of such an anomaly? If he found that this region was closely connected with one more powerful, where a continual war is waged with oppression and vice, would not his wonder increase? If he further saw that the oppressed were many, the oppressors few, and that these few were under the controul of a power which professed to advocate truth and justice, how could he account for the existence of such an abomination? If England is free, how can she countenance slavery in her West Indian dependencies ? If England loves justice, why does she permit oppression? If England is Christian, why does she encourage the temporal and spiritual degradation of her brethren? The anomaly has long appeared no less strange to mortal than celestial eyes, and the question has been rung in the ears of men till many are heart-sick and some are weary: but it must be asked again and again, till the insolent bravado, the irrelevant complaint, the contemptible excuse, are silenced; till not a single minister of the gospel can be found (we hope there is but one) to declare that slavery is sanctioned by the law of liberty; till the indignant remonstrance of millions ceases to be withstood by the puny insults of individuals; till appeals to the heart are no longer answered by appeals to the purse. Let us not be told that enough has been said already, that men are disgusted with details of barbarity, and wearied with the repetition of facts which every body knows, and arguments which there are few to dispute. It is true, we are thus weary and disgusted, and therefore should we labour the more diligently till the abuses are removed of which we complain. It is most painful to think on the condition of our Negro brethren; of their tortured bodies, their stunted intellects, their perverted affections, their extorted labour, their violated homes: but the more painful such thoughts, the more rapid and energetic should be our exertions to banish them for ever by extinguishing the evils which suggest them. Are the friends of the slave less disgusted than ourselves? Having struggled for years against this enormous evil, are they less weary of it than we? Have we a right to complain of discouragement, while they have persevered amidst difficulty, and hoped almost against hope? They have pursued this pest of humanity with unremitting watchfulness, they have grappled with it, brought it to light and justice, and now, we are told, have prepared its death warrant. We hope it is so, for it is full time. We believe that it is so; for if human prejudice can gainsay the arguments of such upright minds, if selfishness can withstand such appeals to natural sympathy, if the love of power can long maintain a struggle with such a holy spirit of justice, as have been employed in this cause, we shall not know where to repose our confidence, and our trust in the triumph of righteousness will be shaken. The time is, we trust, arrived, for which patriots and philanthropists have so long watched in vain. Many eyes have of late been opened; many sleeping energies aroused; many perverted views rectified; and what wonder, when the subject has been presented to them as in the pamphlet before us?

This pamphlet consists of a republication of two articles of review on the topic of Colonial Slavery. The first of these articles appeared in the Edinburgh Review of October 1824, and the other in the Westminster Review of October 1829. They are of the first order of excellence both as to style and matter; and a more efficacious service to the cause of the slave could not, we conceive, have been rendered, than by reissuing them in such a form as may make them accessible to every reader in the kingdom. Their object is not so much to set forth the wrongs and woes of the slave, (which had before been done sufficiently,) as to shew with whom lies the power of taming the tyrants and reinstating the oppressed, to point out how easily

such a power may be exercised, and how contemptible is the utmost opposition which can be anticipated.

There is not a heart actuated by the common feelings of humanity-we will not say in a Christian country, but in any country, which would not be moved by a recital of the wrongs of the slaves in our colonies, and therefore a bare statement of the facts which have been perseveringly adduced by their advocates form a strong and universal appeal. Every man in every country feels that it can never be right to torture women, to condemn men to exile and toil, to separate children from their mothers, to subject the helpless to the violence of the strong, to make life one scene of hardship, pain, and degradation. The debased Hindoo and the contemplative Indian would here be of one mind with the British philanthropist. Men in civilized countries who regard only the temporal condition of their race (if such men there be) are ready to join in the universal cry against the abuse of unlawful power, and though they look no further than the toils and sufferings of a day, though they believe that the consequences of oppression extend no further than the grave, they burn with indignation that that day of life should be embittered beyond endurance, and that grave become the resting-place of beings more degraded and less happy than the brutes. But to those who know any thing of the life and beauty of religion, to those especially who have been made free in the liberty of the gospel, the whole matter assumes a new form and appears in different proportions. Like others, they burn to unlock the fetters which enchain the limbs, to restore the exile to his home, and the freeborn to his rights; but they feel that there are worse fetters than those which confine the limbs-the iron which enters into the soul. They feel that the oppressed are, by oppression, rendered unfit for a better home than the hut beneath the plantain; that the highest rights are those which constitute man a citizen of heaven. Thus feels every Christian. If he feels not thus, he usurps the name. But there are yet other considerations which occur to those who believe themselves to be possessed of divine truth in its purity: there are obligations which press peculiarly upon them.

To the most enlightened is confided a charge of surpassing importance. To them is appointed the care of the universal mind of their race. Every spiritual privilege which they enjoy involves an obligation; every gift imposes a corresponding responsibility. The same radiance of truth which displays the glories of the world of mind, lights their path to the darkest abodes of ignorance and vice. The same hand which presents the lever by which they are to move the moral world, points out the spot where they may plant their foot. The celestial life, by which their own frame is animated, they are enabled and commissioned to impart to all who are fainting under oppression, or dead in ignorance and guilt. In proportion as truth is discovered to be beautiful, should fellow minds be awakened to its contemplation; in proportion as virtuous pleasures swell high in the heart, should their overflowings be poured into the bosoms of others. For this cause is it that human sympathies are imparted; for this cause is it that they become tenderer and warmer as the mind is more fully informed by the wisdom which is from above. For this cause is it that "as face answereth to face in water, so is the heart of man ;" and that the tumults of passion which agitate the bosoms of our Negro brethren, awaken an answering throb in our own; and that the deadness of their despair casts a chill over our hopes on their behalf. To us, (for we must not, while appropriating the privileges of pure religion, evade the responsibility which it imposes,) to us is confided the task of watching over whatever is feeble in intellect,-of animating

whatever is dull, of cherishing whatever is weak, of informing whatever is vacant in the mind of man, wherever our influence extends; and we know not that that influence has any boundary short of the limits of the globe. We are told that the world has become one vast whispering gallery, and that the faintest accents of science are heard from the remotest regions of the earth. If this be true of science, in which the multitude of every country have no interest, how much more true must it be of that which is better than science; of that which already finds an echo in every bosom, and will, in time, make a herald of every tongue! The law of liberty is engraved on every heart, and conscience is its universal exponent: if the interpreter sleep, or if he interpret unfaithfully, it is given to those who have the power, to rouse him from indolence and to expose his deceptions. We are bound to warn, to oppose, to disarm all who despise and break through this natural law; and, in behalf of the oppressed, to carry on against the oppressors a war which admits neither peace nor truce.

It is appointed to us to mark the movements of the universal human soul; to direct its powers, to controul its tendencies, to develop its capabilities, to animate its exertions, while we present to it ample scope and adequate objects. If we see any portion of it cramped, blinded, and deadened, it is our part to remove the evil influence, or to resist if we cannot remove it. And in what portion of the human race is mind more debased and intellect more stunted than in the slaves of the West Indies? Some are still inspired by a love of liberty; some would still, if they dared, sing, by the streams of their captivity, the songs of their own land; some yet retain sufficient sense of their rights to mutter deep curses against their tyrants, and to long for one moment's freedom that they might dash his little ones against the stones: but many are sunk into a state of apathy more hopeless even than vice, a despair more painful than the tumult of revengeful passions. Such beings advance a claim upon us which we cannot resist. We are as much bound to interpose on their behalf as to afford bread to our dependants, and instruction to the children of our families. If they loudly call upon us for our alliance, we cannot refuse it. If they do not, we must bend our ear to catch the faintest breathings of their complaint. If none such are heard, the double duty devolves upon us of warring against the tyrant and arousing the slave to the contest. The more insensible the slave, the stronger is the proof of his degradation; the deeper the apathy which we have to dispel, the more withering must have been the gripe of tyranny. This gripe must be loosened by the friends of the slave, for the slave has himself no power. In this case, force must be opposed by force, and usurpation by authority; brute force must be met by the might of reason; and usurpation put down by the authority of justice. Knowledge is power, and wisdom confers authority; and if we really believe (as we have often deliberately asserted), that, by the blessing of the universal Father, the highest knowledge and the purest wisdom have been placed within our reach, we must accept the office connected with their possession, and fulfil the conditions on which they are communicated. In the primeval days, when the earth shone in its newly created beauty, and the human race was in its infancy, God himself vouchsafed to be the visible guardian of his people. By visible signs, by audible communion, he guided and warned and sustained them. In later times, he withdrew 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 fervour 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 Rible 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 labour 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 somebody else is exposed to it further off. If the murdered 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 honourable, makes the black one's too; it is only a regiment with different facings, fighting in the same cause. 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 according to law-the more is the pity that the power of law-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 honourable 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.

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 shew the masters that they are culprits, and the slaves that they are men. We 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 downfal 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.