customs, and conversation; so that their constant intercourse with Europeans, renders these appearances of refinement much more probable than at first thought. And again, it is to be considered, that by education and habit we are prone to doubt, or to ridicule, all such appearances in the blacks. For ourselves, setting aside the question of merit in the execution, we cordially thank Miss Martineau for avowing and awakening a generous sympathy, in the fortunes of one of the most remarkable and noble of men, and in the perils and struggles, the virtues and even the vices, of a down-trodden people. They have our sympathies to the utmost extent. We recognise them, we are almost ashamed to say it, as if it were 'necessary or condescending, we recognise them as of our kind and kindred, having claims, such as no others on the earth now have, to our justice and brotherly-kindness. We mourn over their degradation, as the foulest blot ever fastened upon the Caucasian race. We look upon this invasion of St. Domingo, with the inhuman plot that finished the tragedy in the destruction of the victim, and the immolation of thousands of his own countrymen, as adding indelible infamy, if any remained to be added, to the name of Napoleon. And we are but faintly relieved, when we turn to our own land, and know that victim after victim, thousand upon thousand, of these same human beings, for no sin but that of the color which their God has given them, are all the time suffering an indisputable wrong, and liable, the least, that can be said, and to be said in the best cases, liable to outrage and inhumanity, only less distinguished than those visited upon Toussaint. Fearful indeed is the account to be rendered, still gathering and darkening, by those, who, in a republican government, a land of proud liberty, and the nineteenth century of Christian privilege and obligation, are holding millions of their fellow creatures in a bondage as opposite to the Christian law and liberty, as darkness to noon-day. It is idle, perfectly idle, to pretend that slavery, in its mildest form, with its unavoidable exposure to the worst abuses, its admitted temptation to selfishness and lust, its inherent violation of the first principles of right, its legalized traffic in human flesh and affections, can be in any way defended, or saved from future universal reprobation. It is heaping wrong upon wrong, to pass it over with calling it "a necessary evil." Slavery a necessary evil, in the dominion of a righteous God, and among free and Christian We have no men? We have nothing to say of measures. alliance and little faith in combinations. We can never join, and will never do aught but oppose, all spirit of intolerance and indiscriminate denunciation. We know slaveholders, in whose humanity and piety we have perfect confidence, and slaves, whose condition is surrounded with all the blessings, that this humanity and piety can bestow. Our prayers shall never rise with less fervor, or less charity, for the masters than for the servants. Nor will we cease to pray for the conversion of those among us, who confine all their sympathy to one side, and refuse to take into account any difficulties or the best desires. But what has this to do with the great question? Is slavery a crying wrong, a tremendous curse? Can it be abolished? It can. Let those, to whom it cleaves, once say unitedly and religiously it shall, and it can. We again thank this writer, and every writer, who does anything to quicken our sense of relation and obligation to the oppressed of the human family. And believing that little, if any more than justice has here been done to the greatness and the wrongs of the First of the Blacks, we add the merited tribute of Wordsworth, written during the unknown issue. “Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men! That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Since writing the above, we have received and read another book from Miss Martineau, as a continuation of the series of "Tales for the People and their Children." And we wish to notice it here, both for its own excellence, and because it is said by some of the English reviewers, who commend it highly, to be the last work of any kind that we may expect from the same hand. We sincerely hope this is not so. If the writer be not actually disabled, she should not withhold herself from a work and a province, for which she is peculiarly qualified. We say this in no reviewer's spirit, but with deep and grateful conviction. From her first book of this humble cast, "Traditions of Palestine," to the last now before us, we find a power and an interest which are not common. The Crofton Boys is founded in a fact in the life of Walter Scott, and is an unpretending, but fascinating account of an English High School, with all its privileges and all its dangers and evils. Running through the whole there is an elevated moral tone, a lofty principle of right, a reverence for God, and power of faith, which must carry blessings to every young mind, and which, we believe, have been the blessing, as they have been the inward life and sustaining trust, of Harriet Martineau. E. B. H. A. R. Peabody. ART. IV. - ON INSPIRATION. WERE the Bible merely a series of historical works, or did it relate to matters of secondary interest and moment, we should be fully satisfied, could we establish the genuineness and authenticity of the several books which it contains. But the most honest men are liable to error, especially in quoting the sayings of others on abstract and spiritual subjects; and on subjects of this kind a very slight misrecollection might materially pervert the sense of what was uttered. How know we, then, but that the evangelists, though honest men, may, by the frailty of their own understandings and memories, have grossly misrepresented the language and spirit of Jesus? Some of these books, too, are not in a narrative form, but didactic and doctrinal; and if they were written by fallible, yet honest men, without any peculiar illumination from heaven, how know we, that they are always sound in their counsels and right in their judgments? How can we assure ourselves, that they have not erred widely on matters both of doctrine and duty, as have many wise and honest men before and since? These questions throw open the whole subject of inspiration; and it may be well for us to enter upon our inquiry with just notions of its magnitude. How much then does it involve? Does it cover the whole ground between Christian faith and infidelity? By no means. Whoever receives the history of Jesus as authentic, has within his reach enough of unquestionable truth to serve as the basis of Christian character. No one can believe the evangelists to have been honest men, without believing the principal facts in the life of Jesus and the essential doctrines of his religion. But the difference lies here. He, who regards the sacred writers as divinely inspired, deems himself possessed of an unerring guide as to all the minutia of doctrine, of an infallible compass for his whole path in life. His only question is "What say the law and the testimony?" That settled, he need seek no farther. He, on the other hand, who denies inspiration, while he would feel satisfied with regard to great truths, might be uncertain as to many lesser, yet important points; might often doubt whether the apostles spoke after the mind of Christ, or uttered their own fallible judgments; and thus, where the voice of Scripture was entirely clear, might be painfully perplexed as to the way of truth and duty. But what is inspiration? We mean by this word, in its application to the Scriptures, a divine influence exerted upon the minds of the sacred writers, to aid them in the exhibition of truth, and to save them from hurtful error. No one, we presume, at the present day, would maintain that the very words of Scripture were dictated by the divine spirit; that the genealogies in the first book of Chronicles were breathed from heaven into the author's mind; that there was anything supernatural in Paul's sending for his cloak and parchment; in fine, that the sacred writings were the mere channels of revelation. We observe in each of these writers peculiarities, and sometimes imperfections of style, such as would naturally grow out of his education, mode of life, and temperament. Amos, the herdsman of Tekoah, writes in a much simpler style, and with a much greater affluence of rural imagery, than Isaiah and Ezekiel, whose condition in life seems to have differed widely from his. How easy is it to trace the impetuous Peter, the modest and affectionate John, the glowing and devoted Paul, in their respective writings! But if the words of the Bible were dictated by God, instead of this great diversity of style, we should expect to see the whole Bible written in one unvarying style of unique grandeur. This strict verbal inspiration would detract greatly from the value of some portions of Scripture, particularly of the devotional parts; for their worth consists in their being the expressions of devout feeling on the part of their authors, upbreathings of hearts touched with a living coal from God's altar, and enabled to light a kindred flame in other souls, and thus to furnish examples and forms for the devotion of all coming times. We doubt not that the Jewish minstrels drank deeply from the same fountain of inspiration, from which the prophets drew their marvelous foreknowledge; but, if God dictated the very words of the Psalms, they cease to be specimens of human devotion, and appropriate models for man, and present to us the solecism of the Almighty praying to himself, and chanting his own praises. As to the merely historical parts of the Bible, if the authors knew, either by revelation, by their observation and experience, or by means of authentic documents already extant, the facts which they related, they had no need of verbal inspiration to enable them to tell their stories faithfully. Moreover, on him, who should maintain the necessity of verbal inspiration for the original writers of the Old and New Testament, would rest the burden of showing, why like inspiration is not equally necessary for all translators of the Bible. In fact, the question of verbal inspiration, did it admit of being agitated, would be barely one of vain curiosity. It has ceased to be of any practical moment, since the Hebrew and the Greek became dead languages. But, while we believe that the sacred writers wrote each in his own style, and with a large degree of freedom, we maintain, that they were inspired, that their minds were preternaturally enlightened and guided, that holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. For, in the first place, the idea of inspiration is in strict accordance with reason and intrinsic probability. We cannot deny to the Father of man's spirit that power of direct and recognised communication with it, which he has granted to fellow men. We cannot suppose that God has opened the soul to the inbreathings of other souls, and left us no avenue for the entrance of his own voice. No; if man has a soul, God must have the key to its every apartment, and must needs have at his command even those modes of access and forms of speech, which, for good reasons, he rarely sees fit to use. Again, we believe that miracles were wrought for the establishment both of Judaism and Christianity. Why is it less probable, that miracles should have been wrought for the faith |