subject, others maintain a perpetual war against the abolitionists. There are religious papers which are incessantly opposing the doctrine of immediate emancipation, as wild, visionary, dangerous, and impracticable. If they speak of slavery at all, it is to cavil about the doctrine of its being in all cases sin, and to expose their want of sympathy for the slave by speculating about imaginary cases in which they suppose slaveholding would not be sin. Meanwhile they are symphonious in the praises of the Colonization Society-an institution whose partialities for the oppressor, whose indifference for the fate of the slave, and exterminating hatred of the free people of color, have been a thousand times exposed. While they are trumpeting the honors of this negro-hating society, they are dumb respecting the glorious events which have transpired in the West Indies. For aught the mass of northern religious papers have said about it, their readers would scarcely have learned the fact of the emancipation of 800,000 slaves in the British colonies, and would be in utter ignorance of the happy and triumphant issue of that great experiment. Such has been the course of the weekly press. In unison with these the grave Quarterly publications established at the seats of theological learning, and conducted by theological professors, have been lending their influence to vindicate slavery from the bible. The writers and publishers of religious books at the north have likewise contracted the dreadful guilt of being silent upon the abominations of slavery. The guilt of silence is after all the most general and the most shameful guilt of northern Christians respecting slavery. It betrays a hardness of heart towards their poor brother in bonds, a blindness to the sin of slavery, and a recreancy to their responsibilities in the matter which are truly deplorable. It betrays still more, a most humiliating fear of incurring southern displeasure and losing southern patronage.

We have not yet completed the humiliating exposure of the northern church, which faithfulness to the slave demands of us. Professors of religion have borne no small part in the pro-slavery mobs which have disgraced the free states for the last seven years. They have been known to be active in instigating them, and they have been concerned in carrying them out; and after mobs have spent their fury upon abolitionists, men of grave

church titles have been known to give their sanction to the deed :-"good enough for the fanatics," "just what, the rascals deserve," "the only way to deal with incendiaries," and such like endorsements of mob violence, have fallen from the lips of many a minister, deacon, elder, and class leader in the free states.

Again, large numbers of northern church members and not a few northern clergymen, are actually owners of slaves in the south.

To those ignorant of the numerous relations which subsist between northern and southern Christians, the representations we have given above might appear incredible. What inducement, such persons might ask, can the northern churches have to thus favor the system of slavery? It is far removed from them, they are not corrupted by daily contact with oppression, they are constantly witnessing the benign results of a system of free labor, they see the superiority of freedom in the incomparably greater prosperity of the free states, everything around them condemns slavery; and we might conclude that if the whole population of the free states were not abolitionists, at least the whole northern church would be. But there are very many circumstances which connect the northern church with the south, and give the former an interest in the continuance of slavery, scarcely inferior to that of the southern church.

First, there are numerous ecclesiastical relations between the north and the south.

Each of the large denominations have an extensive branch in the south. These southern branches are very influential, and when they threaten to secede from their brethren in the free states in case they meddle with slavery, the northern churches are strongly tempted to silence, for the sake of peace, union, and denominational power.

Again, most of the active benevolent operations of the northern church derive a part of their patronage from the south.

Such is the case with Boards for Foreign and Domestic Missions, the Bible, Tract, and Education societies. Here is another strong inducement to the northern churches to propitiate the favour of the south by silence upon slavery.

Again, church members at the north are connected with the south to an unlimited extent by marriage alliances.

Northern ministers and theological professors have sons and daughters married at the south and owning large slave properties. So with elders, deacons, class-leaders, and private members generally. There is scarcely a family in the free states which has not some relative residing at the south, usually married. Many a son, too, of northern religious parents is to be found on southern plantations, flourishing the whip of the overseer. This extensive family connexion with the south has a tendency to make northern professing Christians very loath to speak aught against southern "institutions."

Again, there is an almost infinite variety of business relations between the north and the south.

Almost every trade and handicraft pursued at the north, has its market at the south. Thus members of churches, equally with other classes of persons in the free states, are connected in business with the south, and are of course interested in preserving the amicable relations between the two sections of the union, and strongly tempted to refrain from everything that will offend slaveholders. They are too far-sighted not to discover that any movement at the north against slavery, must materially affect business intercourse with the south; and hence they are constantly plied with motives urging them to be silent on the subject of slavery, and not only to be silent themselves, but to endeavour to keep all others so.

Besides business and other connexions already mentioned the friendly relations and social intercourse which are constantly maintained between the citizens of the free and the slave states are as largely participated in by the religious as by any other class.

Thousands of Christian families at the north entertain visiters from the south during the summer, many of whom are themselves entertained in turn as visiters at the south during the winter. The strongest social attachments not unfrequently exist between northern and southern families, who are in no wise related. And surely this sort of intercourse between the inhabitants of such widely separated portions of our common country, is, when contemplated as an illustration of human friendship, a delightful spectacle. But the aspect in which we are called to view it is certainly more painful than pleasing. Its tendency has been to blind northern Christians to the enormities

and guilt of slavery, and even when not wholly blinded the entanglements of social etiquette have restrained them from speaking out in the language of faithful rebuke. They feel that this would be a sort of breach of faith to their southern friends, a betrayal of the confidence reposed in them, and an ungrateful requital of the hospitalities which have been showered upon them. Unworthy as such feelings are, they are entertained and have no small influence in closing the mouths if not the minds of professing Christians in the free states against the claims of the slave. Strange indeed that Christians should not have learned that first lesson of the religion of Christ, that duty is not created by smiles nor annihilated by frowns. multitudes at the north who freely admit the theory of that lesson, refuse to reduce it to practice in the case under consideration. They have found it no easy task to espouse the cause of the slave when that act severs for ever the ties which bind them to the slaveholder. Those who are not in the habit of making every other consideration bow before duty, are not the men to resist so formidable a temptation.

But

Lastly, northern ministers have a strong interest in the slave states. Not a few of them are natives of the slave states, some of whom still hold slaves, others have married wives with slave dowers, others contemplate a future settlement or sojourn there. A variety of causes may bring about such an event. Their health may fail, and render a visit or removal to the south indispensable, or they may receive a tempting call, or from some other cause they may one day become residents of the south. It behoves them therefore to stand either uncommitted on the question of slavery, or committed on the wrong side.

From these observations it is evident that there are numerous temptations operating upon professing Christians at the north to become implicated in the guilt of slaveholding. That they should be so often found apologizing for the slaveholder, welcoming him to the communion, and inviting him to the pulpit, while they close it against him who would plead for the slave, can be accounted for upon the plainest principles of human

nature.

In conclusion, we would say that though a multitude of professing Christians at the north are implicated in the guilt of

M

slaveholding, there is a large number of honorable exceptions both among individuals and societies. There are ecclesiastical bodies that dare to pronounce slaveholding in all cases a heinous sin to be repented of, and abandoned immediately. There are not a few pulpits that stand wide open to the advocates of the oppressed but close instinctively at the approach of a clerical manstealer; there are many ministers who speak boldly for the slave, and remember him in the prayers of the sanctuary; there are churches, very few though they be, which repudiate the God-dishonoring distinctions of colour in the house of worship, and which hesitate not to debar from their communion the slaveholding professor. There are portions of the public press who assert their freedom, and meet their responsibilities in the cause of human rights without shrinking.

There are Christians who are willing to forego southern trade, favor, friendship, and marriage alliances, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the slave, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. And thanks be unto God, the number of these is rapidly increasing, and will, we doubt not, continue to increase until the whole northern church shall have cleansed its skirts from the blood of the slave.

TWELFTH QUESTION. Could a law for the registration of slaves be passed in the United States or other countries to prevent the introduction of slaves when the trade is illegal?

Such a law, if faithfully and vigorously executed, would doubtless accomplish much; but we have no idea that any such law could be passed at present in the United States, or if passed that it would be faithfully enforced. There is so little true respect for the principles of liberty in the nation, and so little just appreciation of human rights, that a law of this kind could neither be passed nor properly executed.

THIRTEENTH QUESTION. Is any slave trade carried on with Texas; if so, to what extent, from whence are the slaves obtained, and what is the present number of slaves in that country? ·

The answer to this question will be found in connexion with the replies to other queries upon Texas.