reverend doctor think his moral sense will dictate the same conclusion? What right has he, then, to say, it is the voice of natureof God? Does he fail to perceive that the moral quality of actions is distinguished by man in conformity to his experience, his training, his education?

We see that men often differ about the moral quality of an action. It might be that no two men would have the same idea about the moral quality of a particular action. Would the conscience, this moral sense, or faculty, in such case, be right in each one? If not, who is to determine which is right and which is wrong? And further, of what use to man can be this distinct, independent, and unchangeably truthful power, which, nevertheless, brings him no certainty? But has the mind of man ever found out that God has overdone, or unnecessarily done, any thing? Will these theorists reflect, that, in case God had seen fit to bestow such a sense on man, inspiration would have been useless, and the Bible not wanted? And the condition of man upon the earth would be wholly stationary instead of progressive. And permit us to inquire, whether this notion of theirs is the reason why some of these theorists speak so rashly, we might say blasphemously, of that sacred volume, upon the condition which they dictate?

The truth is, we have no such infallible guide. The idea of right and wrong, either theologically or physically considered, is always fixed through an exertion of the powers of the understanding. We have no instinctive power reaching the case. Our judgment, our feelings are often unstable, irregular, and sometimes. antagonistic. In abstruse cases, very often we cannot even satisfy ourselves what is right; and will it be said that we do not often fail to see the object, design, and law of God touching a case?

On every decision on a question of right or wrong, a train of 'mental action is called into operation, comparing the ideas already in the mind with the facts of the case under review, and noting the similarity of these facts to our idea of right, or whether the facts conform to our idea of wrong. This decision we call judgment: but when the decision reaches to the question of right or wrong, touching our own conduct only, logicians have agreed to call it conscience; not a distinct action from judgment-much less a distinct faculty; and by no means carrying with it more proof of accuracy and correctness than is our judgment about any other matter, where the ideas and facts are equally manifest and accurately presented.

There is another consideration which to us gives proof that the conscience or moral sense is not an independent faculty of the mind, nor to be relied on at all as infallible. Many of us have noticed the changes that imperceptibly come over our moral feelings, and judgment of right and wrong, conscience or moral sense, through the influences of association and habit. Our affluent neighbour, who manifests to others many virtues and some follies, our mind, by association and habit, regards as a perfect model of human greatness and perfection. Thus a corrupt government soon surveys a corrupt people; and a somewhat licentious, but talented and accomplished clergyman, soon finds his hearers in fashion. Nor is it unfrequent, that which should stigmatize a father is beheld with admiration by the son. Thus wealth, to most, is desirable, but its desirability has been created by association; we recollect the objects it enables us to command, often the objects of our principal pursuit. The quality the mind associates with these gratifications, it eventually associates with that which procures them. Thus, we perceive, the mind is able to form a moral estimate upon considerations wholly artificial, which could never happen in case the moral sense was independent, and a distinct faculty teaching us infallible truth.

But how are we to account for the fact that some of the finest intellects, as well as the most learned men, have fallen into this most dangerous error? It should be a subject of deep thought!

We discover, in some men of the highest order of intellects, the power of arriving, as it were instantaneously, at a conclusion, giving it the appearance of being intuitive, rather than the result of what would be, when analyzed, a long chain of reasoning. Thus, the instant and happy thought often springing to the mind when in some sudden or unforeseen difficulty. The nice and instant perception, often displayed by medical men, of the condition of the patient, is an example; and hence the astonishing accuracy of judgment, sometimes noticed in the military commander, from a mere glance of the eye.

In such cases the mind is often not conscious of any mental action; and others, who observe these facts, are led, sometimes, to confound what, in such cases, is a deductive judgment, with intuitiveness. The judgment, thus formed without any perceptible succession of thought, is merely the result of acquirement from long experience and habits of active ratiocination. Some few instances of this unconscious and rapid thought have been exem

plified by mathematicians, when the calculator could give no account how he arrived at the conclusion. Will any one claim that they abstract their answers from the most abstruse propositions intuitively, or by instinct, or by any new and distinct faculty of the mind? This habit of mind is as applicable to morals as to any thing else. But in mathematics the data are everywhere the same;. whereas in morals the data are as different among men as are their conditions of life; because our ideas of right and wrong, existing in the mind before the judgment is formed on the case to be considered, were introduced by the aid of the senses, through the medium of experience and education; and it is, therefore, quite obvious that the idea of right in one man may be quite like the idea of wrong in another.

But it remains to show the fallacy of the argument by which Dr. Wayland arrives at his conclusion. Let us examine the paragraph quoted, and sift from verbiage the naked points of the argument:

"We do actually observe a moral quality in the actions of men."

"Do we perceive this quality of actions by a single faculty, or a combination of faculties? This notion" (the perception of the moral quality of an action) "is, in its nature, simple and ultimate, and distinct from every other notion."

"We have a distinct faculty to make us acquainted with the existence of all other distinct qualities." "Therefore, it is self-evident that this is a separate and distinct faculty."

The syllogism is defective because the idea of right or wrong is not simple nor ultimate, but complex, and ever subject to change from the influence of any new light presented to the mind. Nor is it true that we possess a distinct faculty to make us acquainted with each distinct quality; for, if so, the mind would be merely a very large bundle of faculties; and we should neither possess nor stand in need of any reasoning powers whatever, because the naked truth about every thing would always stand revealed before us by these faculties; which, we think, is not the fact.

In syllogistic argument, the first principles must be something that cannot be otherwise-unalterable-an eternal truth; "because these qualities cannot belong to the conclusion unless they belong to the premises, which are its causes.'

The syllogism will then stand thus:

It is not true our notion, or idea, of the moral quality of an

action "is simple and ultimate, and distinct from any other idea or notion:"

It is not true that we have a distinct faculty to make us acquainted with the existence of all other distinct qualities:

Therefore, it is not true, nor self-evident, that we perceive the moral qualities of an action, or that we have the idea or notion of it, by the aid of a single distinct and separate faculty.

The "notion" advanced by Dr. Wayland, on this subject, appears to us so strange, that it would be difficult to conceive it to have been issued or promulgated by a schoolman, did we not know how often men, led by passion, some by prejudice, argue from false premises to which they take no heed, or, from a want of information, honestly mistake for truths.

LESSON V.

P. 206. "IT" (slavery) "supposes that the Creator intended one human being to govern the physical, intellectual, and moral actions of as many other human beings as, by purchase, he can bring within his physical power, and that one human being may thus acquire a right to sacrifice the happiness of any number of other human beings, for the purpose of promoting his own."

This proposition is almost a total error. Slavery supposes the Creator intended that the interest of the master in the slave who, by becoming his slave, becomes his property, should secure to the slave that protection and government which the slave is too degenerate to supply to himself; and that such protection and government are necessary to the happiness and well-being of the slave, without which he either remains stationary or degenerates in his moral, mental, and physical condition.

P. 207. "It" (slavery) "renders the eternal happiness of the one party subservient to the temporal happiness of the other."

This is equally untrue. Slavery subjects one party to the command of another who is expected to feel it a duty to so "command his household" that "they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment."

This is the voice of God on the subject, as heretofore quoted. The learned Dr. Wayland is evidently wholly unacquainted with

the spirit and intention, and, we may add, origin of the institution. of slavery; yet he has, doubtless, been studying some of its abuses.

But suppose a man to study nothing of Christianity but its abuses, and from these alone undertake to describe what he conceives to be its results, its character, and suppositions; he doubtless would make what Dr. Wayland would very justly call a distorted representation; and perhaps, he might safely use a harsher phrase. But would such a representation be productive of any good in the world? It might do much mischief by spreading, broadcast, its errors and misrepresentations; a most delicious food for the morbid appetite of the ignorant and fanatic infidel! Yes, infidelity has its fanatics as well as abolitionism!

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Obey them that have rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you." Heb. xiii. 17.

P. 207. "If argument were necessary to show that such a system as this must be at variance with the ordinance of God, it might easily be drawn from the effects which it produces, both upon morals and national wealth."

The author, in this instance, as he has in many others, designs to produce an effect on the mind of his reader from what he does not say, as well as from what he does say. We acknowledge this mode to be quite noncommittal, while, on the minds of some, it may be very skilfully used to produce an impression. But we confess ourselves ignorant of any logical rule by which it is entitled to produce any on us. The mode of speech used is intended to produce the impression that the proposition is someway selfevident, and therefore stands in no need of proof or argument. But how the proposition, that slavery is "at variance with the ordinances of God" is self-evident, and needs no proof nor argument, we have not the "moral sense" or "faculty" to discover. But as Dr. Wayland proposes, nevertheless, to prove its truth by its effects on morals and wealth, let us listen to the evidence.

Idem. "Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. By presenting objects on whom passion may be satiated without resistance and without redress, it tends to cultivate in the master, pride, anger, cruelty, selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to abolish in him all moral distinctions; and thus