Christian nations, to the same extent it has substantially inereased with Mohammedan countries. "And the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps," form of speech as clearly indicating the condition of slavery as though ever so broadly asserted. The Hebrew word here translated "at his steps," " in his footsteps, &c., i. e. attached or subjected to his interests as slaves, is cognate with the Arabic word é metsuad, and means the chains by which the feet of captive slaves are bound, and in Hebrew form this word is used in Isa. iii. 20, ni tseadoth. The whole passage is strictly an Arabicism, and is to be construed, with reference to that language, chain for the legs. Of this passage, Adam Clark says, "Unconquered Arabs all sought their friendship, and many of them are tributary to the present time." Some commentators seem to understand this passage to mean only that Libyans and Ethiopians would be in courteous attendance, &c. If so, the Hebrew would have read, asinJudg.iv.10, regel. "And he went up with ten thousand men at his feet." This passage, foretelling the slavery of the Ethiopians to the Mohammedans, may well be compared with Isa. xlv. 14, announcing the slavery of the same people to those of the true religion. "Thus saith the Lord, the labour of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine; they shall come after thee, in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee; they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee, and there is none else, there is no God" beside. LESSON XXIV. IN reflection upon the leading ideas that present themselves in the review of the subjects of this study, we may notice that slavery has been introduced to the world as a mercy in favour of life. That, in its operation, its general tendency is to place the weak, deteriorated, and degraded under the control and government of a wisdom superior to their own; from whence the intellectual, moral, and physical improvement of the enslaved, to some extent, is a consequence as certain as that cause produces its effect. The world never has, nor will it ever witness a case where the moral, intellectual, and physical superior has been in slavery, as a fixed state, to an inferior race or grade of human life. The law giving superior rule and government to the moral, intellectual, and physical superior is as unchangeable as the law of gravitation. No seeming exception can be imagined which does not lend proof of the existence of such law. The human intellect can make no distinction between the establisher of such law and the author and establisher of all other laws which we perceive to be established and in operation, and which we attribute to God. No one has ever yet denied that obedience to the laws of God effects and produces mental and physical benefits to the obedient, or that their disregard and contempt are necessarily followed by a deterioration of the condition of the disobedient; nor can any one deny that the neglect of obedience to the laws of God, which, in its product, yields to the disobedient mental and physical deterioration, or any one of them, is sin,-and in proportion to its magnitude, so will be its consequent degradation. To be degraded is sin, because the law is improve. No one will pretend that the relation of master and slave is not often attended with sin on the part of the master, on the account of his disobedience to the law of God in his government of his slave; or on the part of the slave, on the account of his disobedience to the same law in his conduct towards his master. Therefore, such master is not as much benefited, not the slave as much improved by the relation, as would otherwise be the case. It is therefore incumbent on the master to search out and exclude all such abuses from the intercourse and reciprocal duties between him and his slave. Placed upon him is the responsible charge of governing both himself and his slave. The responsibility of the master in this respect is of the same order as that of a guardian and that of a parent. The want of a less affectionate regard in the master towards the slave is supplied and secured to the safety of the slave by the increased watchfulness of the master over the slave from the consideration that the slave is his property. For where affection cannot be supposed sufficiently strong to stimulate a calm and wise action, interest steps in to produce the effect. That every mind will see and comprehend these truths, where prejudice and education are in contradiction, is not to be expected. The influences of a false philosophy on the mind, like stains of crime on the character, are often of difficult removal. Some for bearance towards those who honestly entertain opposing ideas on this subject, can never disgrace the Christian character,-and we think it particularly the duty of the men of the South, towards the men, women, and children of the Northern States, especially of the unlearned classes. For even among ourselves of the South, we sometimes hear the announcement of doctrines that declare all the most rabid fanatic at the North need claim, on the subject of immediate abolition. We refer to and quote from Walker's Reports of Cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Mississippi, at the June term, 1818, page 42: "Slavery is condemned by reason and the laws of nature." This false and suicidal assertion, most unnecessarily and irrelevantly introduced, still stands on the records of the Supreme Court of that State, and is an epitaph of the incapacity and stupidity of him who wrote it and engraved it on this monument of Southern heedlessness. We were at first surprised at the silence of the reporter, but, at that day, any criticism by that officer would have been contempt. Yet we may infer that the ingenious and talented gentleman contrived to express his most expunging reprobation, by wholly omitting all allusion to the point in his syllabus of the case. If in the course of these Studies we shall not have shown that slavery as it exists in the world is commanded by "reason" and the laws of "nature," we shall have laboured in vain; and even now an array of battle is formed, and our enemy has chosen human "reason" for the "bolt of Jove," as wrought from strands. of Northern colds, Southern heats, and Eastern winds; in their centre, bound by cloudy fears and avenging fires; for their ægis, "the laws of nature" supply Minerva's shield, upon which fanaticism has already inscribed its government over thirty States, far exceeding in purity, they think, that of the God of Israel. And we have come up to the war!-armed neither with the rod of Hermes nor the arrows of Latona's son; but with a word from him of Bethlehem: "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." Study V. LESSON I. THE inquirer after truth has two sources by which he can arrive at some knowledge of the will of God:-1st. By faith and revelation; 2d. By the observance of the facts uniformly developed in the material and moral world. The accuracy of his knowledge will be coincident with the accuracy of the mental perceptions and the extent of the research of the inquirer. In the Bible he will find the declarations of God himself: some of them are express, and some of them implied. In the second place, he may discover the will of God from the arrangement of his works as manifested in the visible world. Some call this the light of nature; others the laws of nature. But what do they mean other than the light and laws of God? Are not the laws of gravitation as much the laws of God as they would be if set down in the decalogue, although not as important to man in his primary lessons of moral duty? Let us view the forest as planted by the hand of God: we see some trees made to push their tall boughs far above the rest; while others, of inferior stem and height, seem to require the partial shade and protection of their more lofty neighbours; others, of still inferior and dwarfish growth, receive and require the full and fostering influence of the whole grove, that their existence may be protected and their organs fully developed for use. Let us view the tribes of ocean, earth, and air: we behold a regular gradation of power and rule, from man down to the atom. Whether with reason or with instinct blest, More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence If all are equal in their happiness; But mutual wants this happiness increase. POPE'S Essay. LESSON II. THEY who study even only such portion of the works of God as can, seemingly, to some extent be examined by the human mind, never fail to discover a singular affinity between all things, the creation of his hand. This, to us, would be proof, independent of inspiration, that one Creator made the whole world and all things therein. So great is the affinity between the vegetable and animal kingdoms, that it is to this day a doubt where the one terminates or where the other begins. Naturalists all agree that they both spring from "slightly developed forms, perhaps varied, yet closely connected;"' true, "starting away in different directions of life," but ever preserving, it may be an obscure, yet a strict analogy to each other. These analogies are sufficiently obvious to prove that one power, one and the same general law, has brought them both into existence. Thus the devout worshipper of God may, in some sense, view the vegetable inhabitants of the earth as his brethren. The animal kingdom may be considered as divisible into five groups. The vertebreta, annulosa, (the articulata of Cuvier,) the radiata, the acrita, (in part the radiata of Cuvier,) and the molusca. Each one of these groups will be found divisible into five classes. Let us take, for example, the vertebreta, and it is readily divided into the mammalia, reptilia, pisces, amphibia, and aves. So each one of these classes is divisible into five orders. Let us take, for example, the mammalia; and it is readily divided into the cheirotheria, (animals with more or less perfect hands,) feræ, cetacea, glires, and ungulata. So each one of these orders is divisible into five genera. Let us |