ing. If presented in a clear light, just form, and natural complexion, their force will be felt and acknowledged. The understanding will yield assent to the conclusions, which they naturally support. It will utter its voice in unqualified, pointed condemnation of wickedness. The standard of obligation, set up in God's revealed word, he may bring to bear upon the conscience.-If fairly presented and faithfully applied, conscience will not fail to respond to it. The guilty bosom will be wrung with remorse-will be tortured with anticipated pangs of eternal damnation. He may direct his appeals to the heart, forlorn and desolate, bleeding at every pore with self-inflicted wounds. He may charge home upon it the guilt and folly of forsaking "the Fountain of living waters," and of repairing to empty broken cisterns, to quench its raging thirst; of refusing to give its love and confidence to God, the Father, Saviour, Sanctifier, and fastening its affections and fixing its hopes on mere shining bubbles. To a perverse choice, to misplaced affections, to unwarranted reliances he may point, as the fountain of the dark, turbid, bitter waters which overflow the soul. And to every syllable he utters, the oppressed, bereaved heart will mournfully respond: truth, truth! It will feel that it is wedded to a monster, whose fascinations are deadly to present peace and future joy. It will groan for deliverance. Here are powerful auxiliaries, in the very constitution of the transgressor, which in efforts to reclaim and save him, may be employed with the happiest effect. Never was a sinner brought to repentance without such assistNever was such assistance welcomed and employed without substantial benefit. The philanthropist who adjusts his benevolent exertions to the immut

ance.

able standard of obligation, set up in the law of God, and he only, can avail himself of aid, so appropriate and powerful.

3. So is this philanthropist sustained and cheered and encouraged in his exertions by the providence and promises of God.-In the arragements of his providence, God has connected with evil-doing fearful consequences. Even in this world, iniquity brings forth deadly fruit. Of this the entire history of the human race is heartbreaking proof and mournful illustration. Fix your eye, as a single point which deserves attention, on the effects which follow the loathsome crime of slaveholding. What is domestic life where this crime prevails? Its sweetest charities and dearest joys are blighted. How can they live and flourish amidst misrule and insubordination, suspicion and jealousy, inflamed passions and incessant strife? The bonds of wedded life, how rudely are they broken! The enslaved husband sees his wife daily exposed to the violence and pollution of unbridled lust and unchecked licentiousness! And what confidence can his mistress repose in the fidelity of his master? It is no wonder that filial obedience, and gratitude, and confidence rcfuse to live in the young heart, whose wayward propensities and guilty passions are gratified and pampered. How terrible, moreover, are the apprehensions which torture the bosom of the master, that the slave will one day rise and fearfully assert his rights! That black, sinewy arm, who can stand before it, when once lifted up in vengeance? And what sort of vengeance it may be expected to inflict, such scenes as clothed Southampton in mourning, teach him, with a definiteness and emphasis, which makes his whole frame tremble. Every occurrence, favorable to insurrection, spreads

terror and dismay far and wide. The most cruel and disgraceful measures are resorted to, to prevent the anticipated horrors of servile war. The authority and skill of legislators, who cling to their vices, and "glory in their shame," are employed to conceal beyond the reach of discovery, the key of knowledge. Fines and stripes, contempt, disgrace and violence are the prescribed reward of the philanthropist, who should dare to conduct a ray of light to the eye of the slave. The most anxious, and painful, and disgraceful efforts are employed to keep a knowledge of his rights from reaching his mind. The colored freedman is subject to gross contempt and shocking abuse, to depress him, if possible, below the slaves, that a comparison of his state with theirs, may not awaken them to discontent.* A philanthropist, at the distance of a thousand miles, single-handed, decried, derided,opposed, cannot plead the cause of the oppressed negro, on the broad basis of eternal justice or eternal mercy, without making governors tremble in their chairs, and legislators quake in the senate-chamber. In the arrangements of providence, the slaveholder finds his monstrous guilt in wresting away the rights of the helpless and unprotected, a deep source of wretchedness. He feels, that in a contest with the victim of his cupidity and lust, "not a single attribute of God can take side with him."+ In the adjustments of His providence, he sees that He has burnt into the front of his offending the brand of reprobation. The philanthropist, then, who would lend his influence to break the chain which binds and cripples the scarred

* See the debate on Mr. Brodnax's resolution, in the Virginia Legis lature.

† Jefferson.

limbs of the slave, may well follow the leadings of God's holy providence. By this I mean, that he may well use his best endeavors, to open the eyes of the infatuated slaveholders on the tremendous perils which are gathering around them. He may well address and thus augment their fears. He may well urge them, as they value their own safety, to remove their hand from the throat of their unoffending victims, whom desperation is awakening to courage, and rousing to vengeance. He may well admonish them that they are digging their own graves, training up their own executioners. He may surround the tiger, while sucking the blood of his victim, with appalling fires! Around slaveholders he may throw, in terrific array, those dangers with which the providence of God is manifestly threatening them. He may thus hope to contribute something to bring these worse than Pharaohs* "to let the people go." And as these arrangements of providence are adjusted to an accurate discrimination between right and wrong, so, if he would secure their powerful influence in aid of the work of reformation, must his plans and exertions be.

With such plans and exertions, he is fully entitled to the cheering influence of the divine promises. He may justly appropriate to himself the gracious assurance, by which the Saviour quickened the zeal, strengthened the faith, and animated the hopes of his disciples in their labors of love, just as he went up to the mediatorial throne. In the declaration, "Lo! I am with you" in your efforts to spread the Gospel, the Lord Jesus has furnished us with ground, equally broad and substantial, on which we may expect his aid, in every *Stuart's Hebrew Study, vol. ii. p. 175.

enterprise, which is adapted and designed to bring men under the controlling influence of Christian principles. Just in proportion as Christian principles extend their influence, the Gospel is obeyed. In every instance in which we labor to remove moral evils, under any form, we labor to extend the sway of Christian truth, and may expect the smiles of Jesus Christ. If iniquity in every form, is opposed to the progress of the Gospel, then the Saviour not only binds us by his authority, but also encourages us by his promises, to resist and exterminate iniquity in every form. And what is this but to lend the sanction of his authority, and the support of his promises to those philanthropists, who, in their efforts to reform mankind, adjust their exertions to an accurate discrimination between right and wrong?

Fix your eyes on the despondent prophet to whom the language of my text was addressed. His heart is cold, his hands are heavy. His official work he regards as a hopeless enterprise. He stops in the midst of his course, and has not courage to take another step. But what saith Jehovah ? Up! cease your complaints. Return to your appropriate labors. Be not afraid of wicked men. "Take forth the precious from the vile." Your message shall be clothed with divine authority; your language shall have the weight of words fresh from the lips of God. Results, the most substantial and beneficent, shall follow your exertions. Those who act upon the plan prescribed to the prophet, are justly entitled to the promises, by which he was cheered. And the grand peculiarity of this plan was a full and practical regard to the distinction between right and wrong.

The Saviour does not hesitate to employ the strongest language, to incite his people to undertake in extend