exposed, when vice and immorality in all their forms and my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: observances are denounced, He, who came to perfect which in time past was unprofitable to thee, but now the law, is silent on the subject of slavery. Are we to profitable to thee and to me: whom I have sent again: be told, that it formed no part of the plan of the Saviour whom I would have retained with me, but without thy to interfere with the civil institutions of the nations of mind would I do nothing: that thy benefit should not the earth, and that slavery was protected by the civil be as it were of necessity, but willingly." Onesimus code of the Roman empire? We deny the truth of was the slave of Philemon, whom he had robbed, and this assertion, and maintain that while the reformation from whom he had escaped. He was found and conof forms of government constituted no part of the scheme verted to christianity by the apostle, and afterwards of redemption, yet, in the fulfilment of the law, in the became an eminent dignitary in the church. But beperfection of that moral code which the Redeemer came sides the recognition of the lawfulness of slavery to establish, there was no civil institution, however for- under the christian dispensation, there are two importified by the municipal law, which was immoral in tant lessons which the reverend agitators of the present itself, that was not openly condemned. Let us contem- day may derive from this beautiful epistle. The first plate for a moment the civil institution of marriage as it | is, in the language of Jerome, in his commentary upon existed in the Roman empire, which was a species of this text, that "not even under the pretence of seeking domestic servitude regulated by the civil code, and we religious instruction are slaves permitted to escape from will find, that the law of the New Testament designed the lawful dominion of their masters." And the second for the government of the whole human family, radically is, that the apostle himself felt bound to sustain the aureformed that institution as it existed among the nations thority of the master over the slave, and therefore sent of the earth. To maintain, that slavery, as it existed him back to his master, although he was exceedingly under the Roman empire, was immoral in itself, and to anxious to retain him for the ministry, which he deadmit that He who came to perfect the moral code failed clares he could not do without the consent of the master. to condemn it, is to assail the whole fabric of christianity. Contrast the christian piety and justice of this apostle, As the new dispensation was the labor of infinite wis- with the conduct of the reverend agitators of the northdom, prompted by infinite goodness, and as it was clearly ern states whenever a slave escapes from his southern designed to be the fulfilment and perfection of the law master, and the difference between true religion and and the prophets, it is preposterous, if not impious, to fanaticism is at once perceived. In commenting upon suppose, that any immoral institution could be tolerated this text, Jerome further observes, that "although the or pass unrebuked by the new law, however strongly for- apostle wished to retain Onesimus to minister unto him ! tified it might be by the prejudices of the age or the laws in prison, yet he restored him to his master, that he of the land. But the Saviour of men, he whose heart might show that in right and justice fugitive slaves yearned with compassion for the poor and the needy, should be returned to their masters”—“ ut ostendat serand the oppressed of the children of men, found upon vos fugitivos jure justitiæ hæris suis esse restituendos.” the earth existing in full rigor the institution of slavery, | And in the epistle of the same apostle to Titus he and he has no where condemned it. If slavery be im thus defines the duties of servants: "Exhort servants moral, why is it the only vice which is not strictly pro- to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please hibited? It was not condemned, because as it origina- them well in all things, not answering again, not purted in the very NATURE OF THINGS, and as it was of loining, but showing all good fidelity, that they may divine institution in the infancy of man, the GOD OF adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." NATURE Could not condemn it. Upon this passage Chrysostom remarks, "the apostle But it will be objected to us, that the mere silence of thus admonishes servants to be faithful to their masters, the Redeemer on this subject is scarcely sufficient to in order to refute the calumny against the christian justify the exercise of so high a privilege, as that of religion, that slaves were taught by that creed that holding a fellow-creature in bondage. We cannot after their conversion to christianity, it was unlawful admit the force of this objection, because the new dis- to serve their heathen masters." Again, in the sixth pensation was merely a fulfilment, not a repeal of the chapter of the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians we old law. The types and emblems of the old law were find these words: "Servants, be obedient to them that merged in the new revelation, its rites and observances are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and were superseded, but the decalogue and moral force trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ; of that law still prevail. Now, having clearly estab-knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, lished the recognition and approval of slavery under the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be the Jewish dispensation by the Creator himself, and BOND OR FREE." Upon this passage Jerome says, that having shown that it was not abrogated by the Saviour"in the first age of christianity many supposed, that under the new law, the testimony is conclusive in its when they were made christians, they were loosed from favor. But pretermitting this argument, let us consult the bonds of slavery." And in refutation of the error the disciples of the Redeemer himself, who proclaimed it was decreed by one of the councils of the church: this law to Jew and Gentile. And in citing the testi-"that if any teach that by virtue of religion or chrismony of these disciples we will not confine ourselves tian instruction that the slave may despise his master, to the four first centuries of the christian era, those or may withhold his service, or that he shall not serve four centuries during which the men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have allowed the Creator to maintain his church in its primitive truth. Let us commence with the apostles. In the epistle of Paul to Philemon we find these words: "I beseech thee for

his master with good faith and reverence, let him be anathema." The same error prevailed in relation to the subjection of wives to their Gentile husbands, which this apostle expressly condemns in the seventh chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians.

But, we will descend from the apostles to the next, has maddened the whole school of modern demagogues, generation of christian teachers, for further evidence of but it is easier to denounce than to disprove it. His the lawfulness and morality of slavery. Ignatius, proposition is sustained by the whole current of hisbishop of Antioch, who is supposed to have seen the tory, which is political experience, and is founded in apostles, thus writes to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna: the nature of man, whose action is history. Indeed, "Let not the widows be neglected. Despise not the slavery was so generally believed to have its origin and slaves, neither suffer them to be puffed up; but to the foundation in the nature and necessities of man, that glory of God let them serve with greater diligence, that the good sense of all mankind perceived it clearly, and they may obtain of God a better liberty. Let them not until within the latter centuries, it has never been atdesire that their liberty be purchased or procured for them tacked by reason or the laws. The number of freemen by the congregation, lest they fall under the slavery of their in the states of antiquity was much inferior to that of own passions." Thus it is clearly established from the the slaves. When Athens numbered twenty thousand old and from the new law, in the infancy as well as in citizens, she had four hundred thousand slaves. When the advanced stages of society, in every age and in the population of Rome towards the close of the Reevery clime, that slavery has always existed, and has public was upwards of a million, there were but two been approved, and regulated by the laws of God and thousand property holders, which alone shows the man. Slavery therefore cannot be immoral in itself, multitude of slaves. Indeed, among this people a sinalthough like other social institutions it may be shame-gle individual was frequently possessed of many thoufully abused. We have then clearly demonstrated the sand slaves; and their number was so great that the propositions at the head of this article: Roman senate refused to prescribe for them a peculiar dress, from an apprehension that it would stimulate the slaves to rebellion by teaching them their strength. But it is idle to multiply evidences of a fact so appa

1. That slavery is coeval with society, and that it originated in the nature of things and the necessities of

man.

2. That it is universal, and has existed in all nations rent and so generally admitted, as that from the earliand climes. est ages of the world slavery has prevailed throughout

3. That it is neither prohibited by the moral nor the globe, and has never been condemned by any legisdivine law.

There remains to be established the single proposi- | tion, that "christianity alone by its exalting influence and peaceful and gradual operation can abolish slavery among any people, and that its sudden abolition by any other agency, must necessarily be attended with frightful political revulsions, destructive alike to the bond and free." Christianity is the great agent of civilization and refinement; and its action would be far more rapid and effectual, but for the passions and vices of mankind. Its ennobling influences tend to qualify the slave for freedom, and its gentle spirit of brotherly love disposes the master to kindness; and by its quiet and peaceful operation in the course of time, with the full consent of bond and free, when society shall have attained that elevation and refinement which a christian discipline induces, slavery may be abolished without the aid of the enthusiast and fanatic, and without agitation or commotion.

It was the peculiar folly of the philosophists of the last century, to judge every thing by the rigor of abstract rules, without regard to the salutary lessons of experience. Hence Rousseau commences his Social Contract with this startling maxim: "Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains." He certainly does not speak of man's being born free as a fact, because in the same sentence, he declares that he is everywhere in chains. He must intend to speak of the right, and this it will be somewhat difficult to establish in opposition to the fact. It is not true, that "man is born free." In all times and in all places, down to the establishment of christianity, slavery has always been considered as a necessary institution in the government and polity of nations, in republics as well as monarchies, and no philosopher or legislator ever dreamed of condemning it, or of assailing it by the spirit of the laws. Aristotle, one of the most profound of the ancient philosophers, has declared that there were men in the early ages of the world who were born slaves. We well know that this doctrine

lator, human or divine. But at length the divine law appeared upon the earth, and the heart of man became softened and refined to such a degree as to excite the admiration of every impartial observer. Religion by its chaste and holy influence tended gradually to the amelioration of the state of slavery, not by asserting the violated rights of the slave or the injustice of the master, but by the infusion of a spirit of brotherly love and charity. It was reserved for true religion alone to alleviate the burdens of the bondman; for, no other religion, no legislator, no philosopher, had previously attempted this beneficent labor; neither did they pretend to censure the most rigorous servitude. Slavery, under the Jewish dispensation, had been too deeply rooted, and was perhaps too essential for the welfare of the Israelites, to be entirely abolished; and thus we find the Jewish lawgiver, though supported by the whole power of the Deity, laboring not to condemn or to suppress this institution among his people, but to inculcate kindness and mercy. "And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee, be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant, but as a hired servant, and as a sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee. And then he shall depart from thee, both he and his children with him; for they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear thy God. Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." We have referred to this passage of Leviticus, not only to exhibit the kindly solicitude of religion to ameliorate the condition of servitude among the Jewsamong whom servants were treated more benignantly than by any other people of the olden time-but for the

leges of this new station, directed their whole attention to the protection and regulation of those middle states of qualified or limited servitude, which were the only ave

of citizenship. These middle states were a school of improvement and reformation; they were a form of probation-a civil, political, and moral noviciate-in which the candidates for admission to the privileges of citizenship were cautiously and slowly prepared for the higher order to which they aspired. Thus under the rigor of the feudal system the lower classes were originally serfs, attached to and transferable with the dominion of the soil. But as christianity shed its benign influence over this people, elevating the slave and refining and softening the master, these abject slaves became first predial servants, and gradually by the commutation of services, were raised to the condition of tenants of the soil. But the most sedulous efforts of christianity have constantly been directed to that state of domestic servitude in which man is most deeply interested, and which exercises the most direct influence on his morals and happiness. It is for the "devout female sex,” as they are affectionately termed in the liturgy of the

citude. And the inordinate authority of man over woman, or the undue subjection of the female to the male, tends to the debasement of the morals of each. Woman, even when invested with the plenitude of her rights,

further purpose of proving the existence of unqualified | once to freedom, from a state of abject servitude, before slavery among the earliest people of which we have au- he was properly qualified to exercise the high privithentic history, and of its express sanction and approval by the Deity himself. "Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; and ye shall take them as an in-nues to a peaceful and orderly enjoyment of the rights heritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." But christianity, which is governed by a divine spirit, is therefore temperate in its agency; and all its wholesome operations of every kind are gentle and insensible. And wherever we find, either in relation to the abolition of slavery or any other subject, turbulence, violence, impetuosity or vehemence, we may feel well assured that it is the work of crime or folly. Subordination is essentially necessary for the maintenance of any form of government. The popular will must be controlled, under arbitrary governments, by the strong arm of unbridled authority, and in free institutions by the intelligence and virtue of the people themselves. To emancipate suddenly a large body of slaves among any people, before those slaves are duly qualified to receive the boon-to surrender them up to the guidance of their unrestrained will, without any salutary check-is the most fatal blow which can be aimed at the institutions of such a nation. If they are to be no longer re-church, that christianity has expressed its deepest solistrained by authority, there must be some substitute to control them. Religion alone can either qualify them for freedom, or restrain them in the exercise of its estimable privileges. But the agency of religion is slow and imperceptible; it does not assert any right of free-and when mistress of her own actions, is but too often dom in the slave or act upon him alone, but its holy the feeble victim of the seducements which surround influence pervades every class of society; it elevates the her. How utterly helpless, therefore, is she when her bondman to the dignity of his nature; it refines the will is not her own! The very idea of resistance vanmaster, and by an insensible operation it effects a ishes, vice becomes a duty, and man, gradually debased wholesome fraternity of rights, privileges and immuni- by the facility with which his irregular appetites are ties. But to effect this desirable end, christianity must indulged, is plunged into Asiatic luxury. It is unnebe left to its own celestial agency, to its own heavenly cessary to direct the attention of the reader to the deguidance. When men attempt to wield this supernatu- gradation of the female sex in India, or among barbarous ral agent, they transcend their privilege, and the effects nations; the fact is clearly established, that every where, which they produce are the fruits of fanaticism. We in all nations, and among all people beyond the pale of have already seen that christianity, in its efforts to ame- christianity, woman is deplorably debased. Woman, liorate the condition of subject classes, commenced by a whose influence over the heart of man is resistless, wholesome reformation of the state of marriage, which is whenever she is corrupted or debased, revisits her corthe most important branch of domestic servitude. Sla-ruption upon man, and thus this pervading influence very is the grossest and most absolute state of servitude, of the sexes over each other, by a species of mutual but it is not the only one. Predial and domestic servi-contamination, moves from generation to generation tude have always accompanied unqualified servitude, in one "vicious circle," from which they can only be or slavery; and the former conditions have been the delivered by the supernatural and refining agency of stepping stones, by which the slave has advanced in christianity. Hence the simplest and most efficacious many nations to a paternity of freedom. Among the means of reforming man, is to exalt and to ennoble woancient Romans, the class of freedmen was the link man. Behold the wisdom of this divine institution! which connected citizenship with servitude, and the It acts first upon woman, because from the gentleness gentle influence of literature and science not unfre- and tractability of her nature, she is more susceptible quently elevated the slave to the rights of qualified citi- of the influences of this law of purity and love. And zenship. Many of the honors of the republic were ac- when she is thus regenerated, who shall declare the cessible to the freedman, and he had a deep interest in extent of her chastening influence over the sons of the the welfare of the government and the perpetuity of its children of men? Under the elevating and benign ininstitutions. So among the Hebrews; the servants, as fluences of christianity, she proceeds to subdue, to recontra-distinguished from the bondmen, were restored form, to elevate, to ennoble, and to perfect every thing to all their civil rights in the year of the jubilee, and around her; and by this supernatural power, she so the great lawgiver of this people passed many ordi- softens the affections and refines the feelings of the nances for the protection of this branch of servitude. lords of creation, as to dispose them to ameliorate the Thus science among the Romans, and religion among condition of classes of his fellow beings still more abthe Jews, instead of violent efforts to lift the slave at ject. Thus christianity, by commencing with the most

VOL. IV.-94

The first

moderate condition of servitude, gradually and peace- | be more MORAL THAN GOD, MORE RELIGIOUS THAN fully prepares the way for the elevation of the slave. CHRIST!-But let us examine their complaints about It is only by means of the spirit of charity and good the violation of the natural rights of man. will, which christianity infuses into the heart of man, want of man is life and subsistence. If to obtain these that slavery can be abolished in any country. But she he finds it necessary to renounce his freedom, we are must be left to her own supernatural agency-to her at a loss to conceive how this can be a crime. If a own heavenly guidance-to her own orderly proces- master cannot without ruin to himself, protect the life, sion; commencing her amiable work with woman, the or obtain support for the servant, except on condition least depressed and most influential branch of domestic of perpetual service, we cannot see the injustice of servitude, and gradually and imperceptibly approach-requiring it, nor how a convention of this kind offends the natural rights of man. While the families of men ing to unfetter the slave. were roving and pastoral, and before the institution of civil society, a slave could not change his master without expatriating himself, nor could a master liberate his slaves without ruin to his family. Slavery was therefore one of those domestic institutions which sprung from the necessities-from the nature and con

by the protection and sustenance which that society afforded. It is said, that contracts of servitude were void for want of consideration; thus committing the common error of regulating these primitive conventions by the artificial rules of modern contracts. But, if an individual be unable to obtain the first wants of nature-that sustenance which is necessary to preserve life itself without renouncing his freedom-surely there is a consideration founded in nature and necessity. And indeed the condition of the slave in the primitive

Let us recapitulate. Slavery cannot be opposed to the LAW OF MORALS, because it has existed in all ages; because it has been instituted, regulated, and approved in many instances by the Author of nature and morals; because He who came to perfect the old law and the moral code has never condemned it; because it pre-dition of society in its infancy; but it was alleviated vailed in its most odious forms under the Grecian and Roman republics, and has never been censured by any of their philosophers, sages, or lawgivers; because the Patriarchs possessed slaves, and were never rebuked on that account; because Moses, although sustained by the power and wisdom of the Deity in framing the Jewish law, did not attempt to abolish, but contented himself with ameliorating the condition of slavery; because the immediate disciples of our Saviour have exhorted the slaves not to be too anxious for their freedom, and have advised the congregations of the faith-ages was not so utterly debased or hopeless as many ful not to be solicitous for the purchase of the liberty of the slaves, lest perchance they should fall under the dominion of their sinful passions; because from the institution of man to the introduction of christianity, from the advent of the Redeemer to the present day, slavery has always existed; because slavery had its origin in the very nature of man, in the very nature of things, and cannot be in opposition to natural right; because it was ordained, regulated, and approved in the Old and in the New Testament by the GoD OF NATURE himself.

have imagined, and the avenues to freedom have never been closed upon him in any age. A slave might, in certain cases, inherit the whole property and dominion of his master. "And Abram said, Lord, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, behold to me thou hast given no seed; and lo one born in my house is mine heir. And the Lord said, this man shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels, shall be thine heir." Civil liberty has only become this inestimable benefit, since it has been protected and regulated by law, and since the means and facilities of subsistence have been infinitely multiplied. Before that happy period, liberty, so far from being a blessing, was a positive evil, unless accompa nied with the means of subsistence, servants, and flocks, and herds, and pastures. It is absurd to maintain, that without these means and appliances, domestic or predial slavery was a violation of natural right. And this necessary condition was alleviated by all the feelings of humanity. Holy Job declares that he never failed to render justice to his servants. "If I did despise the cause of my man servant or of my maid servant when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? And when he

Perhaps it would be well to close this article here; but let us not despise the prejudices of the infidel and the philosophist, but patiently inquire whether their complaints of this violation of the natural rights of man have any foundation. It is somewhat strange, that the world should have acquieseed in this state of slavery for six thousand years, and that it should have been reserved for these latter ages of presumptuous man, to discover that God had instituted, and the Saviour and his disciples had approved, this stupendous fraud upon the natural rights of man. It is stranger still, that the objections should be urged by the infidel, who strikes at the very roots of revealed religion, and by the revolutionist, who, reeling with the drunken inspiration of liberty and equality, aims at the subver-visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that sion of all established institutions. And it is yet more strange, that the whole theory of crime and folly, which was born of the French revolution, and whose excesses we hoped had been expiated by the torrents of blood with which they had been stained, should in this age, and in this country, be revived and sustained by many of the Northern and Eastern clergy. While this destructive principle approached us in the form of Revolution and Infidelity, the apparition was too horrible to be favorably received; but when it approaches a war of extermination. Was it cruelty or mercy in under the garb of Religion, it is high time to examine the claims of these supersanctified pretenders, who, transcending the morality of the scriptures, would

made me in the womb make him? and did not One fashion us in the womb?" Here the just man justifies slavery before God, and inculcates mercy and justice in his government. Moses framed the civil and natural polity of the Hebrew people, and the whole spirit of his code tended to humanize and polish this cruel and stiff-necked generation. Now we know, that whatever changes for the better have been made in the mode of warfare in later times, in his age it was

this great lawgiver to spare the lives of his captives, and reduce them to slavery? And even in our own days, if we were at war with an enemy that gave no

reason was silent, and when revelry, riot and debauch. ery prevailed, that the order of society was disturbed, and the slave was admitted to all the privileges of the freeman. But if these ancient people would have held themselves dishonored by mingling upon terms of equality in social intercourse with their slaves, then a similar repugnance in the people of the southern states must spring from the very nature of slavery, and must be more deeply seated than in the prejudice of color, though this latter cause may render the feeling more invincible.

NEW VIEW OF THE TIDES.

We see and we acknowledge the vast improvements which have been made in the arts and sciences within the last half century. In these improvements the Americans have signally participated; and can it be now said, with any degree of propriety, that any one has reached the limit beyond which none can penetrate into the fields of improvement and discovery? Or, that all that can be known, is known?

quarter, would not retributive justice, would not the | was only during the festival of the Saturnalia, when law of retaliation impel us to revisit his cruelty upon himself? And if instead of bloody reprisals, we should elect to reduce them to captivity, would they have any just cause of complaint? Reason and religion teach us the obligation of treating slaves with humanity, and to ameliorate their condition as far as is compatible with the maintenance of discipline. This is what has been done by the law of Moses and by the law of the New Testament, and this is what has been inculcated by the most humane and wisest of the philosophers of antiquity. Placed at the head of a nation which went forth to conquer sword in hand, in the midst of a people among whom slavery was an established institution, in a state of society in which there was no liberty but for those who had dominion over the land, Moses could not abolish slavery, but he enacted salutary laws for the merciful exercise of the power it conferred. In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus, and in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, we find the amelioration of the condition of slaves among the Hebrew people. Now it is apparent, that under the influence of religion, slavery was much less rigorous and less liable to abuse among the chosen of God, than among any other people known to us; and the texts, to which we have referred, clearly indicate not only the lawfulness and morality of this condition of a portion of the human family, but also prove that the immediate abolition of slavery is neither required by the sanctions of religion, nor the principles of a well ordered philanthropy. Armed with the authority of Moses, what more would have been done by those philosophists and avengers of the natural rights of man, who in their misguided zeal, would subvert the wisest regulations, and reform the institutions ordained by the God of nature himself? It is absurd to declaim against slavery, as it existed in the olden time, upon those notions of liberty which prevail at the present day, for this liberty had no existence previous to the introduction of christianity. And how ridiculous is it, to have required of Moses to establish among the Jews a species of freedom, which was directly opposed to the physical and moral condition of the age in which he lived! We turn in vain to the refined and polished nations of antiquity, to the institutions of Greece and Rome, for those merciful regulations of slavery which were prescribed to the Hebrew people.

But the cause of the Tides is now the question. I will, however, here make a short reply to an objection made to my "Views of the Solar System." The objection comes from a distinguished source-a professor of mathematics. He says, "your views cannot be correct, as no possible velocity of the sun can be made to correspond with the different velocities of the planets." This is very true, if the velocities given to the planets by the European mathematicians are to be made the test. But these velocities my views reject. We see that the velocity of Jupiter's moons corresponds exactly with the velocity of their primary, and so it is with the planets in relation to the sun. Suppose we had an additional moon, could either have a greater velocity than the other? The inner moon, in consequence of the greater contraction of its orbit, would make more revolutions round the earth than the outer one, and would appear to move faster, (like the inner planets,) but it would make no greater progress than its associate. The progress of the earth would limit the progress of both. This is so evidently true, that I felt Our northern brethren attribute much of the princi- some surprise that any one would attempt to accomple of slavery in the southern states, and of the oppo-modate the heretofore supposed different velocities of sition to emancipation, to the prejudice of color. It the planets to any given velocity of the sun. The sun must be admitted, that the color of the African presents limits the velocity of the planets, precisely as Jupiter Some notice of the an insuperable obstacle to his emancipation and ad- limits the velocity of his moons. mission to the fraternity of social and political rights. heavenly bodies has existed for thousands of years, and The African can never blend with the Anglo-Saxon, much of the phenomena has been recorded, and there until the Anglo-Saxon be debased to a level with the has been no variation in the bearing of the solar sysslave. But let us be careful how we magnify this dif- tem during that time-Mercury performing his hunficulty, and attribute to it effects springing from other dred periods, while Saturn performs one,- and they are causes. At Athens, the freedmen were called bastard now in the same relative situation they were at least 3000 citizens; and both the Athenians and the Romans years ago. The progressive motion of the sun at once would have considered themselves dishonored by eat-settles the question as to the different velocities given ing at the same table with their slaves. To admit them to the rights of hospitality, they were compelled to manumit them. There were but three days in the year in which the ancient Romans recognized the modern doctrine of fraternity, liberty, and equality; there were but three days during which the infidels, and agitators, and disorganizers of the last and of the present century could have desired to behold. For, it

the planets. But independently of this, if we even suppose the sun a stationary body, it can be demonstrated from their times, that no one of them has a greater velocity than another. As to this question, a travelling sun, or a stationary sun, it makes no difference at all. They all pass and repass the orbit of their primary, as our moon passes and repasses the orbit of the Earth, and all describing orbits concave to the