The Editor of this volume will probably be as vehemently assailed on occasion of its appearance as he was when the first came out, to scandalize so many good people. We think him perfectly right, however, in presenting us with the whole truth, unacceptable as it will be to many, and painful as in some respects it must be to all. It is high time that some one should set an example of intrepid fidelity in the article of biography; and in no instance could the example be more useful than in the present. No wise man will think the worse of Doddridge for any thing he may have said of himself. What blame there is lies with his theology: what scandal there is rests with those who have hitherto misrepresented him. Doddridge is now proved to be, not exactly what he was thought to be, but something more. He is proved to have quite as strong a right to our admiration; quite as close a hold on our affections; while to these is added a new and irresistible claim to our compassion and respectful sympathy.

WEST INDIA SLAVERY.*

Ir a spirit from some higher region were moved by curiosity to visit our planet, what, in the circuit of the globe, would most excite his wonder and dismay? There is much in every inhabited clime which to a celestial mind must appear most strange, most pitiful;"-much which cannot but draw down "tears such as angels weep." Here, oppression and answering degradation; there, lawlessness and violence; here, abject superstition; there, rebellion against

*The Death Warrant of Negro Slavery throughout the British Dominions. London: Hatchard and Son, and Arch. 1829. pp. 38.

the common Father. In one country, the heavenly visitant would behold how the natives of the soil are driven back into the wastes to perish, not by destitution merely, but by the vices and diseases imparted by their usurping conquerors. In another, he would mourn to see how the imperishable mind is shrouded in thick darkness, and the immortal soul buried in sensual degradation. In a third, he would wonder at the dominion of an idolatry, whose rites, too impure to meet the eye of day, are lighted by the unholy fires of human sacrifice. But he would remember that these slaves, these sufferers, these agonized victims, have not yet been offered the liberty, the security, and the peace of the gospel. He would joyfully anticipate the hour when the announcement of these glad tidings should be the signal for universal emancipation. He would count the days till the influences of Christianity should protect the Indian in his forest glades, spiritualize the relations of savage society, exalt the apathy of the Hindoo into heroism, and tame the ferocity of the Tartar into gentleness. He would expect with confidence that wherever this influence was acknowledged, freedom and purity would prevail. He would expect to see the limbs set free from chains, and the mind only subjected to that mild yoke which was not imposed by human hands. He would suppose that common rights would be respected, universal gifts equally shared, and domestic relations sanctified by the benignant operation of a power adequate to these purposes, and ultimately destined to fulfil them; and with this hope he would turn to Christian lands. What would he see there? Much to disappoint, and much to encourage. Much external inconsistency, weakness, and depravity; but also much internal purity and strength; many abuses, but a secret power of rectification; great cause for mourning, but more for hope. But if he should at length arrive at a region where all the

degradation, all the cruelty, all the sensuality, all the impiety of the worst heathen lands prevail, notwithstanding the influences of Christianity, and under its pretended sanction, what could he think of such an anomaly? If he found that this region was closely connected with one more powerful, where a continual war is waged with oppression and vice, would not his wonder increase? If he further saw that the oppressed were many, the oppressors few, and that these few were under the control of a power which professed to advocate truth and justice, how could he account for the existence of such an abomination? If England is free, how can she countenance slavery in her West Indian dependencies? If England loves justice, why does she permit oppression? If England is Christian, why does she encourage the temporal and spiritual degradation of her brethren? The anomaly has long appeared no less strange to mortal than celestial eyes, and the question has been rung in the ears of men till many are heart-sick and some are weary but it must be asked again and again, till the insolent bravado, the irrelevant complaint, the contemptible excuse, are silenced; till not a single minister of the gospel can be found (we hope there is but one) to declare that slavery is sanctioned by the law of liberty; till the indignant remonstrance of millions ceases to be withstood by the puny insults of individuals; till appeals to the heart are no longer answered by appeals to the purse. Let us not be told that enough has been said already, that men are disgusted with details of barbarity, and wearied with the repetition of facts which every body knows, and arguments which there are few to dispute. It is true, we are thus weary and disgusted, and therefore should we labor the more diligently till the abuses are removed of which we complain. It is most painful to think on the condition of our Negro brethren; of their tortured bodies, their stunted

intellects, their perverted affections, their extorted labor, their violated homes: but the more painful such thoughts, the more rapid and energetic should be our exertions to banish them for ever by extinguishing the evils which suggest them. Are the friends of the slave less disgusted than ourselves? Having struggled for years against this enormous evil, are they less weary of it than we? Have we a right to complain of discouragement, while they have persevered amidst difficulty, and hoped almost against hope? They have pursued this pest of humanity with unremitting watchfulness, they have grappled with it, brought it to light and justice, and now, we are told, have prepared its death warrant. We hope it is so, for it is full time. We believe that it is so; for if human prejudice can gainsay the arguments of such upright minds, if selfishness can withstand such appeals to natural sympathy, if the love of power can long maintain a struggle with such a holy spirit of justice, as have been employed in this cause, we shall not know where to repose our confidence, and our trust in the triumph of righteousness will be shaken. The time is, we trust, arrived, for which patriots and philanthropists have so long watched in vain. Many eyes have of late been opened; many sleeping energies aroused; many perverted views rectified; and what wonder, when the subject has been presented to them as in the pamphlet before us?

This pamphlet consists of a republication of two articles of review on the topic of Colonial Slavery. The first of these articles appeared in the Edinburgh Review of October 1824, and the other in the Westminster Review of October 1829. They are of the first order of excellence both as to style and matter; and a more efficacious service to the cause of the slave could not, we conceive, have been rendered, than by reissuing them in such a form as may make them accessible to every reader in the kingdom. Their

object is not so much to set forth the wrongs and woes of the slave, (which had before been done sufficiently,) as to show with whom lies the power of taming the tyrants and reinstating the oppressed, to point out how easily such a power may be exercised, and how contemptible is the utmost opposition which can be anticipated.

There is not a heart actuated by the common feelings of humanity we will not say in a Christian country, but in any country, which would not be moved by a recital of the wrongs of the slaves in our colonies; and therefore a barc statement of the facts which have been perseveringly adduced by their advocates form a strong and universal appeal. Every man in every country feels that it can never be right to torture women, to condemn men to exile and toil, to separate children from their mothers, to subject the helpless to the violence of the strong, to make life one scene of hardship, pain, and degradation. The debased Hindoo and the contemplative Indian would here be of one mind with the British philanthropist. Men in civilized ⚫ countries who regard only the temporal condition of their race (if such men there be) are ready to join in the universal cry against the abuse of unlawful power; and though they look no further than the toils and sufferings of a day, though they believe that the consequences of oppression extend no further than the grave, they burn with indignation that that day of life should be embittered beyond endurance, and that grave become the resting-place of beings more degraded and less happy than the brutes. But to those who know any thing of the life and beauty of religion, to those especially who have been made free in the liberty of the gospel, the whole matter assumes a new form, and appears in different proportions. Like others, they burn to unlock the fetters which enchain the limbs, to restore the exile to his home, and the freeborn to his rights; but they feel that