every lesson of instruction he might give, in the light of the peculiarities of the Gospel. On whatever subject he might dwell, he did not choose to speak as an economist, or politician, or philosopher. A higher character he sustained. The various relations of those with whom he had to do, he contemplated in a more solemn light. To his eye, the truths of the Gospel shed their lustre on every thing. And what his eye saw, his tongue and pen could not but choose to describe. Whatever he might exhibit, he was "determined" to hold up in the light which shone from the face of the crucified Savior. Was he constrained to expose the guilt of the church, in allowing a gross fornicator to keep his place at the communion table? Who, taking his position at the foot of the cross, could adequately estimate that guilt? What motives to "purge out the old leaven" pressed upon their inmost spirits, when they remembered that "Christ their passover was sacrificed for them!" Would the Apostle dissuade his brethren from such intercourse with idolaters, as might be the occasion of apostacy to weaker members of the church? With what resistless force must his tender appeal have reached their hearts, when he admonished them, that through their "knowledge the weak brother" might "perish, for whom Christ died!" Would he persuade "servants" to maintain their allegiance to their Savior, whatever opposition they might meet with from their masters? How appropriate and powerful is the argument he urges,- -" Ye are bought with a price; BE NOT YE THE SERVANTS OF MEN." Thus, whatever truth he might be called to present, he was determined to present it as a christian minister, betaking himself to Jesus Christ and Him. crucified for arguments and illustrations.

Will you say, my brother, that I have lost sight of the example of the Apostle, either in introducing or disposing of the subject of slavery in my religious discourses? You cannot say so. Have I dwelt upon it as an economist, or politician, or philosopher? Have I sought applause as a rhetorician? Have I courted popularity for money or a name? No. Had I been guilty in any of these respects, I should have escaped the odium and reproach which, with no very sparing hand, have been measured out for me. No; it was because on the subject of slavery "I determined not to know any thing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified,"

that I have been reviled and slandered. I have presented the slave as a brother-the child of our common Father; redeemed by our Savior, and entitled to all the benefits suited to such high relations. This is "the head and front of my offending.' What if I were to gather a congregation of southern slaves around me, and expound and enforce for their benefit the direction of Paul, "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men!" should I not preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified?

You remind me, that it is my appropriate business, as a preacher of the gospel, to toil for the salvation of souls. Your admonition I receive with humility and gratitude. Be it my privilege while I live, thus to labor. But may I pause, and dwell upon the meaning of your language? In what must the salvation of souls consist? In such fears, and hopes, and joys, as however they may agitate us, fail to reduce us to our proper places in the moral system, to which we belong? Then were the Scribes and Pharisees saved; for they seem to have had no lack of such feelings. Does it consist in maintaining, without reproach, a profession of religion, or in activity in such enterprises, as have the patronage of the church, with which we may be connected? Then were the wretches saved, who the Savior declares devoured widows' houses, and for a pretence made long prayers! They were full of missionary zeal ;-"compassing sea and land to make a proselyte." To be saved, we must come into conformity with the relations we sustain to God and our neighbor. Short of this we may have our fears, and hopes, and joys, our religious professions and enterprises. Short of this, we may make high pretensions, long prayers, and many proselytes. Short of this, we may employ with wonderful success a thousand so-called soul-saving expedients. But short of this, we cannot be saved. Short of this, what could we do in that world of eternal harmony, where every thing finds and keeps its proper place? The devourers of widows' houses here, must receive damnation hereafter. Alas! what then must become of those who MAKE WIDOWS, and then DEVOUR THEM AND THEIR CHILDREN in the midst of the American churches? What must become of their apologists, however ingenious and grave they may be? What, my brother! have you a system of soul-saving, which inspires men with the hope of Heaven,

while they refuse heartily to own every human creature as a brother? A system of piety, which leaves men below the level of humanity! Can you make saints, who fall short of being MEN? Out upon such saints. Away with such piety. It makes any creature, who is deceived by its lofty pretensions, "two fold more the child of hell," than it found him. I have heard of some "young converts," who would not join a church that treated men as men, according to their moral worth! If prejudice, the most insane and cruel, could not be humored, and factitious distinctions maintained;-if they must take their place at the communion table, by the side of their poor brother, of another complexion, their offended dignity would turn away, and stand aloof from the Savior's "little ones!" I have heard of a church, which suited its arrangements to such views and feelings, and bowed before the giant prejudices of its young converts; and gloried in its shame, by baptizing its anti-christian expedients by the name of efforts to save souls! Out, I say, upon such notions of salvation. Romance for reality! Animal feeling for christian principle! False philosophy, for "Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

Are you the man, my brother, to talk of saving those, whose hearts are too hard and narrow to admit the common sentiments of humanity! Alas, this piety, both un-human and inhuman, what mischief has it not done wherever it has been countenanced in the church of God! What! Is God, our Savior, to be honored with human sacrifices! Human nature to be placed a bleeding victim on the altar of Piety! Men, women, and children to be offered by thousands to Moloch in the midst of the monuments of Christianity, without admonition or rebuke! Nay, ministers, and elders, and deacons, "binding the sacrifice with cords unto the horns of the altar!" And we, preachers of the Gospel, in the midst of these abominations, must close eyes, ears, and lips, and keep to our proper business of saving souls! Are we thus to convince gainsayers! And extend the triumphs of the Cross! And bring the whole family of Adam into one dear brotherhood!

Let me entreat you to study your Bible. Mark the course which prophets and apostles, with the Savior at their head, pursued. Did they throw the mantle of religion over the chain of servitude and the scourge of oppression? When?

Where? How? That thing they never did. In language, the most pointed and emphatic, they exposed the hypocrisy of those pretenders, who tried to unite the love of God with hatred of man. They applied the edge of the most cutting irony to the fat hearts of such religionists. They levelled their dreadful blows at the king on his throne and the priest at the altar. Wealth, renown, refinement, furnished no. shield for the guilty. And were they not intent on the salvation of souls? Yes; indeed they were; and they employed the only appropriate means. Who, now, is to

occupy the places which their ascent to heaven has left vacant? If the ministers of the gospel refuse to catch their mantle, on whose shoulders shall it fall? If the pulpit may not be employed in exposing and rebuking popular iniquity, what is it good for? Shall we leave the guilty to work out their own reformation, while we, keep ourselves to the business of saving souls!

Look again, my brother, to those models, to which every christian minister is bound to conform himself. Did they take the side of the oppressor against the oppressed? Did they court the rich and despise the poor? Did they look on unmoved while the strong crushed the weak. Never. Of the victims of popular prejudice and violence they were the friends and advocates; and this at the hazard of reputation and of life. When did they refuse "to consider the poor?" to raise up the down-trodden? Were they not "eyes to the blind and feet were they not to the lame?" The cause which they knew not, were they not forward and thorough to search out? Did not our Savior appropriate the Gospel especially to the poor-to the poor, to whom His heart and His arms were ever open? And must we see the poor, driven from the Cross, robbed of the Bible, plundered-not of their "ewe lambs," but of their wives, and children, insulted, polluted, murdered with impunity, and keep our hearts and our tongues still? Must we see churches, built up by fraud and filled with adultery, without uttering a syllable! And religious teachers claiming for American slavery the stability and the sanctity of a christian institution! and quoting texts from the Old Testament and the New to justify man-stealing! and spitting their venom in the faces of the friends of human freedom! Must we see all this and much more, and keep as cold and silent as the

grave! And why? For the sake of saving souls! Then let us take the priest on his way to Jericho, for our model. He was, probably, intent on making proselytes. Full of missionary zeal, how could he pause to pity and help the poor sufferer, whom the thieves had left "half dead?" He could not come down from the work of saving souls to relieve a wounded, bleeding body! His piety suffocated his humanity! and along he stalks "on the other side." Say, my brother, are we to tread in his footsteps? Certainly we are, if our priestly obligations are inconsistent with "considering the poor!"

My brother, have you tasted the "blessedness" of "considering the poor?" Do you recognize in them the form and face of your final judge? Be not deceived. Mistake not sickly sentimentalism for christian principle. Study the description which, in the 25th of Matthew, our Savior gives of the final judgment. What think you of that stranger, hungry, ragged, oppressed, and exhausted by disease, whom He, there, exhibits as His representative? Can you turn away from his crushed frame and broken heart, under the pretence that this is required by your official obligations! The ministers of Christ, too much engaged in soul-saving to sympathize with their suffering Lord, to vindicate His rights, to relieve His necessities! Hypocrisy, my brother, lurks in every such pretence. I charge you, affectionately yet solemnly, in the light of "Jesus Christ and him crucified" plead the cause of the oppressed. "Cry aloud and spare not." As thyself in bonds, remember the bound. Enlist the church in the cause of holy freedom. Give heaven and earth no rest till "every yoke is broken and the орpressed are free." Then shall salvation, proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb, gladden the face of all the earth. "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward."

Oneida County, N. Y., June, 1836.