wars that we have read of, either in ancient or modern

tiles?

Oppression is not a vague term. It does not mean any thing fanciful, and that may, or may not, be of consequence to the party oppressed. It means the spoiling or taking away of men's goods or estates by constraint, terror, or force, without having any right thereunto. And, how can this act be so offensive as when it take the shape of public robbery, and when the substance of a people is, as in the case described by the prophet, heaped on the "fat ones" by means of extortion and cruelty in the collection, which leaves not a wing to move, a mouth to open, or an eye to peep? Men have ascribed convulsions, rebellions, and sanguinary deeds committed by infuriated multitudes to various causes; but, look at them well: trace them to their causes: see them in their very beginnings: and you will always find, that they arise out of oppression; that is to say, out of the conduct of the "fat ones,” who have found as in a nest the riches of the people;" who, stripped of their all, have had nothing to: lose; have been unable to see in any thing that could

happen, a change for the worse; and who have, therefore, gladly embraced any thing promising a change..

What under the sun can be so provoking; so stinging to the heart of man, as to see the fruit of his toil, his skill, his care, devoured by those who, in no possible way, yield him any thing in return? And, what must he be made of, who can joyously live on the fruit of the labour of thousands, while those thousands are reduced to beggary and misery? The public robber frequently passes without crime imputed to him for want of facility in tracing his crime to the sufferer. But, he must know that he commits the crime. He must know, that that which he devoureth is not his. Aye, and he knows too, that hunger, nakedness, disease, insanity, and ignominious deaths innumerable are the consequence of his "dishonest gains," for the sake of obtaining which he "sheds blood and destroys souls."

Yet, the history of the world is not without its instances of the most odious and cruel public robbery, defended, and even carried on, by men, pretending to

214 GOD'S VENGEANCE AGAINST PUBLIC ROBBERS

extraordinary piety and wearing the garb of uncommonly scrupulous sanctity! It is when the public robber assumes this mask that he is most dangerous; for, having brought himself to make a mockery of God, what belonging man is to hold him in restraint? The notorious public robber and the pretended saint united in the same person; the "gain of oppressions" in one hand, and the manual of piety in the other, is, surely, the most detestable sight that ever met the eye of man. But, let the hypocrite remember, that God has said (Isaiah, Chap. 61, V. 8.) "I hate robbery for burnt offering." And that he has also said, in the words of my text, that trouble and destruction shall, in the end, "be the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us."

THE

UNNATURAL MOTHER.

"Even the Sea-monsters draw out the breast: they give suck to their young ones."

LAMENTATIONS, ch. iv. v. 3.

Of all the sorrows known to mankind how large a portion, and those sorrows, too, of the most acute, arises from a deficiency of affection in children towards their parents! We daily see fortunes, the fruit of the industry and care of ages, squandered in a single year. We see fathers and mothers reduced to beggary, or made wretched during the half of their lives by stubborn and profligate children; or,

at the least, their last hours embittered by alarming apprehensions as to the fate of those children. The immediate causes of this misery are usually visible enough; but, the distant cause, the root of the evil, is seldom so clear before us, and is generally hidden from the parents themselves even more closely than from the rest of the world.

The whole congregation of animated nature tell us with united voice, that it is the province of age to give instruction to youth, of the experienced to teach the inexperienced, and especially of the parent to train up, the child. The Lioness after having suckled her whelp, then brings it nourishment suited to its more advanced age, and leads it forth by degrees in search of its prey. The Wren, having hatched her brood, first brings them their meals in her bill, then shows them how to peck, next how to take their flights, and, lastly, where to seek their food and how to provide for their security. Here the duties of these irrational parents cease, and, with them, perhaps, all recollection of the ties of consanguinity Net so with man. Here the ties