philanthropists after all! We may believe this when the emancipated slaves propose to raise a monument to their memory.

Mr.

We take exceptions next to Mr. Wesley's broad and sweeping declaration against slaveholders. We mark the emphatic words, to show at once the strength of the passage. He says: "1 absolutely deny all slaveholding to be consistent with any degree of natural justice." Again: "All slaveholders, of whatever rank or degree, are exactly on a level with men-stealers." Now in strict fairness these unqualified maxims cannot be maintained. Wesley himself overthrows their absoluteness, and weakens their force in the very pamphlet from which these quotations are made. Reasoning with the planters, he says: "Have you ever tried what mildness and gentleness would do" (with the slaves, in overcoming) "their stubbornness and wickedness? I know one that did; that had prudence and patience to make the experiment; Mr. Hugh Bryan, who then lived on the borders of South Carolina. And what was the effect? Why, that all his negroes, and he had no small number of them, loved and reverenced him as a father, and cheerfully obeyed him out of love." Now surely such a man was not "exactly on a level with men-stealers," or to be designated as "a wolf, a devourer of the human species." Nor Mr. Belinger, and those other serious planters of whom Mr. Wesley speaks in the journal of his visit to their plantations. Moreover, not his words only, but his practice contradicts the absoluteness of his theory, or rather assertions, when writing under the influence of strong impressions, after reading a true statement of the abominations of the infamous slave-trade. For if the extreme and universal condemnation of every slaveholder, "of whatever rank or degree," be correct, reason would have required that the missionaries he sent to the West Indies should have shut the door of admission into his society against the slaveholder, as such; and that he should have apologized for his intimacy and correspondence with Gilbert and others, on the ground of his unacquaintedness in those days with the evils which now so strongly affected his mind. Such reflections should induce a modification of certain phrases in the "Thoughts on Slavery;" and we may then acknowledge, concerning all the rest, that it is worthy of the highest commendation for the truth, benevolence, and energy it contains. But these observations go to show how difficult it is to deal with an enormous evil with due discrimination; and how insensibly the human mind may be impelled, by the best feelings of an honest heart, to views and assertions which, in their unqualified sense, cannot with truth be sustained.

A calmer, and, as we take it, a perfectly correct and unobjection

able statement of the whole subject, and one that is at once practicable, is comprised in the following extract from Watson's Institutes. It is too important to be abridged. Every sentence comes with the demonstration of truth to "every man's conscience in the sight of God."

"As to the existence of slavery in Christian states, every government, as soon as it professes to be Christian, binds itself to be regulated by the principles of the New Testament; and though a part of its subjects should at that time be in a state of servitude, and their sudden emancipation might be obviously an injury to society at large, it is bound to show that its spirit and tendency are as inimical to slavery as is the Christianity which it professes. All the injustice and oppression against which it can guard that condition, and all the mitigating regulations it can adopt, are obligatory upon it; and since also every Christian slave is enjoined by apostolic authority to choose freedom, when it is possible to attain it, as being a better state and more befitting a Christian man, so is every Christian master bound, by the principle of loving his neighbor, and more especially his brother in Christ,' as himself, to promote his passing into that better and more Christian state. To the instruction of the slaves in religion would every such Christian government also be bound, and still further to adopt measures for the final extinction of slavery; the rule of its proceeding in this case being the accomplishment of this object as soon as is compatible with the real welfare of the enslaved portion of its subjects themselves, and not the consideration of the losses which might be sustained by their proprietors, which, however, ought to be compensated by other means, as far as they are just and equitably estimated.

"If this be the mode of proceeding clearly pointed out by Christianity to a state on its first becoming Christian, when previously and for ages the praotice of slavery had grown up with it, how much more forcibly does it impose its obligation upon nations involved in the guilt of the modern African slavery. They professed Christianity when they commenced the practice. They entered upon a traffic which ab initio was, upon their own principles, unjust and cruel. They had no rights of war to plead against the natural rights of the first captives, who were in fact stolen, or purchased from the stealers, knowing them to be so. The governments themselves never acquired any right of property in the parents; they have none in their descendants, and can acquire none; as the thief who steals cattle cannot, should he feed and defend them, acquire any right of property, either in them or the stock they may produce, although he may be at the charge of rearing them. These governments, not having a right of property in their colonial slaves, could not transfer any right of property in them to their present masters, for they could not give what they never had; nor, by their connivance at the robberies and purchases of stolen human beings, alter the essential injustice of the transaction. All such governments are therefore clearly bound, as they fear God and dread his displeasure, to restore all their slaves to the condition of freemen. Restoration to their friends and country is now out of the question; they are bound to protect them where they are, and have the right to exact their obedience to good laws in return; but property in them they cannot obtain; their natural right to liberty is untouched and inviolable. The manner in which this right is to be restored, we grant, it is in the power of such governments to determine, provided that proceeding be regulated by the principles above laid down. First, That the emancipation be sincerely determined upon, at some time future; Secondly, That it be not delayed beyond the period which the general interests of the slaves themselves prescribe, and which is to be judged of benevolently, and without any bias of judgment, giving the advantage of FOURTH SERIES, VOL. X.-4

every doubt to the injured party; Thirdly, That all possible means be adopted to render freedom a good to them. It is only under such circumstances that the continuance of slavery among us can cease to be a national sin, calling down, as it has done, and must do until a process of emancipation be honestly commenced, the just displeasure of God. What compensation may be claimed from the governments, that is, the public, of those countries who have entangled themselves in this species of unjust dealing, by those who have purchased men and women whom no one had the right to sell, and no one had the right to buy, is a perfectly distinct question, and ought not to turn repentance and justice out of their course, or delay their operations for a moment. Perhaps, such is the unfruitful nature of all wrong, it may be found that, as free laborers, the slaves would be of equal or more value to those who employ them, than at present. If otherwise, as in some degree 'all have sinned,' the real loss ought to be borne by all, when that loss is fairly and impartially ascertained; but of which loss the slave-interest, if we may so call it, ought in justice to bear more than an equal share, as having had the greatest gain."-Watson's Works, vol. xii, pp. 112-114.

Such calm and forcible reasoning thoroughly convinced the Methodists that the whole of the transactions connected with slavery were based on injustice; and that the original injustice of the slave-trade could never wear itself out, nor any legislation convert a wrong into a right. But yet they conceived that a long-continued and widelyextended course of injustice might have such complicated ramifications, that benevolence, and even justice itself, would require caution with activity in producing a legal rectification, and demand a prudent regard to the present actual position of the sufferers. Recompense could never be made; for, besides the injustice of having caused them to be born in a state of slavery through the enslaving of their ancestors, when emancipated they would have to begin life in a new condition, under circumstances greatly to their disadvantage, and below the ordinary level of society; for the effects of the servile state and spirit would continue for many years, it may be generations. Freedom would be simply a negation of injustice, the restoration of a theft without restitution. Convinced in their impartial judgment by such sober truths as these, which none can deny, the Methodists agreed as one man to two resolutions: First, That it became the Christian duty of the nation at once to renounce the principle of slavery; and, Secondly, That in practice the system itself should cease at the earliest time compatible with the interests of all parties concerned in it. Those were their ultimate resolutions, to which they gradually came, after the slavetrade itself had been brought to an end. But we must first glance at their further efforts in the abolition of the trade, which we propose to do in a second article.

Art. III.-THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.

1. The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. By GILBERT BURNET, D. D., late Lord Bishop of Salisbury. With a copious Index. Revised and corrected, with additional Notes, and a Preface calculated to remove certain Difficulties attending the Perusal of this important History. By the Rev. E. NARES, D. D., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. In three volumes. New-York: D. Appleton & Company, 1843. 2. History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century. By J. H. MERLE D'Aubigné, D. D., President of the Theological School of Geneva, etc. Translated by H. WHITE, B. A. Vol. V. New-York: Carter & Brothers, 1857.

WE place before our readers the title-pages of these great historical works, not for the purpose of review or criticism, but as authorities from which the principal part of the facts referred to in this paper are derived, and constituting the basis of an important argument. The reputation of Bishop Burnet's history has long been established, and criticism bestowed upon it now would appear to be presumptuous. The merit of D'Aubigné as an historian is universally conceded, and is not now to be argued. The question is not, whether these celebrated authors are to be regarded as high authority, but, what do they teach us in relation to the great change in the faith and religious life of the Church of England effected by what is called THE REFORMATION?

The real character and importance of the Reformation in England. has been a matter of controversy for three centuries, and yet the positions of the combatants are maintained, without the concession of a hair's breadth of ground on either side. Roman Catholics maintain that it was a mere political revolution, achieved by Henry VIII. out of resentment because the pope refused to grant him a divorce from Catharine of Aragon; while, upon the other hand, Protestants maintain that it was a great work of God, consisting in an awakening of the consciences of the people, through the instrumentality of the Holy Scriptures and the preaching of the Word. We propose in this paper a brief examination of this question.

Early in the seventh century, the Church of Rome established her dominion in the British Isles. This was a step toward the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over the whole Church, which was claimed by Hildebrand in the eleventh century. Collisions between the priests and the civil authorities, from time to time, occasioned no little trouble to the ruling sovereigns; but the wily emis

saries of the pope, by working upon their superstitious fears, and by varied arts, so managed as to hold the ascendency down to the twelfth century. The famous Thomas à Becket, both a soldier and a priest, was, by the pope, made Archbishop of Canterbury, having been previously appointed Chancellor of England by Henry II, He was as ambitious as he was cunning, and as wicked as he was ambitious. He knew Henry well, and took every advantage of his weakness. When he received the appointment of Archbishop of Canterbury, he said to the king, with a smile, "Now, sire, when I shall have to choose between God's favor and yours, remember it is yours that I shall sacrifice."

Popery had now asserted its right to "the two swords," and the meaning of the archbishop was, that he would obey the king when his commands did not clash with those of the pope, but no further! We have an archbishop in this country who vaunts the patriotism of Roman Catholics, upon the ground that they hold that God is to be obeyed first, and the civil power next. And we have simpletons enough among us who believe this to be orthodox doctrine. They seem to forget that, to every Romanist, the voice of the pope is the voice of God, and that the mass of the people only know what the pope requires, from what they are told by their ghostly guides. Popery is now what it was in the days Hildebrand, and Archbishop Hughes is just as good a citizen as Becket was a subject. Their notions of the relation of the civil power to the spiritual are of precisely the same class.

Becket assumed great pomp, and lived in the greatest extravagance. With him, the pope and the Church were all, while the king and the state were nothing. Henry became weary of this arrogant and unmanageable ecclesiastic, and incautiously dropped an expression which was understood to imply a wish for his assassination; and, accordingly, four knights proceeded to his cathedral church, and murdered him at the foot of the altar. He was canonized, and, if we may believe the stories of the Romish priests, a multitude of miracles have been wrought at his tomb. The public mind was filled with horror at the wickedness of the murder, and Henry, becoming alarmed, gave up the perpetrators of the crime to the demands of justice, and humbled himself before his holiness the pope. John, the successor of Henry, laid down his crown at the pope's feet, and made over the kingdom to him, May 15, 1215.

The barons were not so pliable. They did not quite relish the idea of being bartered away to a foreign power, like serfs of the soil. They drew their swords, being followed by their knights and servants, and two thousand soldiers, and proceeded to occupy London.