they are held by the abolitionists, as man-stealers and murderers. The following extract is from "a picture of slavery"-a work sold at the office of the Anti-Slavery Society.

"Every slave-holder peremptorily and without delay, must be excommunicated from the Church of God."

"It is of no importance, what title, what office, what station, or what rank, the slave-holder may hold, or what apparent virtues, or talents he may possess and develop. To all these specious pleas, and to all this anti-christian whitewashing, there is a concise, significant, and irrefutable reply:-He is a man-stealer. But as a man-stealer is the very highest criminal in the judgment of God, and of all rational, uncorrupted men, he cannot be a Christian; and therefore it is an insult to the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, to record the most notorious criminal as an acceptable member of the household of faith.' * **There must be a beginning, and to the Christians of New England especially, to the descendants of the puritan pilgrims, is reserved the honour of commencing upon a large arena, and of effectually carrying on the warfare which shall expel man-stealing from all connection with American Churches. However plausible may be the pretexts, and however ingenious and urgent may be the excuses, they must categorically denounce the profession of Christianity in alliance with slave-holding, as pestiferous hypocrisy. They must sternly prohibit all slave-driving preachers from officiating in the sanctuary, or leading in any devotional exercises."

"Thus the Northern and Eastern Christians must unsparingly act. They must eject every man-stealer, without exception, from the communion of Saints,' instantly and forever."

We cannot pause to estimate the power of this combination of the priesthood, or the dangers which are to be apprehended to the liberties of the country, from their systematic agitation of political questions. Every one who has opened the pages which record the history of the past, must know the consequences which have ever flowed from the political policy of the priesthood. He must know that the most sanguinary and dreadful of those innumerable wars, which have, in different ages deso*lated the earth, have been kindled by the breath of fanaticism; and that even the religion of peace, has been perverted, by the ambition or bigotry of priests, into the cause of the slaughter of millions. Religious interference has, in all cases, been attended with violence; religious domination, in all cases, followed by political despotism, popular degradation, and national decay. So effective an agent is fanaticism, in the agitation or control of the popular mind, that the mask of religious fervour has been frequently worn to cover the dark and blood-spotted brow of guilty ambition, of deep and insatiate love of power. It would have been strange, had the abolitionists overlooked such an engine-such a mask. It is a weapon peculiarly appropriate for their cause. It accords admirably with the sleek dissimulation, the canting affectation of superior excellence, and the reckless disregard of the lives and happiness of others, which characterize that faction. The subject of abolition is, therefore, argued wholly on religious grounds. The Constitution is arrayed against the Bible; and the South is denounced as a moral "Sodom." Whatever subject may be discussed, their arguments are still directed to the fanatical; even declamation assumes the whining tone of cant; and all their efforts betray the same determination to urge abolition, not

as a grand political question, to be argued on political grounds, but as a theological point, to be discussed with nasal intonation and hypocritical slang, and to be decided by a faction of presumptuous priests, and the old women, male and female, whose political opinions and feelings are in their holy keeping.

This fanaticism is equally dangerous, whether affected or sincere, but not equally revolting. That it is, with the leaders at least, counterfeit, is demonstrated by the fact that, among the most vociferous of the preachers of abolition, are men, whose lives constitute but a halting commentary on their doctrines. How heartless must be the impiety of the man, who can use the gospel of peace to forward a plot that must move, if at all, axle deep in blood!

"No sound," says the immortal Burke, “should be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. Those who quit their proper character, to assume what does not belong to them, are for the most part ignorant of the character they assume, and of the character they leave off. Wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the PASSIONS they excite. Surely the church is a place, where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind."

The men who renounce all Christian fellowship with one half of the members of the American Church, for maintaining, as Christ himself did, the existing institutions of the country, can scarcely expect that their course of treason, incendiarism and violence, will be regarded in a more charitable spirit. But we are willing, even by a violation of probability, to suppose that, at least some of these bigots have really at heart the advancement of the

cause of religion; and will ask them, if they can deceive themselves into a belief that the course which they have adopted, is calculated to promote that cause. Do they not know that it must divide the Christian church into two bodies, those approving, and those opposing, the legal institutions of the South; that these parties must regard each other with feelings of no Christian character; and that the house, thus divided against itself, is in danger of falling? Are they not aware, that by thus interfering with the politics of the country, they not only expose themselves to dangerous political errors from their ignorance and inexperience, but that they are exciting against themselves and against the clergy in general, a wide-spread and popular feeling of distrust, suspicion, prejudice, and aversion? Do they not know that they, by their present course, assume the awful responsibility of endangering the cause of religion itself; of exciting even against its holy and beneficent influence, that prejudice which is and must be attached to an intermeddling, ambitious, and selfish priesthood, whatever political course they may pursue; and which, when that course endangers the rights of the people, and the honour and union of the country, cannot but be intense and general? How can they answer these questions to themselves? How can they answer them to the great Master, whose holy name they have thus abused-whose holy cause they have thus betrayed and injured? The prudent, the pious will shrink and tremble, before they incur a responsibility so fearful. They will hesitate before they throw by the shepherd's crook, to grasp the weapon which must be reddened in the blood of our brethren; and ponder deeply and solemnly, before they sanction those who thus dangerously pervert the religion of Him who came into the world "not to destroy, but to fulfil."

CHAPTER XXIV.

Ability of the South to hold its Slaves-Increase of Slaves-Slaves contented--Impossibility of successful insurrection-Security of the South, &c. &c.

In extenuation of their lawless encroachments on the rights of the South, the abolitionists plead the great dangers which must arise from the existence of slavery. This danger, if it exists at all, menaces only the inhabitants of the South. Now they are neither destitute of mental nor physical resources to foresee or meet the alleged danger. They are fully capable of the task of caring for themselves; and the thankless interference of the abolitionists is equally ill-timed, pragmatical, and unnecessary. The South wants no protection, and, least of all, the protection of the abolitionists. Their charity is altogether obtrusive; and it would be well if, in their discursive and knight-errant benevolence, they would seek other subjects for the exercise of their virtues.

These raven counsellors calculate the increase of the slaves, and come to the conclusion that they are gaining gradually upon the whites; that their power will be thus regularly increased, until at length, in future times, they may outnumber the whites, and fall upon and massacre them. They, therefore, appear to think that it is more prudent that the slaves should be excited to this massacre at once; that the "question should be met," and that the throats des