example is quoted against those who secede and form antislavery churches, and thus they weaken their hands. If the Free Presbyterian, Wesleyan, and other churches making slaveholding a term of communion, had all the professed abolitionists that hold the same faith on other points, and yet stay in slaveholding churches, their power would be "mighty to the pulling down of the strongholds" of slavery. However much contempt may be affected for these churches, they are now more feared and hated than despised, by the friends of slavery. Their growth is justly looked upon as the sure progress of a sentiment that is destined inevitably to overturn this great evil. By all, therefore, by which their increase is retarded, is the day of its downfall protracted; and by nothing is this so much hindered as by the example and influence of those who profess anti-slavery principles and retain pro-slavery connections.

We have no wish to use harsh language or hard names; but we ask such of our antislavery friends as are yet in the situation of which we write to look candidly at the case we now present. Suppose that by some strange fortuity the sin of horse-stealing should become legal and organic in this country. Suppose in that case the church to which you belonged should pronounce this sin "no bar to Christian communion," what would be your course? Perhaps remonstrance would first be tried. But we fancy your remonstrance would be stern and brief, and if it failed to secure a repeal of the decree of the church, you would then withdraw at once, to escape participation in the guilt of horse-stealing. But suppose you still hope for reform, and stay "a little longer,' and while you are laboring for this, a portion of your brethren secede and form a church, on precisely the same principles as the one they left, save that it made horse-stealing a "bar to Christian communion." Now what would you do? Are you not ready to say that the man who would stay after that would be in fact one of the worst horse-thieves in the land?"Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur." Change the name and the tale is told of yourself. Substitute in the foregoing sentences the word "slaveholding" for "horsestealing," and you have an exact description of your present position. And it has a familiar sound to antislavery ears, to say that slaveholding, which is man-stealing, is as much worse. than horse-stealing as a man is of more value than a horse. The principle asserted in this last sentence is incontestibly true. It has never been questioned, and never will be success

fully. Where, then, does it place the American Church? Just as much deeper in guilt than a church which should receive known horse-thieves to her communion, as the horse ranks lower in the scale of being than man.

We use the term horse-stealing in this connection by way of illustration, not by way of reproach. We would use no term unnecessarily harsh. But the points presented in the illustration are simple truths; and the "truth should be spoken, though the heavens should fall." We repeat the indisputable truth, therefore, that a church which allows her members to hold slaves, is worse than a church which should permit her members to steal horses. We press this truth upon the consciences of all who retain membership in such churches. It is time this subject were looked full in the face; and honeyed phrases are not the sounds to arouse from sleep so death-like as that of the American Church. Especially is it time that professed friends of the slave, in churches that enslave him, should understand their position, which we look upon as peculiarly dangerous. The inconsistency of men holding connections with churches, the principles of which are at war with their own, is so obvious, that violence must be done to their moral sense by retaining those connections. The Temperance man in a grog-selling and drinking church, the believer in the Trinity in a church of Unitarians, and the abolitionists in a slaveholding church, are so obviously out of place, that they retain their relations at the risk of a seared and hardened conscience. God's express command to all is"Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

SENTIMENTS AGAINST SLAVERY.

A most interesting and suggestive article on the sentiment of Great Britain, on the subject of slavery, will be found in another part of our paper. It is from the London Morning Advertiser, said to be the second paper in circulation and influence in England. This article gives a painful but truthful account of the position and influence of the clergy of this country on the subject of slavery; and warns the people of England against the corrupting influence likely to be exerted on the public mind of Great Britain, by an influx of the pro-slavery clergy of America at the World's Fair. This

article is interesting in several respects, but we allude to it mainly as suggesting the most feasible and certain way of abolishing the blood-stained system of American Slaverythat is, by combining the public sentiment of the civilized world and especially of the Free States of this confederacy, against it. The moment that witnesses correct views and feelings on this subject, approximating to a universal adoption in the civilized world, and also an appropriate expression of those views and feelings, will witness the freedom of every slave on American soil. This will be the case if not a single conscience in the slaveholding States is convinced of the sin of slavery. A regard to reputation, if not to justice, will compel the slaveholder to relax his grasp. Let us look at some of the reasons. for this belief.

A regard to the opinions of others is a much stronger motive, with the mass of men, than regard to right and justice. What will the world say? is a much more common question than what says the Word of God? Men are often deterred from the performance of known duty by the fear of incurring the ill opinion of their fellow-men. It has been, in all ages, but a very small portion of the race that have been actuated in the main course of their lives and conduct by the naked consideration of right and duty. Against the combined influence of a general public sentiment nothing can sustain a person for any length of time, but a deep consciousness of right, and a strong abiding sense of duty. This idea is not abolition fanaticism, but most orthodox sentiment, preached from the pulpits of all denominations, in the ten thousand warnings to sinners and Christians, against the influence of evil associates, and against the fear of the world.

Now, when any thing like a general public sentiment is concentrated against an evil practice or institution, there being no strong sense of duty in its supporters, but just the reverse, it must be abandoned. There being no innate vitality, the system must perish under outward pressure. This truth might be illustrated and confirmed by reference to past and present reforms. The cause of temperance has been advanced to its present stage, not by convincing the consciences of all or most of the distillers and grogsellers who have abandoned their business, but by bringing the force of a public sentiment, hostile to their practices, to bear upon them. The abolition of the slave-trade, and of slavery in the West India Islands, the repeal of the corn laws, and the reformation of the penal code, by the Parliament of England, are all

examples of the operation of the same influence. They were all unwilling concessions to a prevalent, controlling public sentiment.

The prevalence of an antislavery sentiment would, in like manner, strike the fetters from every slave in the United States. It could not live a single year surrounded by a healthful abolition atmosphere in the free States. Public

sentiment would seal its doom. Make it unpopular, and its days are numbered. This consideration derives additional force from the peculiar character of the Southern people.` They are proverbially jealous of their honor. An imputation of dishonorable conduct to a Southern man, is an insult to be wiped out only with blood. This is peculiarly the case with slaveholders, for, are they not a "chivalrous race? Now, let every one of these once realize that his fellow-men, in all civilized communities, look upon him as a thief- as having appropriated to his own use, as property, human beings whose right to own themselves is inalienable-let them

"Writhing, feel where'er they turn,

"

A world's reproach around them burn;"

and he who believes slavery can survive, must be blind indeed. This matter is well understood by the slaveholders. The ablest and most far-seeing of Southern statesmen, John C. Calhoun, once declared, that what the South had to fear from the abolitionists was not an attempt to liberate the slaves by force, but appeals to their consciences, and to the sentiment of the world against them. "Their warfare," said he, "is not upon our persons, but upon our characters."

This is a perfectly legitimate influence, to bring to bear against slavery. It does no injustice to the slaveholders. To affirm that it does, would be more absurd than to say that the public sentiment which brands the common thief with infamy is unjust. We say more absurd, because we believe with the General Assembly, that "slaveholding is the highest kind of theft." Proportionally strong should be its condemnation and the infamy attached to its perpetrators. It is God's will that crime should be unpopular. He regards it with infinite abhorrence, and men have no right to regard it in any other way. The abhorrence of the crime must attach to the criminal, so long as he willfully continues in its commission. This is a law of God's own enacting, and it is inexorable. In but one way can the sinner escape the disgrace of the sin; that is, by repentance and reformation. While

he continues on in a willful course of wrong doing, God intended that he should feel, both for his restraint and punishment, the reproach of the virtuous burning into his soul. It is this influence we would concentrate on the slaveholder and his sin. It is not violence we advocate. We would not have a hair of his head injured. But would rouse against him the calm, yet deep abhorrence of every soul that loves liberty. Let the slaveholder, when he turns his eye to a free State, behold the light of freedom, as a wall of fire, throwing its rays far into the depths of the dungeons of slavery. Let him, as he sets his foot on the soil of a free State, read in every countenance the deep loathing for himself and his crime, which ought to be felt. Let the cry of "shame on the man-thief" ring out till the very heavens reverberate with the sound, and roll it back in echoes of thunder; and that sound will be the trump of jubilee to the slave.

Do some timid doughfaces say they will dissolve the Union if this state of sentiment is created? Will that make slavery more respectable, or diminish the abhorrence with which all freemen regard it? Will that hush the voice of indignant remonstrance from the civilized world? Will a dissolution of the Union pile up inaccessible mountains, or stretch impassable deserts between the slave States and the free? It would but aggravate the thing complained of by the South, in every particular. This the slaveholders know full well, and hence, notwithstanding all the bluster with which they are wont to affright the serviles of the North, would rather liberate the last slave they own, than suffer one link of the chain that binds the States together to be severed. It is needless to remark that the very reverse of this spirit of abhorrence for slavery prevails in the nominally free States. It is the opponents of slavery generally that are the objects of reproach. This is no more strange than true. In the land boasted as the freest on earth, those guilty of practicing "the vilest system of oppression that ever saw the sun," are the most caressed and popular class in the nation, while those who oppose the bloody system, are the most reviled and hated. Antislavery survives this ordeal because it is of God. The reform is based on truth that can not die, and "the eternal years of God are hers.' But let the tide once be reversed, and slavery-containing as it does within itself the seeds of death-will die under the consuming breath of a nation's scorn. It lives now because cherished by a prevailing sentiment in its favor in the so-called free States.