receipt of all agencies; $1 poll tax; $5 for every slave brought in for sale; every free negro, $10 within certain ages, or $5 or $4 if females. Pedlars are to give penal bonds in $1000 to make true returns, &c. The whole shows a sad condition of things, and no community could stand the load, except they were slaves.

THE GAIN OF SECESSION.-One might have thought that even the strong appetite for gain would hardly have blinded the white men of the Southern States to the great loss and the risk which they are about to incur. To our minds, the loss would seem to be so enormous as far to outweigh any pecuniary gain. They would at once cease to belong to one of the greatest nations of the world; but if patriotic pride does not sway them, still we cannot help wondering at their readiness to incur the heavy taxation which a separate confederacy must entail. It will be necessary for them to maintain a fleet and an army, unless they choose to be exposed to insults from their Northern neighbors. The whole cost of their civil administration, hitherto divided between the North and the South, will fall upon them. But more than all this, there is the risk that, should civil war break out, the negroes might take part in it against their masters; and that in any case the neighborhood of free States whose enmity to slavery has been inflamed by these dissentions, will render insubordination and desertions far more frequent among the slaves.

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No event of our own day has been half so wonderful as the one before Who, a priori, could have believed that in the nineteenth century a new State should be organized by the grandsons of Englishmen, solely on the principle of preserving and extending a system of slavery? A more ignoble basis for a great confederacy it is impossible to conceive, nor one in the long run more precarious. The permanent renunciation of sound principles and natural laws must in due time bring ruin. No great career can be before the Southern States, bound together solely by the tie of having a working-class of negro bondsmen. Assuredly it will be the Northern confederacy based on the principle of freedom, with a policy untainted by crime, with a free working-class of white men, that will be the one to go on and prosper, and become the leader of the New World.-London Sat. Rev.

TREATMENT OF SOLDIERS.-The mutiny on the islands, says the correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune on the spot, which I told you occurred from non-payment of wages, has been quieted by promises for the time; but the complaints on the part of the regular troops are loud and long. Still no beds, and insufficient food, are the cries, and a very unwilling volunteer who came over on furlough this morning, tells me that the scenes which occurred during yesterday and last night, were horrible and heartrending. During the evening it rained in torrents; and in the night a snow storm came on, the first Charleston has known for years, and three inches, and in some places six inches of snow lay on the ground till ten o'clock this morning. The weather was exceedingly cold, and during the whole of it, the poor men, who, when enlisted, had no more idea of fighting against the United States than they had of engaging in a crusade against Vaterland,' were exposed to the piercing cold and the pitiless storm. Information which reaches me, not only from undoubted sources, but a great deal of which comes under my own observation, leads me to believe that a few more weeks' occupation of the island batteries will bring sickness, misery, and death, such as will compare not unfavorably with the worst horrors of the Crimean war. I will only add, the enlisting men in the regular Southern army,' are now the subjects of treatment such as is utterly unworthy of a civilzed, not to say Christian land, and all this

is in spite of the most earnest promises that their health and comfort would receive especial care. At the same moment that this misery is calling loudly for redress, the men in high authority, even on the islands, fare sumptuously every day.

COST OF BOMBARDING.-A letter from Charleston to the New Orleans Delta, gives the following item of the expense to be incurred in the seige of Sumter : 66 Every gun fired by the State will be an average expenditure of $9. A prominent officer of Fort Moultrie informs me that, by a close calculation, it has been ascertained that when its batteries open, the cost per diem to the State, at that fort alone, will exceed $15,000. Pretty heavy, that. But this is the surest way of mastering the fort, and we had better spend money than lives in its acquisition."

HOW REBELS REASON: It is a striking 'commentary on the force of prejudice and depravity, that deeds which most men hold in deepest abhorrence, are extolled as deserving of the highest admiration and eulogy. Hear what is said by the Southern Confederacy, Ga., of Floyd, the Benedict Arnold of the South, worse than the world-scorned traitor of Westpoint: "But for the foresight and firmness and patriotic providence of John B. Floyd, in what stress and peril would the Cotton States be floundering in this day. He saw the inevitable doom of the Union, or the doom of his own people. For many months past, from his stand-point, he had an expanded field of vision which enabled him to see the great danger which threatened us, but which was hid below the horizon from the eyes of most of us. When his faithful loyalty to his own persecuted people began its labors in our defense, in what a condition were the Southern States? The North had the heavy guns, the light arms, the powder and ball, just as the North had everything else that belonged to the common Government. How quietly were men shifted from our soil who might have been here to-day to murder us at Abraham Lincoln's order. How slender the garrisons became in Southern forts, which were made for us, and belonged to nobody else, but which a savage enemy now chafes and rages to get possession of. Who sent 37,000 stand of arms to Georgia? How came 60,000 more prime death-dealing rifles at Jackson, Mississippi? In short, why have we anything at all in the South to mail the strong hands of the sons of the South with at this hour, when every heart, and head, and arm of her children is needed in her defense? Truth demands it of us to declare that we owe to John B. Floyd an eternal tribute of gratitude for all this. Had he been less the patriot than he was, we might now have been disarmed, and at the mercy of a nation of cut-throats and plunderers."

HEAPING COALS OF FIRE. Our readers have certainly heard of the great scarcity of food, approaching to a famine, which now exists in Northern Mississippi. Appeals have been made for assistance, and an agent has been sent to Illinois on this errand. The manner in which he was received there, is a delightful interruption to the dreary discord of the past few months, and is so truly a Christian_mode of treating those who have been breathing out sentiments of the deepest hostility, that we cannot be surprised at the softening influence it has exerted in the Mississippians. "On our first page," says the Brandon (Miss.) Republican, "will be found a letter from Major Benjamin Hawkins, who is now in Illinois, buying corn from the citizens of Scott, Smith, and Rankin counties. He says that he can get the corn on a credit, if the people can raise the money to pay the freight. Major Hawkins took with him a list of the poor of his neighborhood, who were unable to buy or pay freight, and who were compelled to starve unless assistance were rendered them. From his letter it will be

seen that the citizens of Springfield, the home of Lincoln, have contributed one thousand bushels of corn, and that much more will be contributed to relieve the distress of the poor in this section. How humiliating, to every Mississippian, to know that, after cursing and denouncing the people of the North, as our citizens have been in the habit of denouncing them, we are compelled to turn around and beg them for bread, and they in turn are trying to kill us with kindness, by treating our agent with the greatest respect, and not only giving him more than he asked for, but paying for the sacks to put it in. It certainly places us in a very humiliating position. Some narrow-minded demagogues say that the citizens of Illinois give us corn because they fear us, and wish to get on good terms with us again. We believe they are actuated by purely Christian motives, and that they have purer and better hearts than those who make such charges."

DESPOTISM OF SECESSION.-It has been all along a practical oligarchy, ignoring democracy. It has gone on without asking the people. Here is what is said on the spot: "Are we to have no showing? Are the people to have no choice? Can a Convention alter_Constitutions, impose taxes, appoint Constitution makers, inaugurate Presidents ? Are they oligarchs, and are we nothing? .And each citizen has to confess that there was no reply to these questions. We live under an oligarchy that has not yet dared to trust the people with a say as to its consent. Right as the South is upon the great question at issue, its position has been compromised by the events of the last two months. The consent of the governed is an essential element of government. The people of the Southwest might have voted for all that has been done, but their consent has not yet been either asked or obtained."

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NORTHERN CITIZENS AT THE SOUTH.-It is computed, that at least one million of the citizens of the South are natives of the northern states, who have settled in the South, and in many instances intermarried with southern families, and are among the most loyal and 'public spirited of the ulation. This is especially true of Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana. Charleston has a large proportion of natives of northern states among her population; and the city of Savannah is, in its habits and aspect, more like a sober business New England town, than a southern city. New Orleans and Augusta have each a large northern element; and there as elsewhere, northern adopted citizens are among the most valuable and liable men in the community.

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The number of citizens of the North of southern birth is, also, very large. They may be found everywhere—in the most remote portions of New England, and are scattered all over the North-western states. There are more natives of Virginia now resident in New York than of New Yorkers resident in Virginia. In many instances they, too, have intermarried into families in the land of their adoption.

Thus linked together by the most sacred ties, what new and unspeakable horrors are involved in the idea of civil war! Does it not become all good men, all men who are not given over to hardness of heart, and demoniacal malice and cruelty, to labor with their whole souls, and to besiege the throne of Heaven with their supplications, that this hitherto the happiest of all nations may be saved from such an unnatural collision and fearful catastrophe ?

THE CONTRAST - THE MAN OF WAR AND THE MAN OF PEACE.-On his way to assume the duties of his office as President of the newly "Confederated States," Mr. Jefferson Davis, in addressing his countrymen said: "The time for compromises is past, and we are now determined to main

tain our position, and make all who oppose us smell Southern gunpowder and feel Southern steel."

On his way to assume the duties of his office as President of the United States, Mr. Abraham Lincoln, in addressing his countrymen, said: "Now, in view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course; and I may say in advance, that there will be no bloodshed, unless it be forced upon the government, and then it will be compelled to act in self-defence." That language is worthy of the day on which it was spoken, of the spot on which it was said, and of the man who is going to the office which Washington was the first to fill. In behalf of the Christian people of this country, in behalf of civilization, religion, commerce, humanity, and freedom, we thank Mr. Lincoln for those noble words. We send them out in contrast with the words of Mr. Jefferson Davis; and we wish to write them distinctly, and hold them up in the sight of heaven and earth, that all men may know on whom the responsibility rests if the country is plunged into the horrors of civil war.-N. Y. Observer.

THE PRESENT CRISIS IN OUR COUNTRY.

In a late number of the Friend, (Phila.) we find some views so pertinent and so fully accordant with our own, that we take pleasure in copying them entire, with a query on a single point. God grant that such Christian principles and feelings may prevail among the millions on both sides of this deplorable controversy!

"Our country is at the present time passing through a fearful ordeal. For several years the antagonism between the free and the slave States has been developing itself in various ways, and each side has striven to marshal its forces for the final contest, which both saw must come sooner or later, and so to manoeuvre them that there should be no escape from a battle that would decide which should henceforth have pre-eminence in the government of the country. In the last presidential election, every class of society was moved to its lowest depths; political intrigue, party spirit, and sectional interest were all enlisted and actively engaged to operate upon the great issues at stake; and the result was the triumph of freedom over slavery, or at least the instalment in power, of a party which declared slavery to be a social and political evil, and that it ought to be restricted to that portion of the country where it already exists. There is no doubt that the verdict of the ballot-boxes was constitutionally authorized and fairly rendered. But a portion of the losing party determined not to submit to the clearly expressed will of the majority. Claiming to act in accordance with the precept that government rests upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter and abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established, they have attempted to justify the revolutionary course they have taken, by asserting there is an inevitable and irreconcilable conflict of principles, institutions, and interests between their section of the country and that where slavery is abolished; that on the slave issue they can never yield their settled preferences; and that it is insulting and injurious to them, for the North to persist in refusing what they are irrevocably determined upon demanding, the recognition and adoption of slavery as a national institution; therefore, it is their inalienable right

to withdraw from their former compact, and set up a government of their

own.

It was not to be expected that the United States government would recognize the justice of this reasoning, or at once submit to dismemberment, brought about by the treasonable scheming of many who had been entrusted with its most lucrative and influential appointments, acting upon the blind infatuation of wide-spread sectional prejudice and animosity. Nor have the people of the free States failed to feel the deep wrong done to the whole country by the secessionists, and the dangerous principle that would be sanctioned by a quiet acknowledgment of the new "Confederated States." Moreover, the aggressive acts of the secessionists, and the insulting tone of their abettors, have increased the feeling of irritation, and disposed many to favor measures of retaliation.

Under these circumstances, we cannot but think it remarkable, and esteem it as a blessing, that so far there has been no act of hostility committed on the part of the United States, and that the President who has just retired, and he who now fills the office, have declared their determination to preserve peace, if possible. The Constitution authorizes the President to employ force in order "to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection, and repel invasion;" but the setting up of a new government by a number of adjoining States was not contemplated, and the posture of affairs attending its initiation and consummation, renders the President now almost powerless. There is a new government de facto, apparently supported by the good will of the people over whom it exercises authority; and the whole question between it and the United States appears to resolve itself into this, whether the new govornment shall be acknowledged and treated with, or an attempt made to overthrow it by force, and reduce its millions of citizens to obedience by the horrors and destruction of (?)

war.

It is certainly a most extraordinary occurrence, and one, which in one sense, argues a highly improved state of feeling and civilization in a large portion of our countrymen, that in a nation of thirty millions, such a revolution, originating from such causes, should have taken place without a single drop of blood being shed, or hostile armies being brought in array against each other. Surely, this is a favor for which all good citizens should be thankful, and which should inspire them with hope for the future, and stimulate them to use whatever influence they may possess to preserve peaceful relations between the parties, and secure a bloodless issue to this most lamentable controversy. That such an issue is altogether possible, we have not a doubt; even while a consistent protest is maintained against rebellion, and the fact clearly demonstrated to the world, that there has been no shadow of excuse for resistance to the authority of our government; and that it is not lack of physical power to enforce obedience that keeps the sword in its scabbard, but the conviction that an appeal to its bloody arbitrament, would be unchristian and impolitic; because after inflicting upon both parties the horrors of civil war, whatever wrongs had been done, and whatever rights invaded, there must be a peaceful solution of the difficulties, at its conclusion, such as may be arrived at before it is begun.

What more noble and elevating spectacle could the United States exhibit to other nations than, laying aside all feelings of resentment for injuries received, and actuated by a truly christian spirit, it should magnanimously refuse to plunge its citizens in fraternal strife, for fear of what the world might say of its moral courage or physical strength, and, in a peaceful and legalized manner, dispose of the difficulties and dangers which threaten it, and allow the withdrawal of those discontented and revoted