to justice! That standing up from her guilty slumber, in giant strength, made stronger by her faith in God, she would hasten to strike the bonds from millions at her feet; to send them forth as the unfettered heralds of her power pledged to make the debased, the enslaved, the perishing of another continent, sharers in the hopes and the happiness of the people of this. So sublime a spectacle the world has never witnessed. Whatever ancient genius or power have effected, compared with such a work, loses its dignity,-the grandest monuments that look forth in solitariness, from the gloom of past ages, appear in the comparison, like toys cast by the way-side, in the sports of our childhood. This work can be done. And we are bound in duty to Him who is to be our final Judge, to do it. The Statesman of large and manly soul, informed by wisdom and inspired by eloquence, who fearlessly, in the councils of this nation, shall advocate this cause, on those eternal principles of truth and justice constituted by God the foundation and support of every Government which he hath promised to bless, will sooner or later find his name written on innumerable hearts; the spirit of his country will answer to his appeals; he shall know that there is in it an energy for good, which once excited, can rest no more, while there is a stain upon her honour or a just demand on her beneficence.

And shall we despair of witnessing a speedy union of the wise and good from every State in our Republic, cemented by a common opinion on this subject, and moved by one

come prevalent in this nation, it will not be the fault of the doctrine, but the sin of those who resist the power of its truth and the benignity of its influence.

Since most of this chapter was written, I have perused the able essays of my friend Gerrit Smith, Esqr. in the Journal of Freedom, and to differ on any points from him, a man who is an honour to his country, is pain. ful. But while I admire the spirit of his essays, and feel the force of many important truths contained in them, I may not have the happiness to agree with him in some views, which I must regard as vastly important to te triumphant success of our common cause.

spirit, prepared to apply the treasure and the power of the nation to carry into effect, on a scale commensurate with the evils to be remedied, and the means entrusted to them by Providence, the scheme of African Colonization? Responsibilities, awful beyond expression, now rest upon the friends of the American Colonization Society. With the boldness of truth, and the meekness of wisdom, and the confidence of success, let them aim at nothing less than to gain for their enterprise the affection and support of the nation. "If ever there was a time that calls on us for no vulgar conception of things, and for exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the awful hour that Providence has now appointed to this nation.Every little measure is a great error; and every great error will bring on no small ruin. Nothing can be directed above the mark that we must aim at; every thing below it is absolutely thrown away."*

And is it possible, there treads this soil sacred to freedom and Christianity, any man, who can look his countrymen in the face and pronounce domestic slavery an "indispensable element in an unmixed representative republic"t-a doctrine dishonourable alike to the benevolence of God and the nature of man? A doctrine declaring that the liberty of one portion of mankind must be perpetually dependant for existence upon the slavery of another! Let him who inculcates a dogma so abhorrent to the spirit which redeemed his country, and which if it survive here, must redeem the world, expect few disciples in this land, until the signatures which the Genius of Liberty has carved in our mountains, be forever erazed, and her glorious banner, now waving over us, be taken down, forever. Let him seek for proselytes among the Arabs of the desert, or the awe-struck minions of despotic power; but expect not his doctrine to prevail among a people, who have already taught wisdom to kings, and thundered forth the truth that makes the spirit of man free, in the ears of an astonished world.

* Burke.

† Inaugural Address of the Governor of South Carolina, 1884.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE doctrine of a Divine Providence, ruling in human affairs, is clearly taught in the sacred Scriptures. The wisest of men uttered inspired language when he said, "man's goings are of the Lord; how then can he understand his own way?" Whatever darkness may rest upon the path of an individual, we are assured from the same source, “that the way of the Lord is strength to the upright;" that "the integrity of the upright shall guide them;" and that "to him that soweth, righteousness shall be a sure reward." How the Divine Agency is exerted in Providence, we may in few, if in any particular cases know, while the reality of such Agency is certain. How far, it is but the application of pre-established laws, or how far, the power of God suspending and controlling them, is perhaps as unimportant as impossible to determine. The field of Providential Agency lies within the secrecy of the Divine Counsel. The Holy Scriptures assure us of the fact of the existence of such Agency, and declare the great and benevolent ends to which it is directed.

As the fulfilment of Prophecy is a proof of the Divine inspiration of the Prophet, so the correspondence seen by the good man, in the course of human events, and especially in his own experience, with the revelation of God's will and supreme Providential rule, verifies to him the testimony of Scripture on this subject.

The Providence of God infringes not upon the freedom of human actions, nor lessens human accountability. It cannot ordinarily be termed miraculous, because it neither suspends a general law, nor deviates from it, in a way perceptible to sense. It never interrupts, modifies, or changes those moral laws which extend their authority over us as free and responsible moral agents. It marks not men, to the eye of each other, either as the objects of the special love or displeasure of God. But it is a hand to lead, a shield to protect, an Almighty power to save the good man amid all the vicissitudes, darkness, and sufferings of life. That He exists, is as great a mystery to him, as that he lives, moves, and has his being in God. The evidence of a particular Providence, is discerned less, probably, by such a man, in the course and operations of nature, and the great movements and changes in the affairs of the world, than in the effects of the successive events in his own history on his own character. He sees himself to be the subject of a moral discipline, not of his choice,-opposed perhaps to all the devices of his own wisdom; yet exactly suited to eradicate his vices, to mature his virtues, and prepare him for a nobler life.* "How often,"

* The following sentences from the Edinburgh Review, (No. 100) contain the most plausible argument that the writer has seen against a particular Providence:

"Now, general laws, however for the most part yet undiscovered by us, govern alike the constitution of our nature, and the course of events. Upon the supposition that a general and continuing interference of Providence takes place (not for their maintenance, but) for their suspension and modification, it follows, in like manner, that all our attempts to trace a chain of cause and effect, and to found what would once have been considered a philo