influence, men have gone forth to far lands, with firm trusting hearts, to cultivate the rude tribes of the earth. The storm, the wreck, the savage, all these have been steadily and unmovedly gazed upon, but armed with a fortitude from our Father, the missionaries have prosecuted their design, in most part successfully. Nothing that threatened them could have turned away the GREAT HEARTS from their course; steadily looking forward to the "crown laid up for them, fighting the good fight," even "to the finishing of their course,' "they have spoken of God, and declared the glad tidings in the wilderness, the mountain, the rock, the pure worship of Christ. His word preached by them hath obliterated the impurities and profanities of Baal and Moloch, and the idolatrous groves. Another sketch, and we close our labour.

At the table is

sitting a mother, and a young boy is by her knee gazing into her face with an intense, mysterious feeling, that words cannot convey, though the heart may comprehend it. The lamp throws a softened light upon his beautiful open brow; her face-meek, pensive, but earnest, is bent fondly to his, while the holy words are falling from off her lips. She may not be fair,

"Nor beautiful; these words express her not;
But, oh her looks hath something excellent

That wants a name."

She is a mother, anxious for the safety of his young soul, ever on the watch to see that he deviate not from the path of his teacher. Her voice comes in low sweet tones to his ear, and the child drinks in the awful lessons, and forgets them never. Years may pass, perhaps in riot and debauchery, but the lessons of youth are not lost-the prayers of Monica are not forgotten, and that child is the glorious Augustine! What man is there who at times hath not felt the tones fresh on his memory-the now silent voices, breathing in accents mournful as the sigh of midnight winds, but sweetly and gratefully the familiar accents fill the eyes with tears, and make the heart tender.

Summer, with all its gorgeousness, its many sweet ministers, hath passed like the smiling hey-day of youth, the blushing roses have made the earth lovely, the valley hath been decked with its thousand blossoms, and the wild flower hath bloomed in the cleft of the else barren rock; the hum of the bee and of the insect hath filled the air with a sleeping music, and the breezes have passed from sunny lands: all hath been glorious and bright, like the tender blossoms of hope which we have watched from the bud, we have seen them bloom and bear fruit-all hath been beautiful, filled with the divinest of God's love: the trees, the fields, the mountain, river, stream, and ocean-the stars-all heaven and all earth.

We have passed on, and overtaken Autumn, who

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and found him putting on the brown mantle of maturity, which we may liken to a full developed manly intellect, and healthful vigour. Shall the life of the Christian not close into the deepening shadow of winter, smiling as he passes from the world iuto his grave at the prospects of the fresh and eternal spring, that, with odours ever blowing, shall be his lot beyond the tomb. Thus blessing God in his heart for the capacities wherewith he hath been gifted, and the deep appreciation of the unfathomable love shown to him, implanted in his heart, and with the

spiritual life intensely burning within; with faith, and hope, and humility, with confidence in God through the merits of Christ Jesus, and with an intense desire to enjoy the presence of God for ever; such a man will

"Approach his grave

Like one that wraps the mantle of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

ART. II. The Slave States of America. By J. S. BUCKINGHAM, Esq., Author of "America, Historical, Statistic, and Descriptive." 2 vols. 8vo. Fisher and Son. 1842.

2. Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade of the United States of North America; being replies to questions transmitted by the Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society for the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade throughout the World, presented to the general Anti-Slavery Convention held in London, June, 1840. By the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 1 vol. 8vo. London: Ward and Co. 1841.

IN October we considered, at some length, "The Moral and Social Condition of the Slave States of America," deferring the consideration of the most important characteristic of those States. to our present number, and we now fulfil our promise of devoting an article exclusively to AMERICAN SLAVERY.

Of all the faults and defects of these States, and we have seen they are many and great, slavery is the most infamous in its character, and the most pernicious in its results. Slavery, which has been the moral and political curse of every country where it has existed-acting as a cancer wherever it is admitted-which reduces one class of human beings to a condition repugnant to the essential and unalienable rights of man, and accustoms the other to the habitual violations of the most sacred laws of nature and of God. Yet this iniquitous and injurious system has been defended by its advocates on the ground of nature, policy, and religion!

On the score of nature, it has been urged that the negro is inferior to the white in the capacities of thought and feeling, and from these assumed premises it has been argued that he is born to be a slave. Now in the first place, it is at present impossible to determine whether the negro is inferior to the white in these respects, and in what degree. We cannot judge of his capabilities from the state of Africa, any more than we could

have judged of British capabilities from the state of Britain in the time of Cæsar. We cannot judge of his capabilities from the state of America, aware, as we are, of the debasing influence of slavery, as well as of the exertions made to restrain and degrade the intellect and the heart of the slave. We might just as well accuse a bird of being unable to fly, because we had never seen it except in a cage, or charge an individual with being unable to walk, because we saw his feet fastened in the stocks. Mr. Buckingham's opinion on this point is decidedly in favour of the equal capabilities of the two races.

But, secondly, even supposing the negroes are an inferior race, that is no reason why they should be reduced to slavery. Give one class, if you like, advantages beyond, or privileges over another-but allow individuals of that other the license of ascending, if they have the moral power. And here again we see the corrupting influence of a pure democracy: the American can conceive no distinction of ranks but that of freeman and slave; and in vindicating an imaginary right, supposed to belong to himself, he violates an actual right inherent to another.

We shall consider the question of policy hereafter. We must now allude to the plea of religion. It has been well said that "the devil can quote Scripture for his purpose;" and this truth has never been more clearly illustrated-no, not even when Satan himself tempted the Son of God-than in the case of those who have adduced the sanction of Scripture in defence or palliation of negro slavery.

The subject of the inherent unlawfulness of slavery is too long and too intricate for present discussion; and this arises, not from its being a question of doubtful issue, but because things are more difficult to prove the nearer we approach to those which are self-evident. Aristotle indeed defines an APXH, or principle, to be that which, being true, is incapable of proof. It is difficult to prove our own existence, not because we entertain any doubt upon the subject, but because we cannot call in the assistance of any fact or principle which requires less proof: whereas the practice of legitimate reasoners is to prove that which is not known by that which is known, that which is not certain by that which is certain, that which admits of doubt by that which admits of none.

And we shall dispose of the so called argument from Scripture, as far as our present article is concerned, by merely stating that the same line of reasoning, both as to the Old and New Testament, has been used with equal ingenuity, and equal force, in favour of polygamy. Whether the sturdy Republicans, who prate of freedom in a slave's embrace, justify their promis

VOL. XIII.-C

cous intercourse upon these grounds, we neither know nor care. The soul that sinneth it shall die: and the skill with which men defend their sins, and the sincerity which they exhibit in such defence, merely afford another example that the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things; or if anything else is to be inferred, it is, that God has given them over to a reprobate mind to believe a lie-that seeing, they should see and not perceive; and hearing, they might hear and not misunderstand; whilst they call good evil and evil good, and light darkness and darkness light, and love the darkness more than the light, because their deeds are evil.

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The feeling throughout the whole of the south is most universal and unremitting in its fierce and bigotted hatred of abolition and its advocates; the praises bestowed on their domestic institutions (the euphemism for the most atrocious variety ever known of the unnatural system of slavery) are as gross as they are false the press and the public are united in the cause; and the ministers of the Gospel, the messengers of the glad tidings of peace and salvation, eulogise the tyrant and condemn the slave. As to the press, the more democratic the sentiments of a journal are, the more vehement are its protestsagainst the unalienable rights of man-the more fulsome its commendations of this national disgrace. In fact, the whole country exhibits one vast anomaly, in exemplification of which we extract the following remarks:

"The four great public edifices that occupy the four respective corners of the point of intersection of the streets named (Meeting and Broad-streets, at Charlestown), are the following, placed in the order of the dates of their erection. The oldest, and first built, is St. Michael's Church, established to preach the Gospel of freedom and peace; the next in order was the City-hall, built to form the seat of municipal government, for the protection of the rights of the citizens; the third was the Court-house, for the administration of the laws of the State; and the fourth, built in 1839, is the Guard-house, for the military, the chief use of which is to watch and crush any attempt at insurrection by the slaves! These four edifices, occupying the four corners of two intersecting streets, are within fifty or sixty feet of each other; but the first and last seemed to me to stand in painful contrast, as to objects -especially when, every evening, the bell of the Christian Church is tolled, at nine o'clock, to warn all slaves and coloured people to repair to their homes, as it is not permitted to them, without a pass, to be in the streets after a fixed hour at night. When the church bell has ceased its office of warning, the drums of the military guard-house take up the strain, and continue the admonition for a quarter of an hour longer. The last time I passed the guard-house, and saw the negroes hurrying to their masters' houses from the different quarters of the town, the drums and fifes were playing the air of

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