V.

ought to be done, and done speedily, in order to avert the hastening ruin that must otherwise soon overtake us !

Let all the friends of justice and suffering humanity, do what little they can, in their several circles, and according to their various stations, capacities and opportunities; and all their little streams of exertion will, in process of time, flow together, and constitute a mighty river that shall sweep away the yoke of oppression, and purge our nation from the abominations of slavery.

TO THE READER:

The present edition of the Rev. Mr. Rankin's valuable letters, which is now reprinted at the request of the Providence Anti-Slavery Society, owes its publication to the following circumstance. During the last summer a clergyman of Masssachusetts who had been travelling in the Western States, disclosed to me some most appalling facts concerning the treatment to which our colored brethren are frequently subjected, and to which they are always exposed, in the Slaveholding States, and that a detail of some of these enormities might be found in a little book, which he had seen at Maysville. I accordingly directed a letter to the Rev. Dyer Burgess of Cincinnati, request

ing him to procure, if possible, a copy of the work. In a few weeks a copy was received from him, for which, I beg leave, though late, thus publicly to return my most grateful acknowledgements, not only to the donor, but to the author, of the book, who I have understood from good authority, has cheerfully consented to its republication. It is now most affectionately commended to the attentive perusal of all persons into whose hands it may fall. Let such recollect that slavery all over the world and especially in the United States is, in the indignant language of Wilberforce, "the full measure of pure, unsophisticated wickedness; and scorning all competition or comparison, it stands without a rival in the secure, undisputed possession of its detestable pre-eminence." In the language of O'Connell, "of all men living an American slaveholder is the most despicable; he is a political hypocrite of the very worst description." Finally, let all who doubt this, remember the emphatic language of the Rev. Samuel J. Mills: "Facts will always produce an effect, at least on pious minds. You can easily possess yourself of facts, the bare recital of which will make the heart bleed. These facts must be proclaimed in the cars of the ple, that they may be induced to send the hope of the gospel to the expiring and despairing slave, as well as to the debased and miserable free black."

peo

JOSHUA COFFIN.

LETTERS ON SLAVERY.

MY DEAR BROther,

LETTER I.

I received yours of the 2d December, with mingled sensations of pleasure and pain; it gave me pleasure to hear of your health, and pain to hear of your purchasing slaves. I consider involuntary slavery, a never failing fountain of the grossest immorality, and one of the deepest sources of human misery; it hangs like the mantle of night over our republic, and shrouds its rising glories. I sincerely pity the man who tinges his hand in the unhallowed thing that is fraught with the tears, and sweat, and groans, and blood of hapless millions of innocent, unoffending people.

A mistaken brother, who has manifested to me a kind and generous heart, claims my strongest sympathies. When I see him involved in what is both sinful and dangerous, shall I not strive to liberate him? Does he wander from the paths of rectitude, and shall not fraternal affection pursue, and call him from the verge of ruin, and the unperceived precipice of wo, to

the fair and pleasant walks of piety and peace? Shall I suffer sin upon my brother? No, his kindness to me forbids it, fraternal love forbids it, and what is still more to be regarded, the law of God forbids it. Though he has wandered for the moment, may I not hope to show him his error, and restrain his wanderings?

Under such views and feelings, I have resolved to address you in a series of letters, on the injustice of enslaving the Africans. This I hope you will receive as an expression of fraternal affection, as well as of gratitude to you for former favors. I entreat you to give me that candid attention which the fondness of a brother solicits, and the importance of the subject demands. In the commencement I think it proper to apprize you that several things, connected with the present condition of the Africans, tend to bias the mind against them, and consequently incapacitate it for an impartial decision with respect to their rights.

This

I. Their color is very different from our own. leads many to conclude that Heaven has expressly marked them out for servitude; and when the mind once settles upon such a conclusion, it is completely fortified against the strongest arguments that reason can suggest, or the mind of man invent. In order to save you from a conclusion, so false and unreasonable, let me invite your attention to the book of inspirarion; there you will find that the blackness of the African is not the horrible mark of Cain, nor the direful effects of Noah's curse, but the mark of a scorching sun. 'Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards.' Canticles i. 6. In this passage the Church of Christ evident

ly speaks of herself under the figure of an Ethiopian, on whom the sun had looked with such intensity as changed his color, and so rendered him the object of hatred to the rest of mankind, who with himself originally sprang from the same mother, and were in reality his brethren. The text may be thus paraphrased. Look not upon me (with indignation) because I am black; because the sun hath looked upon me (so as to make me black) my mothers children were angry with me. This conveys evidently the true meaning of the passage, and shows that the Divine Spirit by whom it was dictated, assumed it as a correct principle, that the blackness of the Ethiopian's skin is caused by the sun. The word Ethiopian, which is frequently found in Scripture, denotes, according to its derivation, a person whose visage is changed to blackness by burning. The same truth is evident from the face of the world, which exhibits various shades of human color, according to all its variegated climates.

"To prove that color is the effect of climate it is only necessary to attend to certain facts which are notorious to the slightest observation.

'Geographers have divided our earth into five Zones -the Torrid, two temperate and two Frigid Zones. The torrid zone extending 23 1-2 degrees on each side of the equator forms a belt of 47 degrees, running from east to west quite round the globe; to every part of which the sun is vertical at least once in the year. The ancients supposed that this region was not habitable, in consequence of the intense heat of a vertical sun. In this they were mistaken. It is found supporting, in general, as dense a population as either of the temperate zones, which lie between it and the polar