and prudent emancipation either partook of the panic, or were appalled at the tempest of indignation affected or felt by the proslavery party, and gave them their own way. Even in Maryland laws were enacted against free people of colour, as well as slaves, which would have disgraced the statute-book of Turkey. Yet worse statutes than any already passed-more cruel and relentless in their nature and consequences-have since been proposed to the legislature. Thirdly, the Methodist testimony against slavery was not sustained by the sister churches as religious communities, except by the “Friends,” or “Quakers." The latter made thorough work of it among their own members. In the States which opposed no hindrances to voluntary emancipation, they very early effected an entire liberation of their slaves; and those who resided where emancipation was impracticable, discharged them from personal service, and put them under the care of the Yearly Meeting, which provided for them employment and superintendence, until they could be disposed of according to the principles of Friends. A considerable number were transported and settled in Liberia. We have neither time nor space to inquire whether the plan of the Quakers, or of the Methodists, was the best. The Quakers have long since almost entirely ceased to act aggressively on the world as a Christian body, contenting themselves with a careful instruction of their own children in their religious opinions, and guarding them from injurious association by disciplinary regulations. The Methodists, from their missionary economy, would cease to exist at all, if they ceased to act aggressively in the propagation of the gospel. They have been studious, therefore, to preserve an open door of access to both slaves and slave-holders. The Friends felt called to sacrifice their access to both, rather than compromise, in any degree, their views with respect to slave-holding, under any circumstances whatever. The Methodists have many slaves in their communion, walking humbly in the path of Christian obedience and hope, and many free people of colour. The Friends have hardly any, if indeed they have any, of either class under their care. Perhaps both Quakers and Methodists have followed their appropriate calling in this respect, each subserving a providential purpose, under the guidance of our common Lord and Lawgiver.

The other churches, the Protestant Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists, sects which occupy prominent positions among the religious denominations of the slave-holding States, have not taken any decided action against the system of slavery. Individuals among them have, both by precept and example, done good service; but as Christian denominations, they have not been counted

among the decided opponents of slavery.* It is lately that our Protestant Episcopalian brethren of the South have begun to recover from the deleterious effects of that first principle of church establishments-the taking the world into the church, without converting the world to the truth as it is in Christ. The Church of England, overthrown by the Revolution, left her people without a ministry, and with the recollection of one whose example had been far from edifying. It was to be expected that a church which was of the world, would conform itself to the opinions and practices of the world; but it is matter of great rejoicing, that ever since the organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country, the southern portion of it has been slowly but surely gaining a more spiritual character, and is already beginning to exercise a Christian discipline over the communicants of the body. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the Church may yet wipe off the severe and just reproach lately cast upon her-alas! too justly-by Bishop Wilberforce, in regard to slavery. Heretofore she has not even ranked as an auxiliary, when she ought to have taken the lead.

The Presbyterians, who were never very numerous in the Southern States, and the Baptists, who have always been among the most numerous and influential of the Christian denominations in that section of the Union, were generally reconciled to slavery, on the ground of absolute, unconditional predestination. The social, and civil, and even the moral condition of all classes of men were from all eternity fixed by the immutable decree of God, and therefore could not be wrong. This was the argument for slavery, and it made short work of the whole matter. It is very well known that this doctrine, as held by a large majority of our Calvinistic brethren at the present time, has been greatly diluted; but until within the last twenty or thirty years it was held, especially by the Baptists, without its present qualifications, and without any metaphysical mystifications, and is so held yet by that party among them who claim to be, par excellence, the orthodox and primitive party, and who are generally designated in the South by the name of "Hard-shell Baptists." The effect of the doctrine was, that those who held it entered heartily, and without any conscientious scruples, not only upon the advocacy, but the practice, of slavery, and the

It is true, however, that in 1818, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church did unanimously pass as strong a condemnation of the whole system of American slavery, as ever passed a Methodist General Conference. Since that time, however, the General Assembly have had the mortification to find their body divided in opinion on the subject, and to hear the system advocated on pretended Scriptural arguments, such as we have heard with so much pain in the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, from Southern preachers.

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. I.-20

Methodists were left alone, as a denomination, to their religious scruples and their obstinate opposition to the system.

And alas! they too gave way to the tide of common feeling and selfishness. The laws had effectually restrained all disciplinary regulations on the subject, and very soon members of the Church and ministers of the Church were found, not only holding slaves, but buying and selling them as mere property and articles of common traffic. Still, however, conscience was wakeful and clamorous. The light which had been so long shed on the sin and great evil of slavery by the early Methodist preachers in the South, as well as in the North, could not be immediately extinguished, and the twinges of conscience were at times intolerable. It was necessary, therefore, to look about for an anodyne-some "sweet oblivious antidote,"-and it was found in the "Scriptural arguments in favour of slavery,” which have been so zealously urged, and generally believed, by those whose interests and conveniences plead hard for accommodation, and afford a ready inlet to the consolatory doctrine. And now we have Methodist slave-traders, as well as Methodist slave-holders. The followers of Wesley buying slaves at auction, to sell again in a distant and higher market, without regard to family ties or conjugal relations! Some of the travelling preachers themselves have inherited slaves, or acquired them by marriage, and with the slaves got plantations too, and while they travel abroad, preaching as the rule of life, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," their slaves are consigned to the tender mercies of an "overseer," that is, a mercenary slave-driver, who, from the very nature of his service, soon ceases to feel towards slaves as human beings. The preacher teaches the people still, that "love worketh no ill to its neighbour," but they have a right to infer from his example, that it does not forbid them to deprive their neighbour (if he be black or yellow) of all personal rights, to reduce him to a state of the utmost degradation, to subject him to the absolute will of his master or his agent, in respect to both temporal and eternal interests. O Lord! how long! how long!

This was the state of things in the South when the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church assembled in New-York, in May, 1844. What then took place, and the results of the action of that body, we must reserve for notice in a future number of the Quarterly.

20*

ART. IX-RELIGIOUS TRAINING.

THERE is not in the wide world a living thing more helpless and unpromising than man in his infancy. He is feeble and dependent beyond any other animal, and for a much longer period. He is utterly unable to perform any good offices for himself. He cannot defend himself against the most insignificant enemy, or the most inconsiderable danger. He must inevitably perish, upon whatever spot his frail body may happen to repose, unless some careful hand feed, protect, and cherish him. Of the tact and skill which are to form the endowment of riper years he does not now manifest the faintest trait. He is even less gifted than brutes of his own age with the instincts which, in the absence of a higher intelligence, guide every other living creature. He breathes, utters some inarticulate sounds, swallows the simple food that is put into his mouth, and makes some unmeaning muscular movements, and that is all he can do to announce to the spectator that this embryo immortal possesses even the lowest of the attributes of things that live.

Such is man, physically, at his entrance upon a career in which he is appointed to act so important a part, and fulfil so unfathomable a destiny. Nor of the higher faculties which he is to develop and exercise in after life does the slightest glimmering now appear. He exhibits nothing like character, whether good or evil. He has no reason, no conscience, no moral or immoral habits, no religion, no opinions, no ideas. His mind is a blank. His heart is a mere organ for the performance of an animal function.

Yet is there something wonderful and even sublime in this embryo man. He may become a hero, a philosopher, or a saint,-a scourge, or a benefactor of his race. He is likely to become an active and competent agent in human affairs and to perform a part in the drama of the world; and he will assuredly become a partaker either of endless life, or of eternal death. Great faculties lie concealed under such unpromising aspects. They are seen by the eyes of God; "yet being unperfect, in his book are they written; they are fashioned in continuance, when as yet there is none of them." They are not substances nor powers, but merely susceptibilities. To develop these latent capacities,-to bring them out for action and enjoyment, to transform this helpless, insignificant thing into a good and wise man, fitted to serve God and his generation on earth, and to enjoy him forever in heaven, is the work of education. This is a

task it has pleased God to devolve upon parents, and to it they are bound by obligations as sacred as any that rest upon a moral being.

The duty of bestowing careful, timely culture upon infancy and childhood, is clearly indicated by their exceeding delicacy and susceptibility. Physical developments will indeed proceed very well with only the slightest attention on the part of the parent, or with none at all. The nursery, the play-ground, the field, and the workshop, invite the bodily organs into due action, and impart vigour, skill, and activity. The intellect, too, however neglected by the teacher, imbibes knowledge from a thousand sources. Each of the senses becomes an inlet for valuable ideas. Business, social converse, human example, even inanimate nature, the sky, the air, and the earth, the elements in all their changes and activities, the vegetable kingdom,-in a word, the visible world, and all that is, or is transacted, in it, become sources of instruction, which freely tender their lessons to the opening mind in contact with them, and force their teachings upon it, in its most passive states, and even in spite of indifference or reluctance. From all this it occurs, that every human being who grows up in a civilized community attains a measure of intelligence sufficient for the common purposes of life,-of the intelligence that guides the race in the satisfaction of its most pressing wants, and which must, on that account, rank high in comparison with that class of acquisition and accomplishments which we are wont to dignify with the name of education. Divine Providence has thus mercifully ensured to the human being such degrees of physical and mental development as are indispensable in the performance of those functions which pertain to self-preservation, and on which society is dependent for its being and material prosperity. For the higher culture, which gives the mind enlargement, and elevation, and refinement, and opens before it a career of worthy occupations and enjoyments, years of patient labour and assiduous teaching are requisite; and parents are, unquestionably, bound by all the motives which duty and affection impose, to give to their offspring the best education which their providential positions and circumstances will allow.

Without stopping to enforce, by argument or inculcation, one of the plainest and least controverted of duties, we proceed to add, that the highest of the parent's obligations finds its sphere in the moral and religious training of his offspring. The superior importance of this department of education is sufficiently apparent, from the consideration already suggested, that whilst both the mind and the body, left to themselves, and wholly neglected by parent and teacher, spontaneously acquire, from their own activity, and from the business and conflicts of the world, the discipline,