means, sympathy alone,) now pouring forth in prayers and persuasions from the press, the pulpit, from the lips and hearts of devoted men, cannot fail. "This," he says, "must triumph." "It is leagued with God's omnipotence." "It is God himself acting in the hearts of his children." Vol. ii. p. 12. Does Dr. Channing mean the God who revealed the law to Moses? If so, has he changed his mind since that time?

We know that some say that slavery is contrary to their moral sense, contrary to their conscience, that under no circumstances can it be right. But if God has ordained the institution of slavery, not only as a punishment of sin, but as a restraint of some effect against a lower degradation, had not such men better cultivate and improve their "moral sense" and "conscience" into a conformity with the law of God on this subject? They cannot think that, on the account of their much talking, God will change his government to suit their own peculiar views. In our judgment, their views must bring great darkness to the mind, and, we think, distress; for is it not a great distress itself, to be under the government of one we think unjust? We know not but that we owe them, as fellow travellers through this momentary existence, the duty of trying to remove from their minds the cause of such darkness and distress. Shall we counsel together? Will you, indeed, stop for a moment in company with a brother? Will you hear the Bible? Will you, through a child, listen to the voice of God?

All agree that slavery has existed in the world from a very remote age. Wicked men and wicked nations have passed away, but slavery still exists among their descendants. Good men and enlightened nations have gone the way of all that is and has been, but slavery still abides on the earth. Upon the introduction of Christianity, men, who little understood its spirit, suddenly rose up to abolish slavery in cases where the slave became converted to its faith; also to cut loose the believing child from all obligations of obedience to the unbelieving parent, and also the husband or wife from his or her unbelieving spouse. Yet this new doctrine only met the condemnation of Peter and Paul. And even at the present day, we find men ready to give up the religion of Christ, and the gospel itself, rather than their own notions concerning slavery.

"If the religion of Christ allows such a licence" (to hold slaves) "from such precepts as these, the New Testament would be the greatest curse that was ever inflicted on our race." Barnes on

Slavery, p. 310. (He quotes the passage from Dr. Wayland's Letters, pp. 83, 84, which work we have not seen.)

Such writers may be conscientious, but their writings have only bound the slave in stronger chains. God makes his very enemies build up his throne. Thus the exertions of man are ever feeble when in contradiction to the providence of God. The great adversary has ever been at work to dethrone the Almighty from the minds of men. Abolition doctrines are no new thing in the world. We concede them the age of slavery itself, which we shall doubtless find as old as sin.

Stay thy haste, then, thou who feelest able to teach wisdom to thy Creator: come, listen to the voice of a child; the lessons of a worm; for God is surely able to vindicate his ways before thee!

When Adam was driven out of paradise, he was told"Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." "Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground."

The expression, "Thou shalt eat the herb of the field," we think has a very peculiar significance; for God made "every herb of the field before it grew;" and one of the reasons assigned why the "herb was made before it grew," we find to be, that "there was not a man to till the ground." Now, the word to till is translated from the word la ebod, and means to slave; but in English We use more words to express

we use the term not so directly. the same idea; we say to do slave-labour on the ground, instead of to slave the ground, as the expression stands in Hebrew.

The doctrine is, that the herb, on which the fallen sinner is destined to subsist, was not of spontaneous growth; it could only be produced by sweat and toil, even unto sorrow. Sin had made man a slave to his own necessities; he had to slave the ground for his subsistence; and such was the view of David, who, after describing how the brute creation is spontaneously provided for, says

"He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service ( la ebodath, the slavery) of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth." Ps. civ. 14.

This state of being compelled to labour with sweat and toil for subsistence, is the degree of slavery to which sin reduced the whole

human family. If we mistake not, the holy books include the idea that sin affects the character of man as a moral poison, producing aberrations of mind in the constant direction of greater sins and an increased departure from a desire to be in obedience to the laws of God. If we mistake not, the doctrine also is prominent that idleness is not only a sin itself, but exceedingly prolific of still greater sins. This mild state of slavery, thus imposed on Adam, was a constant restraint against a lower descent into sin, and can be regarded in no other light than a merciful provision of God in protection of his child, the creation of his hand. If it then be a fact. that a given intensity of sin draws upon itself a corresponding condition of slavery, as an operating protection against the final effect of transgression, it will follow that an increased intensity of sin will demand an increased severity of the condition of slavery. Thus, when Cain murdered Abel, God said to him—

"Now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest (tha ebod, thou slavest) the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength: a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth." "And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.”

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"Shall not yield unto thee her strength;" either the earth should be less fruitful, or from his own waywardness, it should be less skilfully cultivated by him, or that a profit from his labour should be enjoyed by another; or, perhaps, from the joint operation of them all. Thus an aggravated degree of sin is always attended by an aggravated degree of slavery.

The next final step we discover in the history of slavery appears in Ham, the son of Noah; and he said, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.' "Servant of servants," ' ebed ebadim, slave of slaves. This mode of expression in Hebrew is one of the modes by which they expressed the superlative degree. The meaning is, the most abject slave shall he be to his brethren.

Heretofore slavery has been of less intensity; here we find the ordination of the master, and it is not a little remarkable that he is distinctly blessed!

"And he said, I am Abraham's servant. And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great and he hath given him flocks, and herds, and silver and gold, and men-ser

vants('y va ebadim, and male slaves), and maid-servants (♫ va shephahoth, and female slaves), and camels and asses.” "And Sarah, my master's wife, bare a son to my master when she was old and unto him hath he given all that he hath.”

And of Isaac it is said—

"Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year a hundred fold: and the Lord blessed him, and the man waxed great, and went forward and grew until he became very great: for he had possessions of flocks, and possessions of herds, and great store of servants (va ebuddah, and a large family of slaves): and the Philistines envied him." We pray that no one in these days will imitate those wicked Philistines!

And of Jacob it is said

"And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maid-servants (novu shephahoth), and female slaves and men-servants ('yi va ebadim, and male slaves), and camels, and asses. "And the Lord said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee." "He that is despised, and hath a servant ( ebed, a slave),

is better than he that honoureth himself, and lacketh bread." Prov. xii. 9.

"I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever; nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it that men should fear before him. That which hath been is now; and that which is to be, hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." Eccl. iii. 14.

LESSON XV.

WE shall, in the course of these studies, with some particularity examine what evidence there may be that Ham took a wife from the race of Cain; and we propose a glance at that subject now. Theological students generally agree that, in Genesis vi. 2, "sons of God" mean those of the race of Seth; and that the "daughters of men" imply the females of the race of Cain. The word "fair," in our version, applied to these females, does not justly teach us that they were white women, or that they were

of a light complexion. It is translated from the Hebrew tovoth, being in the feminine plural, from tov, and merely expresses the idea of what may seem good and excellent to him who speaks or takes notice: it expresses no quality of complexion nor of beauty beyond what may exist in the mind of the beholder; it is usually translated good or excellent. Immediately upon the announcement that these two races thus intermarry, God declares that his spirit shall not always strive with man, and determines to destroy man from the earth. Is it not a plain inference that such intermarriages were displeasing to him? And is it not also a plain inference, these intermarriages were proofs that the "wickedness of man had become great in the earth?" Cain had been driven out a degraded, deteriorated vagabond. Is there any proof that his race had improved?

The fact is well known that all races of animals are capable of being improved or deteriorated. A commixture of a better with a worse sample deteriorates the offspring of the former. Man is no exception to this rule. Our position is, that sin, as a moral poison, operating in one continued strain in the degradation and deterioration of the race of Cain, had at length forced them down to become exceedingly obnoxious to God. Intermarriage with them was the sure ruin of the race of Seth: it subjected them at once to the curses cleaving to the race of Cain. Even after the flood, witness the repugnance to intermarry with the race of Ham often manifested by the descendants of Shem; and that the Israelites were forbidden to do so.

Now, for a moment, let us suppose that Ham did marry and take into the ark a daughter of the race of Cain. If the general intermixture of the Sethites with the Cainites had so deteriorated the Sethites, and reduced them to the moral degradation of the Cainites, that God did not deem them worthy of longer encumbering the earth before the flood, would it be an extraordinary manifestation of his displeasure at the supposed marriage of Ham with one of the cursed race of Cain, to subject the issue of such marriage to a degraded and perpetual bondage?

But again, in case this supposed marriage of Ham with the race of Cain be true, then Ham would be the progenitor of all the race of Cain who should exist after the flood; and such fact would be among the most prominent features of his history. It would, in such case, be in strict conformity with the usages of these early times for his father to have called him by a name indi