me, as the result of his experience, that he could never discern any natural distinction between white and coloured men, * nor any moral difference between the races that was not clearly referable to the depraving operation of slavery. Some white men cannot pardon the blacks whom they have injured; but Dr. Fouré can forgive the blacks who injured him, and regard the exasperation from which he suffered with the liberal indulgence of exalted wisdom. The experience of every age has confirmed Homer's maxim that the day which makes man a slave takes half his worth away. Impudently seeking a defence of their cruelty even in the most detestable of its fruits, slave owners appeal to the degradation inflicted by slavery on the negro race as a proof that the race is naturally degraded to an aptitude for slavery. That the mental debasement of the negro race is produced not by * Human nature appears least respectable to its own least respectable members. The wise and good are ever prompt to recognize, and liberal in appreciating the worth and capacity of other men. The Malay and Hottentot slaves at the Cape of Good Hope used to be regarded by their masters very much as negroes are regarded in America. But the greatest genius that ever visited the Cape of Good Hope, Sir John Herschel, assures me that there appeared to him to exist no substantial distinction, moral or intellectual, between those men and the natives of Europe. the qualities of their physical constitution, but by the moral operation of their misfortunes and maltreatment, is strongly inferred by the similarly debased estate of those numerous families and classes of men in Hindostan whom the tyrannical and brutifying system of castes has depressed beneath the civil and political level of their countrymen. The natural superiority which a white slaveholder arrogates to himself over a negro is not greater than the superiority affected by a Hindu of high caste over one whose caste is reckoned servile and plebeian. How is the fatal and inhuman prejudice, fraught with so much wickedness and woe, to be successfully combated and finally subdued in America? A great step would be made towards this desirable end, by universal emancipation. For, while the great majority or even any considerable portion of the blacks remain in slavery, the freed portion continue allied by colour to a degraded race, and must partake the contempt inspired by proscribed and felon hue. While a black skin is reckoned the hue of slavery, every approach to it will be as much repudiated and despised, even by persons of mixed breed, as humble though honest employments are scouted by wealthy upstarts in white society. Even while the prejudice remains, let it not sanction the continuance of cruelty and injustice. But it is the influence of religion, from which this grand consummation is to be expected. And though an American writer whom I have already quoted denies that even religion itself is capable of exerting an influence so mighty, I confidently ascribe to ascribe to religion the power which he refuses it, and receive no other conviction from his words than that he knows not what true and undefiled religion is. He looks at this celestial principle in the foul and feeble copy of the world's depraved practice. I look at its original picture in the word of God,-from which, I am firmly persuaded that more of the light and truth and force of the Gospel has yet to break forth on mankind than, except in brief and partial flashes, the world has ever yet seen. Scripture has promised that the time will come when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea"-when none shall hurt or oppress within the extent of Divine dominion, but all hearts and knees shall bow to Him before whose presence every valley shall be filled and every mountain brought low, and "in whom is neither Jew nor Gentile, Greek nor Barbarian, Bond nor Free:" And I believe God rather than man. "Revelation," says the excellent Bishop Trevor, "may be slow in working the full purpose of Heaven, but it must be sure. Religion must one day be a very different thing from what we at present behold it. Christian charity cannot always be to the world a light without heat, a pale cold fire. Its warmth at length must be universally felt." His arm is not shortened, who in days of old gave bondmen favour in the eyes of those who had dragged them from their homes and detained them in captivity-who caused their oppressor himself to break their chains and rebuild their city.* The increased effusion of religious light and influence will lead men to find in every instance of human weakness, misfortune, and inferiority, not invitations to tyranny and usurpation, but motives to compassion and opportunities of beneficence; and teach their hearts to feel the force, as well as their eyes to see the meaning of our Saviour's answer to the lawyer's question, "And who is my neighbour?" No person who has studied Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, and walked in spirit by that man's side * "He [Cyrus] shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts."-Isaiah xlv. 13. up the steep hill that he gloriously climbed, will despair of the final triumph of pious energy and single hearted benevolence over the most obstinate resistance that prejudice, interest, and habit can oppose to human welfare and improvement. "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." From every temptation that assails human nature, the Almighty has provided a way to escape: and when the will exists, the way will be found. It is the fearful, the unbelieving, the slothful, who says, "There is a lion in the way;" and shuts his heart against the light and warmth of Christianity, lest its flame should burn his fingers. The faithful believer finds the yoke of virtue made easy, and its burden light. The descendants of the New England Puritans, of the Maryland Catholics*, and of the New Jersey and Pennsylvanian Quakers, must carry out to its * The Church of Rome, to which these Catholics ascribe infallible wisdom, has not only anathematized negro slavery as an outrage to religion and nature, but repeatedly conferred the rank of priesthood on negroes, and even canonized some of the negro priests as saints. See Gregoires "Traité de la Noblesse de la Peau." The greatest champion of African rights that has ever appeared in Maryland was Elisha Tyson a Quaker. Of the heroic labours, the superhuman courage and fortitude with which this Christian Hercules stemmed the flood of iniquity at its fiercest height, a striking picture is preserved in the appendix to Mr. Sturge's "Visit to the United States." |