himself in part from the cognizance of the external senses, and spoke by prophets and righteous men. Now the eye

sees him not, the ear hears him not, and no external manifestations of his presence are given; yet the eye of the mind has been so far purified, the ear of the understanding may be so intently fixed, that his presence cannot be doubted, nor his commissions refused. There are now no prophets among men, but there are still delegates from the Most High; and every man who accepts his revelation is bound to announce his judgments, and to assert his will; and the more distinct the revelation, the more awful should be the announcement, the more steadfast the assertion. He was pleased himself to release the Israelites from their captivity to Pharaoh; and if he has now appointed us to lead out our brethren from a worse than Egyptian bondage to a state of higher privilege than any under the old dispensation, we must not protract the work; for the time has been already too long delayed. Their bodily slavery at an end, a long and difficult task has to be accomplished in teaching them to enjoy their freedom, and in making them understand to whose mercy they owe it, and to whose gentle yoke they ought to offer themselves.

These things cannot be taught them while they remain in their present state. We who are free know nothing of a morality or a religion of which freedom is not the basis. We can teach only what we have learned, and we have learned from the Bible; and what is there in that volume which a slave can appropriate? A new Bible must be made for him if he wants a manual of duty suitable to his present state; for no changing, no cutting out, no suppression, no interdiction can make our gospel a book for the slave. In the first chapter we read, that God made man in his own image, and blessed him; in the last, that the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations, and that all who are athirst

may drink freely of the water of life. But who can discern the image of God in the slave; and what is it but mockery to invite him to the tree and the waters of life? In every intermediate chapter, in every dispensation by which the mind of man is led on to larger views and loftier expectations, in the intrepidity of prophets, the fervor of saints, the heroism of martyrs, the sanctity of apostles, and above all, in the serene majesty of the prince of our salvation, we find a truth which is veiled from the eye of a slave, a promise in which he cannot participate, and a beauty which, as a slave, he will never perceive. The motives of the gospel cannot be urged upon minds which have no share in its promises, and can form no estimate of its privileges.

"The immorality and irreligion of the slaves are the necessary consequences of their political and personal degradation. They are not considered by the law as human beings, and they have, therefore, in some measure, ceased to be human beings. They must become men before they can become Christians. A great effect may, under fortunate circumstances, have been wrought on particular individuals; but those who believe that any extensive effect can be produced by religious instruction on this miserable race, may believe in the famous conversion wrought by St. Anthony on the fish. Can a preacher prevail on his hearers strictly to fulfil their conjugal duties, in a country where no protection is given to their conjugal rights; in a country where the husband and wife may, at the pleasure of the master, or by a process of law, be, in an instant, separated for ever? Can he persuade them to rest on the Sunday, in colonies where the law appoints that time for the markets? Is there any lesson which a Christian minister is more solemnly bound to teach, is there any lesson which it is, in a religious point of view, more important for a convert to learn, than that it is a duty to refuse obedience to the unlawful commands of superiors? Are the new pastors of the slaves to inculcate this principle or not? In other words, are the slaves to remain uninstructed in the fundamental laws of

Christian morality, or are their teachers to be hanged? This is the alternative. We all remember that it was made a charge against Mr. Smith that he had read an inflammatory chapter of the Bible to his congregation! Excellent encouragement for their future teachers to declare unto them,' according to the expression of an old divine, far too Methodistical to be considered as an authority in the West Indies, 'the whole counsel of God! ' ” —p. 7.

Nor is there more hope that we can agree with the master on the most important questions of morality than that we can teach the slave.

"The people of the West Indies seem to labor under an utter ignorance of the light in which their system is altogether viewed in England. When West Indian magistrates apply the term 'wretch' to a Negro who is put to death for having failed in an attempt at resistance, the people of England do not consider him as a wretch,' but as a good and gallant man, dying in the best of causes, the resistance to oppression, by which themselves hold all the good that they enjoy. They consider him as a soldier fallen in the advance-guard of that combat, which is only kept from themselves, because someIf the murdered body else is exposed to it further off. Negro is a wretch,' then an Englishman is a 'wretch' for not bowing his head to slavery whenever it invites him. The same reason that makes the white Englishman's resistance virtuous and honorable, makes the black one's too; it is only a regiment with different facings, fighting in the same Will these men never know the ground on which they stand? Can nothing make them find out, that the universal British people would stand by, and cheer on their dusky brethren to the assault, if it was not for the solitary hope that the end may be obtained more effectually by other means? It is not true that the people of England believe that any set of men, here or any where, can, by any act of theirs, alter the nature of slavery, or make that not robbery which was robbery before. They can make it robbery accord ing to law the more is the pity that the power of law

cause.

VOL. II.

33

making should be in such hands; but this is the only inference. All moral respect for such laws-all submission of the mind, as to a rule which it is desirable to obey and honorable to support is as much out of the question, as if a freebooter were to lay down a scale of punishment for those who should be found guilty of having lifted a hand against his power.". p. 35.

We

Our only method of teaching morality to master and slave is by removing the obstacles in the way of those truths which must be learned by all, some time or other, in this world or the next. We must show the masters that they are culprits, and the slaves that they are men. must lighten the burden which weighs down the soul yet more than the body: we must loosen the chains which confine the limbs, before we can induce the captive to cast off the fetters, as substantial, though intangible, which bind down the intellect and the affections. The spirit cannot escape from its thraldom till the death-warrant of slavery be not only signed, but executed.

And how far does it rest with us to effect this? What power have we to assist in this righteous work? We have the power conferred by a swelling heart and a willing spirit to quicken other minds, and to bring them into sympathy with our own. We have power to relate facts to those who know them not; to keep alive the interest of those who do; to spread our own convictions while we strengthen them; and, from the centre of influence, in which all, even the least influential, are placed, to send out to the remotest points where we can act, tidings from the land of freedom, and threatenings of the downfall of oppression. We have inquired of the oracles of truth, and we know that this abode of the idolatrous worship of Mammon shall be yielded up. It may not be ours to go forth to the fight, or to mount the breach; but having patiently compassed its extent for the appointed time, we may raise our voices in the general

shout before which its bulwarks shall fall, and its strength be for ever overthrown.

ON WITCHCRAFT.*

IT has pleased Providence to make mankind subject to various ills as well as blessings, and to render their happiness dependent on the right application of the means adapted to temper joy and sorrow.

Men have ever been liable to pains of body and weaknesses of mind, and irksome pressure from external circumstances, and also to intemperate enjoyment of sensible pleasures, and of undue excitement of certain faculties of the mind. A counteracting power has, at the same time, been furnished in the influences of religion; a power adequate to lighten all burdens, to soothe all pains, to temper all pleasures, to stimulate to action, and to restrain excess, to equalize the lot, and ennoble the character. This auxiliary of all good, and antidote of all evil, is evidently designed to be made use of by each individual according to his needs. The time will come when every man that is born into the world will recognise, and lay hold of, and apply his religion for himself; when no one will be needed to stand between God and himself, and no human teaching will be made the medium of divine. But that time has never yet been, nor will be, till Christian nations have learned enough of Christianity to give to their brethren, without distinction, not only their inheritance of bread, but of the word of God. All God's children have an equal right, not only to the means of bodily, but those of spiritual life; and till such an equalization shall have been effected as shall bestow on every breathing man leisure for the exercise and cultivation of his immortal facul

*

Lectures on Witchcraft, comprising a History of the Delusion in Salem, in 1692. By Charles W. Upham, jun., Pastor of the first Church in Salem. Boston, U. S. 1831.