of the foot, any foundation that is sure, it lies in the word of God. Paul was never greater, never indeed more philosophical, than when he uttered that comprehensive and startling apothegm, "Let God be true, but every man a liar." And many such a character is made by the divine declaration, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." With such we design no present controversy. It is far pleasanter to rehearse truth and survey it, not as armed and earnest combatants, but simply as quiet and unobtrusive admirers of it, discoursing in the love of it, and minutely observing it only that so much the more it may be loved.

the

It is even the best, as well as the easiest philosophy, to acquiesce in the saying, concerning the world, "It hath a devil." Oft times it casts it into the fire, oft times into the water; and it makes it to wander among tombs. But in the counsels of the Highest, adds revelation, the time draws nigh when there will arise an omnipotent exorcist who will cast out the demon; when the corpse of the world, bound hand and foot, is to be loosed, and let go; when the "creature" itself is to rise from its long prostration of "vanity," and walk forth in all the liberty of the emancipated "sons of God." And, if all this be mere fancy, it is nevertheless a plausible fancy; and as a theory, loses none of its value from its apparent issue from the lively oracles of eternal truth.

Were it not the wiser part to have a constant preparation against a surprisal from any thing erroneous in man, we might well feel surprise at the backwardness of any to see and confess that man's sin, in its curse, has fallen, like a dark pall, upon all nature around him since there are things of such character, and in number so great a multitude, which are more easily and properly

accounted for as the effects of man's terrible dereliction of right, than traced to any other imaginable source whatever. It is more philosophical, as well as scriptural, to consider certain knotty facts as existing for man's sake, than to conjecture for them any other possible origin. But it suffices us, that it is scriptural. We have it from the highest of all known authority, that the prowling beasts of the forest, as well as the tamer ones of the field, man could once call harmlessly around him, as a shepherd his sheep; though now they go about seeking whom they may devour. Also, an inheritance of rude winds, and fierce tempests, and wide wastes, has fallen to the sons of him who, ere the era of sin, stood uncovered in the balmy air, and beneath the serene sky, of a bright and ever happy Eden. That Eden is no more,-or, it has gone into bondage; an unwilling bondage, says the same high authority; as though nature held a personality, and now rested in hope of an approaching release.

Though much of creation is inanimate and insensible, it is often spoken of in the Scriptures as holding some near or even conscious relation to its Maker. Yea, even philosophy can honor God, by calling him nature's very impulse, as well as ruler and defense. And so the prophets and songsters of Scripture, describe even inanimate nature as disposed to worship God; the sea to roar in his praise; the mountains and hills to break forth into songs and dances. "Praise him from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps; fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling his word." Thus, in anticipation of the day when the sons of God shall enjoy their manifestation, "the Scriptures," says President Edwards, "do very often represent, that when this shall be accomplished, the whole inanimate creation shall greatly rejoice;" the heavens shall sing, the earth be glad,

the mountains break forth, and the hills be joyful together; the trees clap their hands; the lower parts of the earth shout; the sea roar, and the fullness thereof, and the floods clap their hands. This, like the fine passage of Milton, from which Pres. H. has made an extract, is indeed poetry; but this is to say nothing more, than that the truth is not necessarily injured or destroyed, by the robes of "fine linen" and "needlework," with which taste may decorate it.

If we would turn from theory to example, let us follow the preacher as he leads us to the events of the great day of the crucifixion, when the Son of the Highest expired, with signs and wonders attending. There fell upon the face of the earth," as sorted best with present things," (to use an expression of Milton, and the sentiment of Dr. H.,) darkness. The veil of the temple rent; the earth shook; and dead ones arose. It were as if inanimate nature knew and acknowledged her suffering Lord, and gave forth the pledges of her allegiance, even though man knew and acknowledged him not.

If we would look for a specific example of the inthralled "creature" near us, we have only to turn to the human body; that part of the creation with which we are nearest of all connected. Undeniably the most curiously wrought, and most wonderful of all earthly specimens of divine skill, the body of man is yet the suffering servant of some fell power of destruction. Its members are made, not more the instruments than the victims of all unrighteousness. The curious frame abjectly serves the debased soul. It is made the vent and medium of so much that is sinful, that even equitable philosophy has at times done it the indignity to call it the very origin of sin; though it be only the usurped seat of sin. It is the unfortunate subject of pains, sicknesses, and miseries, without number or name; of final death and repulsive decay. As the vehicle of

a leprous soul, the body is itself leprous; both conveying sin, and sharing in its penalty. So that while it was one of Plato's thanksgivings, that God had made him a man, it was one of the thanksgivings of Plotinus, as Archbishop Leighton observes, "that his soul was not tied to an immortal body." Its groans are literal groans; the pain in which the body travails, (as Dr. H. somewhat pleasantly says of the gout,) does not depend for its existence on the license of poetry, but is real. And the organs of its sight glisten, as it were, with the hope that it shall ere long share in the promised liberty of the sons of God.

We may profitably, also, as well as humanely, spare a brief look at the irrational creation around us; to which indeed Calvin mainly applies the Tlous in this place. Though without sin, yet brutes are not without suffering. They feel the bonds and iron thongs of the self-same curse which rests upon us. They are inflamed by ill nature, afflicted with pains, with pains, destroyed by death. Impelled by mutual animosity, they meet in fierce, merciless, and often deadly assault. Not infrequently, their strength is over taxed, and their life exhausted, by torturing inhumanity. So also, in all the larger and more wide-spread afflictions of the family of man, brute nature must needs take a share. The ox wilts under the same heat, is pinched by the same cold, or parched by the same drought, that afflicts man. The beasts of the forest and field, are fellow-partakers with us in the rain and snow, and dewy vaporin the fruits of the earth, and in all the states and conditions of the elements, no less than though they were "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." They eat the same natural fruits of " vanity." In a large sense, they utter the same groans, and travail in the same pain.

Now let open-eyed reason candidly observe such grave facts, and

it must surely assent to the thought of Paul, that the present state of nature is indeed a state of bondage. It conceives that the existing state of things might be different. And if it take to itself somewhat of the Christian element, it conceives that things are elsewhere different, with beings different in moral character. At the same time, it also discerns that what now is, is now best; that the spreading curse upon all the earth, like the thick-strewn hoar frost of the cold night, is not only proper, but circumstantially necessary; that every known force or element, whether of cold or heat, joy or sorrow, life or death, is now in its place; that the abstraction of even any noxious element would, in the general whole, be missed; that the world for a fallen one, is a perfect one. So long as the human race writhes under the foot of sin, no residence for it could be more admirably designed, or more completely arranged, or more properly furnished, or more fitly controled, than the present. Man has as many physical circumstances contributing to his happiness, as divine and universal consistency could possibly allow. Nevertheless, were man in himself different from what he now is, there is supposable a condition of things, natural things, physical arrangements or laws of the human frame, and of the whole terrestrial animate and inanimate system-a condition of things from which every cause adverse to perfection and enjoyment should be entirely shut out, as a necessary or incidental part. Nay, there is something more here for man, and for the world, than mere supposition. Promissory and prophetic language could scarcely be more distinct and positive than it is on this point. If Dr. H.'s interpretation is true, the great hope of creation shall ere long be accomplished; and the powerful interdict of "liberty," i. e. of the highest perfection in terrestrial nature, shall be at once and forever taken off;

and the burden of earth's bondage shall roll back into dark oblivion.

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Such a golden epoch of earthly purity and completion, the eye of ancient, gray-haired prophecy descried afar off, and descrying rejoiced. Ancient psalmody too, saw it. Apostlehood, moreover, believed the same, and spake concerning it, foretelling for "things on the earth," as well as 'things in heaven," such a consummation of their hope, as "men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen." The leopard, it is written, is to change his nature. The wolf shall dwell in peace with the lamb. The calf and the young lion, and the fatling shall be together, and a young child shall lead them. A holy mountain shall the earth be, in which there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy. We thus look for a time when God shall take off the mantling curse of sin, not only from the souls of his redeemed sons, but also from very nature; when Eden itself shall be found again, whence Justice once drove the fallen-the self-same Paradise which even in the sight of the great malign one lay pleasant;' and where, as Milton further discourseth, "the pure air to the heart inspired vernal delight and joy, able to drive all sadness."

We may well then excuse the raptures in which prophets, psalmists, and apostles, speak of the approach of such a day of great wonders, in which the gross defection of the race shall have been remedied, sin itself extirpated, and its stains blanched out of the very texture of nature. And before we set down their expressions as mere orientalisms, and strip them of all force and meaning, let us first cautiously observe which way science, philosophy, i. e. grave fact, leans; and thus judge, whether the bondage of nature around man be not, like the "invisible things of God," "clearly seen," "being understood by the things that are made."

1846.]

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WE heartily rejoice in all movements which promise either the removal or the amelioration of slavery in our country. And as the ultimate power to effect this desirable end is with the citizens of the slave states, and, as discussion or action by northern citizens is useful only as it influences southern citizens to use that power, we especially rejoice to hear of such movements in the slaveholding communities.

It is therefore with joy and gratitude, that we have read the pamphlets concerning the religious instruction of the slaves, which we place at the head of this article. We feel bound to speak plainly (as we did in our last number) of the sinfulness and atrocities of the system of slavery. But it is not a pleasant work. We greatly prefer to improve any opportunity which facts afford us to record any effort, however slight, among slaveholders, to mitigate the horrible evils of that odious system.

The first of these publications is the report for the year 1843-the ninth annual report-of an Association for the Religious Instruction of the Negroes in Liberty County, Georgia. The second of these pub

1. Ninth Annual Report of the Association for the Religious Instruction of the Negroes in Liberty County, Georgia, together with the Address to the Associa tion, by the President, Rev. Robert Quarterman. Published by order of the Association. Printed by Thomas Purse. Savannah, 1844. pp. 44.

2. Tenth Annual Report of the Association for the Religious Instruction of the Negroes in Liberty County, Georgia. Published by request of the Association. Office of P. G. Thomas, 1845. pp. 47. 3. Proceedings of the Meeting in Charleston, S. Č., May 13-15, 1845, on the Religious Instruction of the Negroes, together with the Report of the Committee, and the Address to the public. Published by order of the Meeting. Charleston, S. Č., B. Jenkins, 1845. pp. 72.

lications is the tenth annual report of the same Association. The author of these reports is Rev. C. C. Jones, missionary of that Association, who deserves great praise for his cordial interest in, and his self-denying labors to promote, the moral and religious instruction of the slaves, particularly in his native state and county. Possessed of talents and learning which would command positions of distinction in the southern church, he has, from the time of completing his theological education, with the exception of a short interval, during which he occupied a professorship of ecclesiastical history in a southern theological seminary, devoted himself to the work of a missionary among his fellow men, oppressed and degraded by the slavery of his native state. By his private influence; by his publications, revealing the deplorable moral condition of that portion of the southern population, and appealing to the humanity and piety of his fellow citizens and Christian brethren; and by his personal and gratuitous missionary labors,—he has done more than any other man within our knowledge, to awaken interest and effort for the evangelization of those heathen in a Christian land. To the first of these reports is appended the address of the President of the Association, Rev. Robert Quarterman.