rectitude, the intellectual acumen of the New England- domestic and political establishments of man, “blasting ers. We would willingly do them no injustice. But their opponents with interdicts, and opening sluices and when in their intemperate zeal, they proclaim freedom removing mounds for the sweep of devastation." Veto the slave, and denounce the slaveholder, even from rily, they know not what they do. And it infuses not the sanctuary; when they exhibit their southern bre- a little vexation into the southern feeling on this subthren to the eyes of the world as the most profligate ject, that it is impossible to make these northmen comand unfeeling of mankind, surely it may not be amiss prehend the true character of southern slavery, the to invite their attention to those defects in their own frightful mischief they promote, or the imminent dancharacter, which should be amended, before they be-ger of prompting the undisciplined passions of the come apostles of reformation. dark man.

By what right do so many of our northern and eastern brethren demand and attempt, by all the powers of combination and association, the abolition of slavery in the southern states? They have permitted themselves to become the agents of foreign agitators; for this fanaticism is of foreign birth, and originated in England, with the very people who introduced and planted slavery in our soil. Her example is no prece-pretence is it, that other people, incapable of compre dent for us; for, the structure of our government, the fundamental law of the land, and our peculiar position, present insuperable obstacles to the march of this foreign enemy. An immense empire, belting the globe with territory, may indeed abolish slavery, indemnify the owner, and preserve public tranquillity in a few small and distant islands of the ocean. In our country there is no such power vested in the government, even if the scheme were practicable, or its consummation desirable. To supply the absence of such authority, the powerful engine of public opinion is used. All the elements of society are disturbed, public and private right is invaded, and the integrity of the Union is threatened by this destructive agency. Ministers of the gospel, messengers of peace and good will to man, have abandoned their appropriate functions, and like another Peter the Hermit, preach a crusade of blood and folly.

Slavery was already existing in most of the states at the time of the first confederation, and was distinctly recognised and protected under the federal compact, at the time of the adoption of the present constitution. In fact, two-fifths of the slaves became an integral portion of the basis of federal representation. This being the case, by what authority or under what

hending the true character of the domestic relations of the south, and who are parties to this fundamental compact, presume to interfere? It is a crime. Is it committed, because a limited jurisdiction enables them to assail the south in this most vulnerable point with impunity? Our sagacious forefathers, well knowing the oppressions which spring from the union of religion with civil authority, have in most of the states declared the clergy unfit to represent the people. They were anxious to erect every possible barrier between the church and state; the union of which had always been fatal to the purity of each. When was this clerical body, thus disfranchised, made the expounders of constitutional law, or authorised to declare how much of the federal compact is opposed to and abrogated by the law of the gospel? Indeed the civil disabilities of the clergy were intended by our pious ancestry, not so much for the security of republican' institutions, as for the preservation of the purity and simplicity of religion itself. Whenever the high priest descends from the altar to bedraggle his robes in the vile mire of an electioneering progress, from that moment religion falls into contempt with the mass of the people, and its ministers become the most profligate and the most contemptible of mankind. Already many of the northern clergy have shaken, if they have not entirely lost, the confidence of the southern people; and we are shocked from day to day with startling evidences of abatement in that respect, which a pious people always extend to a worthy ministry who command and merit their esteem.

Whether we direct our attention to the desperate struggles of the different sects for ascendancy, among a new and unsettled people in the great valley of the west; or whether we observe the jealous zeal with which some professors of various denominations, instead of rebuking the evil passions of mankind, abase themselves to court or color public opinion, with an assiduity which would shame the obsequious courtiers of Dionysius or Canute; we are brought to the melancholy conviction, that there are churchmen still animated by worldly ambition, and that religion, in many of its teachers, has degenerated into a wild spirit of proselytism. How often have we heard the voice of the priest, anointed only to bless mankind, swelling the fanatic outcry, and diligently employed in the manufacture of a spurious public opinion, which like the pestilent simoon, is to overwhelm with indiscriminate and so disingenuously to mingle this question, in all ruin domestic tranquillity, private right, public faith, and federal compact? Upon what principle do the clergy claim this right of interference with the domestic polity of the land? Is it under the exploded claim "jure divino?" Or do they take their stand with Dr. Channing upon "God's moral and eternal law?" From the high ground taken by some of the clergy in relation to slavery, one might suppose that they deem them selves special messengers-"one would infer that they had just descended from a forty days' communion in the mount with the Deity, beaming with celestial radiance," and empowered to revise and correct the

And if the question of slavery fell peculiarly within the province of the clergy, and might be safely agitated, why should many of them labor so constantly

its local incidents, with national politics, ecclesiastical agitations, and treaties of war and peace with foreign states? Why does Dr. Channing invoke the interposition of European powers, and recommend a dissolution of the Union rather than slave states should be created in Texas? In this land we have few time-honored associations, little reverence for ancient establishments, and with a clear vision, we are accustomed to judge everything by its merits. Our government secures to us freedom of religious opinion, and under this generous rule, the different sects are left to repose in security, or to contend with each other for the ascendancy;

but the moment their ministers mingle in the discussion | their discontent, and to abase their morals. Wherever of political and social questions, and from priests be- their religious culture, under this imperfect system, has come agitators, their doom is sealed; and unless we been most assiduous, there was less merriment, less greatly mistake the signs of the times, the horns of the singing, less dancing, but not less lying, drinking, altar have already been severely shaken by the intem-stealing, and disobedience. The calm philosopher, the perance of some of the priesthood.

sedate and orderly christian, has long and anxiously If a pure motive impelled the northern and eastern agi- watched the progress of gloomy bigotry throughout tators, they would sometimes hearken to the remon- the land. The gloomy and ascetic doctrines inculcated strances of the southern people who seem to be objects among these unreflective beings, resulted in their greater of their benevolence, and pause to observe the result depravation. For religion can never be blended with of their past efforts. After years of agitation, slavery any system of worldly policy, without becoming utterly still exists. But the machinations of agitators have corrupt. She is the daughter of the skies, and refuses already redoubled the rigor of the criminal law and to intermarry with the sons of the children of men. In domestic police in the slave states, against the unhappy this regard' all religions are alike. They have all, in objects of their mischievous philanthropy; their su- their turns, scourged mankind, whenever they became per-serviceable efforts in the cause of humanity, have the instruments of worldly men, or were connected with been sealed with the blood of the red and of the black political schemes or establishments. And whether a man, to whom they have preached discontent, insubordi- crusade be led by Peter the Hermit, or the northmen, nation and resistance. Yet are they deaf to the voice of whether its object be to expel the Saracen or to redeem their suffering victims, and blind to the consequences the captive-to extirpate Islamism, or abolish slavery— of their own action. Is the white man massacred amid it is equally offensive to God and destructive to man. the horrors of insurrection? these enthusiasts proclaim The gospel duties are permanent, uniform, and unithe butchery to be the inevitable result of oppression, versal, in their character; the duties of the clergy of all and they vindicate to themselves the merit of a pro-denominations are pointed out by this invariable law; phecy which they have aided to fulfil. Are the rebel-yet the clergy of the north and of the south, even of Jious slaves subdued and executed under the law which the same churches, derive opposite lessons and duties they have been stimulated to violate? the cruelty of the upon the subject of slavery from the same divine law. white man who punishes, lends fury to the enthusiasm Thus, the Reverend Dr. Channing is the indignant of these agitators. champion of the Indian and the negro, while the Reverend Dr. Schermerhorn reaps golden fruits from the treaty which robs the aborigines of their dearest rights. The catholic missionary teaches the Indian the observance of the ten commandments, and the slave obedience and subordination; but he does not interfere with their innocent amusements; nor does he harrow up the angry feelings or stimulate the truculent and revengeful temper of the red or the dark man, by teaching the white man's oppression. Hence the popularity of that mission in the south-western states, although its ministers profess a creed exposed to the prejudices of three centuries of obloquy. The Methodist and Baptist churches, also, if we have been correctly informed, have acquired no little share of public confidence by an official declaration of their opposition to this fanati cal and destructive crusade. We have already ob served, that the exclusion of the clergy from political preferment, and their civil disabilities, are not only a safeguard to the public, against the abuse of a wholesome but powerful influence, but is the surest protec tion of the clergy themselves, and of the purity of morals and religion. Remove these civil disabilities, and let these reverend gentlemen imitate the example of Dr. Channing in the discussion of agitating politi cal topics; let them unite with foreign reviewers in decrying our morals and proclaiming the lawlessness which only exists in their heated imaginations, and if they do not themselves become the victims of a just indignation, they may at least rest well assured that when the day of tribulation comes, the ruins of the altar will crumble amid the ruins of the republic.

We feel no disposition to retort upon our adversaries, by instituting inquiries into the time and manner of abolition in the northern and eastern states-into the time allowed to sell the few slaves that remained among them into southern bondage, before their law of emancipation took effect, or into the trifling cost of this movement. But we undertake to assert, without fear of contradiction, that whenever the generous south can be satisfied that it can be done with safety to themselves, and that the objects of their benevolence would be benefitted, and not accursed by the change, one hundred planters in any one of the slaveholding states can be readily found, who will contribute most cheerfully to effect the abolition of slavery, double the sum it cost any state north of Mason's and Dixon's line to carry out the same design. Some of those states whose citizens are the most active friends of abolition, permitted slavery until the period arrived, which in their own cool judgment, enabled them with perfect safety and trifling loss to abolish it. We are yet to learn that New England surpasses the south in generosity. And if our eastern brethren will permit us to enjoy the privilege which they have exercised, we will most assuredly imitate their good example, and abolish slavery whenever the poverty of our soil and our true interests shall demand it. Although the plans of these agitators had not then been reduced to that system and perfect organization which have since characterised them; yet, by the aid of letters, pamphlets, papers, and tracts, they produced the insurrection in Southampton, in the state of Virginia. Indeed, the character of the tracts secretly distributed among the negroes, threw suspicion upon many of the ministers of religion, and reflecting men have long since been convinced, that the religious instruction imparted to slaves is so defective in its character, as to corrupt their fidelity, to increase

Abolition of slavery in the southern states, and the admission of slaves to the rights of freemen, constitute the wildest scheme that ever entered the brain of visionary enthusiasts. The color, the character, the capa city of the negro, the condition and morals of the free

negro in the free as well as in the slave states, bear melancholy testimony to the truth, that if the colored population are to remain among us, the safety of the white man, and the happiness of the black, as the weaker party, require that the blacks should be retained in slavery. We will not presume to fathom the designs of Providence, we will not attempt to indicate the peculiar destiny, or the similarity of the children of Ham to the descendants of Abraham; but it is manifest that the distinctive character of the Israelite, does not so effectually cut him off from a full communion with the human family, as does the prejudice arising from color separate the Anglo-Saxon from the African. No matter whether this prejudice be implanted for wise and holy purposes, or whether it be the curse of the age, it exists, its roots are deeply planted, it is a part of our selves, and he is but a shallow observer of man, a blind and bigoted philosophist, who will overlook or despise this pervading and resistless feeling, originate whence it may.

The only hope for the African slave is in his removal from the house of bondage to the land of his forefathers. The unqualified advocates of slavery and the abolitionists occupy the two extremes of this much vexed question. But the scheme of colonization is the juste milieu. This is the broad platform upon which the friends of this unhappy race may meet in soberness and safety. The morals and misery of the free negroes in the northern states, the perpetual and bloody conflicts between them and the white man in New York, New England, and Philadelphia, show that to them freedom carries no healing on its wings, and liberty, that blesses all, has no blessing for them.*

*As an evidence of the beneficial results of the friendship of the abolitionist for the slave, we submit to intelligent readers the subjoined extract from a Boston paper:

POLICE COURT. Degraded condition of a colored female, abducted by the Abolitionists.-A case came off yesterday which may be fairly used to advantage by the opponents of the Northern Abolitionists. A well dressed, intelligent and high spirited mulatto woman, named Lucilia Tucker, was brought up by off cer Glover of the West Watch, and charged with being a common night-walker, and the evidence was absolute that, for the last ten days at least, she had openly led a lewd and dissolute life. She was originally a slave, and two years ago came on here, in the family of her owner, a gentleman belonging to Natchez, who put up at the Tremont House. As soon as it was known to the Abolitionists that she was here, a plan was laid to get her away and secure her; and, under some friendly pretence, she was enticed to visit, and was not permitted to return to her master's family. The abduction made some stir at the time of it, and the master had to leave the city without her. In speaking of it, yesterday, she said, "I always had a good home in Natchez, and I did all I could to get back to my master, but they would not let me go any where till it was too late Then I was left to shift for myself, and I would have done any thing to have got the means to return to Natchez."

Court. It is apparent that these people have been the means of bringing you to shame and degradation, although they probably supposed that they were doing God's service and saving you at the same time. They have unfortunately done you a great wrong.

Lucilia. I am fully aware of it; and do not expect to be better off, unless I can get back to my good old home, where I had every thing comfortable that is required.

Court. I hope you will find means to do so; but your late conduct has been a public and gross offence against our laws, and the least that I think of is to sentence you to two months labor, in the House of Correction.

Lucilia. Me in the House of Correction! What have I done, that I should go to such a degraded place as that? I should never

Denied the protecting care which the interest, if not the feeling of the owner, extends to the slave; subjected to all the prejudice of color; with some of the rights of a freeman, and all the sentiments of a slave; they constitute an intermediate class, having no bonds of common interest, no ties of sympathy to sustain them; too indolent to labor, and too insolent to serve, they are the most depraved and unhappy race under this government. It has been the constant practice of northern writers to dwell upon the oppression and cruelty of the task-master of the south, and the ill usage and sufferings of the slave; but those who are familiar with their domestic institutions well know, that where the agitator is unknown, there is not upon the face of the globe a people doomed literally to earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, who are more cheerful, contented and happy. Examples of fidelity and devotion to their masters not unfrequently break forth upon an admiring world, and but that the agitator is wilfully blind to all such cheering views upon the broad waste of slavery, his restless eye might dwell for a season upon them. In that dark hour of danger, when the pride and the chivalry and the beauty of the south were smitten on the waters by the angel of death, a slave was found coolly and diligently laboring to construct a raft of the fragments of the ill-fated Pulaski, to "try and save his master." Such owners are no tyrants, and such a slave has no taskmaster. Cast him loose from his bondage, and this estimable but humble being becomes that most wretched of the human family—a free negro.

Redeemed from slavery by the mild influence of the laws, by the generosity of their owners, or by the persuasive force of a wholesome public opinion, and translated to the shores of Africa, these men will be as superior to the native races, as the whites are to them. And the prejudice of color being thus removed, the natives may be civilized and enlightened through their agency. They can there blend by intermarriage, without the aid of Mr. Tappan. They may plant the cross amid the sterile sands of the desert, and be the heralds of salvation to a benighted people. We feel little inclination to offend the moral reader by any attempt to expose the ridiculous and revolting scheme of amalga. mation; let its projectors be classed with those fanatical advocates of temperance, who would substitute buttermilk for wine in the Lord's supper. It is by colonization alone that the descendants of Ham can be redeemed. There are at present but few spots on the African continent settled for this purpose, and their growth is feeble and sickly, as were the colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth on our own shores. But the little fountains that now well up in the desert may multiply and blend, and roll on until they sweep onward, not unlike their own Nile, in one resistless and

be able to hold my head up again after being there; and I will never go there. I would rather cut my throat from ear to ear, first. Yes, I'll die—I'll murder myself, sooner. Keep me here in Boston, away from my own home, and send me to the House of Correc. tion! I'll never, never submit to such a disgrace. I defy all the officers in court to attempt it; and if they want to see a dead woman, they will start with me for that place.

The officers now removed her in a most violent paroxism of indignation, and uttering imprecations loud and deep on the heads of those who had ensnared her away from her own home.

{Bost. Post.

fertilizing stream. How long was it before the early | colonists of America toiled up the summit of the Alleghany, and from another Pisgah looked down upon the land of promise? Yet as they descended, in little more than one generation of the children of men, empires have arisen and cities have peopled the wilderness.

The first fruits of abolition we have already gathered, and the branch which bore them is of the tree of death. In its destructive progress abolition would more speedily effect a revolution, but when its wild fury shall have been exhausted, its stormy depths will settle down into a sullen and stagnant pool, not unlike the sluggish waters which sleep upon ruins in the valley of Siddim, containing no living thing within their bosom. Colonization, with its mild and wholesome influence, operating slowly but effectually, will lead the children of captivity forth from the house of bondage to the homes of their fathers, in a clime peculiarly fitted for their habitation. The strong arm of the Deity is no longer stretched forth visibly to chastise and subdue with famine, and pestilence, and fiery plague; but the inconveniences and evils of slavery press with a constantly accelerative force, and may ultimately compel the white man to strike away the fetters of the captive. Although the bars of the prison door may not be again thrown back, and the bonds of servitude forcibly torn asunder, yet, under the blessing of heaven, and with prudent counsels, the good jailer may himself relent, and invite the captive to come forth. But should the abolitionists succeed in their turbulent efforts, in the hour of departure which they prepare, every "lintel and doorcheek will be sprinkled with blood, but not as a token to the red right arm of the archangel that the inmates are to be consumed."

It is not the discussion of this exciting and alarming topic to which the south objects; but they do object to making their slaves a party to the controversy. They object to the artificial formation of a spurious public opinion through the agency of associations acting directly upon the slave and stimulating him to rebellion, For they think with Milton: "Who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, no stratagems, no licensings, to make her victorious." She disdains all combinations, clerical or political. Like the mighty eagle, Truth soars with steady flight and unblenching gaze into the higher heavens, while those timorous companions of her early flight, dismayed and paralyzed by apprehension, can never penetrate those abysses of light in which she floats in solitude, undazzled and unalarmed.

Have these misguided enthusiasts been taught no salutary lessons by the calamities which their interference has heaped upon the red man? Whithersoever they turn, their embrace is death. They have taught these denizens of the forest to resist the settled policy and pledged faith of the federal government in their removal, without which they die. Even in the sanctuary we have heard exhausted all the powers of rabid eloquence-we have seen priests, with all the fanatic raving, but without the inspiration of the Pythoness, depicting in glowing colors to the savage the loss of his home, of his hunting grounds, of the graves of his forefathers, the fields of his bloody trophies, and the bones of his warriors; but they overlook the sufferings of this weak and uncultivated people in contact with the re

sistless white man on his frontier march, their poverty, their starvation, their necessities, their pillage and mur ders, and the retributive vengeance, which the strong never fail to visit mercilessly on the weak. How much of these eloquent complaints of politicians and religion. ists only exist in the fervid imaginations of the declaimers, and how little is there which the understanding approves? We can readily comprehend the reluctance with which the civilized man abandons the comforts of home; but to the roving tribes it is but a change of hunting grounds. With little exception, they have never known a fixed abode. The awful truth constantly presses upon us, that the Indian on the borders of civilization must either be subdued to inferiority among a people with whom he can never blend, or he must be removed or exterminated. To sympathise with the sufferings of this unhappy race, to feel a chill of horror upon observing the closing scene in the desti nies of this doomed people, this decayed branch of the tree of civilization lopped off in the depths of hidden ages, and perishing in the wilderness,—these are feelings which a christian may safely indulge, while, with a heart filled with gratitude for the blessings heaped upon himself, he may beseech the great Arbiter of human fortunes, that he will so guide this free and favored people, that they may avert the degrada tion and debasement which have overtaken the red man. To teach resistance to the Indian by dwelling upon the oppression of the white man, is to exterminate the lingering remnants of these vagabond tribes, until there will be none left to lift up his voice on the margin of the king of waters, to bewail the untimely fate of his people. The genius that has so beas tifully told the melancholy tale of the "Last of the Mohicans," may yet be employed to sketch the instructive history of the last of the red men. It is impossible that these tribes can live in contact with civilization, and retain their independence; neither can they be incorpo rated among us any more than the negro. Indeed they are one degree further removed than the black man from the pale of civilization. They have to encounter the same invincible prejudice of color, which is unhap pily stronger on the point of contact than elsewhere. In the sweat of his brow has man been doomed to eat his bread. The necessity of labor, that first law of humanity, that everlasting canon, the destiny of man since his fall, these people stubbornly resist. No persuasion, no force can subdue them to this stern law, which is the porch of civilization. They will perish in the vestibule rather than enter the temple of civilization through the narrow gateway of labor. From the early settlement of these colonies they have been hovering on the bor ders of civilization; and notwithstanding all the efforts of missionaries, and the attractive order and beauty of civil institutions, they still remain the same uncultivated barbarians.

But there are considerations connected with the decrees of a superintending Providence, in the government of man, from which the reflecting mind may borrow many salutary lessons in relation to the fallen races of the human family. Sacred and profane history unite in teaching us the awful truth, that national debasement invariably follows national crime. It is a fixed canon in the institution of the world, that no creature can depart from its appropriate function, from the law

of its foundation with impunity. In moral agents, I and fruitful of their labors, the clergy flew to the courts endowed with understanding and free will, Justice the of Rome and Madrid, invoking the interposition of Avenger, punishes every departure from the prescribed both the secular and spiritual authorities to check the rule of action. Individuals, it is true, sometimes ap- merciless avarice which labored to reduce the Indian to pear to escape the punishment due to crime; but let hopeless slavery. Animated with a charity transcendus not forget, that divine justice may be disarmed by ing the precepts of the gospel, the enthusiastic priest prayer and repentance, and that for the wicked there exalted in order to preserve him; he extenuated every is retribution beyond the grave. But national degra- vicious propensity, he exaggerated every virtuous dation is the inevitable consequence of national crime. quality in the Indian character to such an extent, that During the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Robertson, in his History of America, cautions his readthe powers of darkness seemed for a season to have pre-ers not to confide too fully in the narrations of the vailed upon the earth, there arose indeed unbelieving clergy, on account of their partiality to the aborigines. men, who found it necessary in their attacks upon the Another source of inaccuracy as to the character and social institutions of man to proclaim the savage state condition of this people may be found in the philosophy as a state of nature. But the christian philosopher of the last age, which misrepresents the savage state, well knows, that the sublimest of the works of the to underprop its frivolous and malignant assaults upon supreme architect did not come thus rude and unfinished the social state. Thus the clerical enthusiast and the from his hands, and the traditions of all ages, as well infidel philosophist unite to deceive us. But it will as revelation itself, assure us that civilization and sci- require little investigation to expose the errors as well ence are the primitive and natural condition of man. of the religionists as of the irreligious. We have only Thus all the traditions of the east, from which we to contemplate the savage to perceive that he has none derive every ray of light, characterize the first ages of of those high qualities in behalf of which our sympa man as a state of perfection and light; and even fabu- thies have been so enthusiastically exerted, and that lous Greece confirms this truth by commencing the in his present debased condition he can never blend golden age with the origin of things. It is no less re- with the white man, or prosper in his vicinage. Look markable, that this people has not connected the sav- upon him but for an instant, and behold the anathema age state of man with any one of their ages, not even graven not only upon his heart, but upon his frame of with the age of iron; so that all that is related in her body. He is an ill favored mortal, lusty and ferocious, annals of primitive men, who frequented forests and over whose countenance the light of intelligence casts fed upon acorns, and thence advanced gradually to a but a feeble and glimmering ray. Smitten by a terristate of civilization, contravenes the current of her own ble power, the two great characteristics of human tradition, or else refers to particular tribes or colonies grandeur, forethought and perfectibility, have been obof degenerated men, returning tardily to that civiliza-literated in the savage. To gather the fruit he fells tion which is the true state of nature. Has not Vol- the tree; he slaughters the oxen bestowed upon him taire himself declared, (and his authority on this sub- by the Missionary to till his lands, and with the fragject is everything,) that the "motto of all nations has ments of his plough he builds the fire to roast his food. constantly been that the age of gold first appeared on For three centuries he has dwelt within sight of civiearth?" Now as all nations have unanimously protested lized man, and has obtained from him nothing but against a state of primitive or original barbarism, that powder to destroy his brethren, and intoxicating spirits protestation is entitled to much weight. to destroy himself. And still relying upon the undying It is impossible for us to look back into the abyss of avarice of the white man to supply him with these detime, and discover at what period the aborigines of this structive agents, he has never dreamed of manufacturing country were debased beneath their primitive condi- them for himself. As substances abject and repulsive tion. And indeed it matters not at what time any in themselves are susceptible of still further debasebranch was lopped off from the parent trunk. Con- ment, so the inherent vices of humanity acquire a cede to us a fall of the human family from an original darker character in the savage. He is a robber, he is and more elevated condition, and there will be no doubt cruel and lascivious, but he is so in a different manner of the cause of that degradation, which can be nothing from us. To commit crime we violate our nature, the but crime. The moral principle of a people thus de-savage follows his with the appetite for crime he feels While the son murders the father to graded has been corrupted, and the consequent anathema has been entailed upon their generations. This relieve him from the ennui of old age, his wite will depressing force is cumulative in its action, and by destroy in her womb the fruit of his brutal passion to perpetually pressing upon the descendants, reduces escape the duties of a nurse. He snatches the bleeding them at last to what we term the savage state. And scalp from his living foe, he tears the flesh from his this is the degraded condition of fallen man, that Rous- body, he roasts it, and devours it amid songs of triseau and his companions call the state of nature. umph; if he can procure ardent spirits, he drinks to intoxication, to madness, to death, insensible al ke to the reason which restrains man by his fears, and to the 'nstinct which repels the animal by distaste. He is manifestly a doomed being; smitten for his crimes by an avenging hand in the innermost recesses of his moral conformation, so that he who regards him with an observant eye, trembles as he views.

It has been the common error of the clergy in all ages, to transcend the limits of moderation and truth in the fervor of their zeal. Upon the first discovery of this continent the same exaggerated statements of the character and virtues of the Indian were published by these pious men that we now hear; and in the excess of their philanthropy, similar appeals were made to the interposition of foreign power. In South America, from the bosom of deserts bedewed with their blood,

no remorse.

:

But if we wish to tremble for ourselves with a salutary fear, if we desire to find objects for our overweenVOL. IV. 70