Where is the covering cherub? Shall not the outcast of India find shelter under the wings of Britain, and, robbed by the arbitrary distinction of caste, be restored to the dignity of man, and elevated to the hope of the Christian? This is to be effected, not by physical force, but by moral influence; by imparting the knowledge of that system, in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but in Jesus Christ a new creature. And this shall be done when the nation wakes to a sense of her responsibility, and with united effort scatters the blessings committed to her trust, in dependence upon His grace by whom they were bestowed upon herself; and like the angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, shall carry the boon to the remotest corner of the most distant provinces of the empire.

The mode of colonization argues a considerable degree of responsibility, when it is considered in its strict usages, in reference to the body of the people transferred from the parent state, to some distant possession. It usually commences in the transportation of criminals, unfitted to be allowed in civilized societies, whose laws they have broken, whose peace they have violated, whose order they have disturbed, and whose protection they have forfeited; and these generally not incipient offenders, but hardened in guilt, and irreclaimable by milder modes of correction; carrying with them, superadded to all their vices, the brand of infamy. Powerful restraints must be necessary where former discipline has proved abortive; and not in pity only to themselves, but in especial reference to those with whom they must come in contact, an imperative duty arises, to apply the most effective means to remove the contagion from among themselves, and to prevent the contamination of others. For not only the original inheritors of the soil are there, to receive every baneful impression, but the overflowing of a redundant population pour in upon them by spontaneous emigration from the mother country. And the state of society in which are necessarily commingled the precious and the vile, the respectable and the debased, the virtuous and the vicious, the innocent and the criminal, requires no common guard, is to be influenced by no ordinary principles, and imposes upon the parent state no small responsibility. Thus the religious claims are as urgent as they are indisputable; and to meet this, is to supply every essential want, and to furnish every necessary guard to a population so constituted; and nothing else will do it.

If there be a doubt of the power and sufficiency of religion for so noble and mighty a purpose, we may well waive arguments to substitute facts; and an example is before you, in one of the greatest and most prosperous countries on the face of the earth, emanating from ourselves—it is to be seen in the United States of America. To her shores were banished the violators of the laws of God and of man; and in her were to be found outcasts whom their native land had disowned. But persecutions arose at home, and there went forth a holy seed, voluntary exiles from the temples and the sepulchres of their fathers, that they might hold fast faith and a good conscience; these they carried, with their Bibles, their consistency, their righteous examples, their enlightened instructions, their inextinguishable love for civil and religious liberty, to a community so abandoned, and planted them in a soil so unpromising. Religion effected every thing; the moral waste became a spiritual garden; the wilderness and the solitary place were glad, because of them, and the desert rejoiced and blossomed

as the rose instead of the thorn came up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier came up the myrtle-tree: it hath been to the Lord for a name, and shall be for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off.

I have understood the term " Colony," and employed it, in its most comprehensive sense; as including territorial acquisitions and commercial settlements, as well as planting new lands with an exuberant population, emigrating from the parent country. I have done this advisedly and intentionally, for the purpose of demonstrating, from the power and dominion of Britain, the force of her obligations, and the extent of her responsibilities, without losing sight eventually of that particular object held in view primarily, and that branch of duty intended to be especially enforced by the appointment of the subject of this day.

In stating the religious claims of our British Colonies, another argument arises, thirdly, THE REPARATION DUE FROM HER OPPRESSORS. "Iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandize they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned." Ambition has been charged, and justly charged, with trampling upon the rights and liberties of mankind, turning the fruitful land into barrenness, beating down with unsparing force and cruelty whatever withstood its advance, outraging every principle, if expediency required its sacrifice, wasting human life remorselessly in furtherance of its plans, and deluging the earth with blood. What has Commerce to say, in answer to the accusation, should every one of these imputations be alleged against her? Have her crimes been fewer? Have the injuries inflicted upon society been less aggravated, and has the love of money been less powerful than the love of fame? Has the lust of dominion been more persevering and reckless than the cupidity of accumulation? Let the Colonies of Britain, even Christian Britain, stand forth and give their testimony, in vindication of the sentiment of the text. The cries of the burning widows in India, the shrieks of the victims crushed under the car of Juggernaut, testify. : These have been tolerated, if not encouraged; until lately, if not even still, a revenue has accrued from the licence of these accursed rites, and she has taken, what even the chief priests did not dare to take-the price of blood.

It will be said, this is but the toleration of existing evils, not the infliction of new ones. Well, then, the participation of the crime being, at least, admitted, we will pass on to the violence which was employed to win, and the cruelty which has been often exercised in keeping, these territorial acquisitions. The enormities perpetrated, the flagrant injustice committed, the extortions practised, are not the reports of enemies, but the subject of judicial inquiries which have come before the public, when the plunderers of the East have been cited in the face of their country. Fortunes and families have been made; provinces and colonies have been pillaged. When the charge of oppression is alleged, Africa demands to be heard; the West has accusations to bring against the violence of her merchandize; and it stands connected with those Colonies which have recently excited so much attention, and which awaken at this moment so lively an interest. These possessions have been, hitherto, cultivated upon a system of slavery, revolting to British feeling, upon the abstract principle; aggravated by repeated excesses in labour, in treatment, in the whole management of this colonial department. New and fearful combinations were formed in the commercial relations of this great and free city-" the merchandize of gold and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple,

and silk, and scarlet, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men."

We can afford to concede much, without weakening the argument; and, to suppose for a moment what never can be established in the fact, we will imagine that the condition of these poor captives was as insufferable as it has been represented in their desert country; that the roaming savage sent his miserable captives to the market; that their native bondage was carried to every possible extent of severity; that the prisoners of war, if not thus disposed of, were subjected to death under the most terrible forms of torture; that they were almost constantly in a state of warfare, involving these atrocious consequences. We will not now pause to ask, whether the power which now interposed to tear them from their country, was dictated by benevolence or by avarice— whether the power which broke the yoke of wood did not impose a yoke of iron-whether the whip from which they fled was not supplanted by a scourge of scorpions nor even whether the supply demanded by the Colonies was not more frequently furnished by the man-stealer, against whom the law of God has pronounced sentence of death, lurking in the bushes until night afforded an opportunity to fire the village, and to drag the overpowered and surprised victims, male and female, manhood, youth, and infancy, to the floating prison. We will suppose their condition in the Colonies, thus supplied, to be such as the friends of slavery could wish to represent; and to admit of as much comfort, to have been met with as much humane consideration as, in many distinguished instances, did occur. We will shut our ears against the sound of the lash, the brutal language, the still more atrocious actions, of those who overlooked them, in other manifold admitted cases. We will waive now all discussion of the right by which man assumes authority over man, to make him the slave of his caprice, if not the victim of his cruelty-the principle so utterly indefensible of any being subjected to the contingency of disposition on the part of others, and the still greater contingency, that the power over them and their children is transmitted from generation to generation, while the same tide of life flows equally in the veins of both, and the same God made both equally free. We pass by all this, to fix upon the link connecting the capture with the sale: the undeniable and undenied horrors of the middle passage, are more than sufficient, in the long-endured, long-encouraged slave-trade, the crime of centuries, to impress the brand of indelible infamy upon the parties engaged in it, and leave an ineffaceable stain of national transgression on the country which so long suffered and countenanced it. Wrongs were inflicted, on which we cannot endure to think. The steams of pestilence arose from the hold of the slave-ship, where an immoveable compression mingled the living with the dead. The blood which flowed on the deck, the torture inflicted on the sullen and unsubdued captive, the yells of despair, the cries of pain, the groans of the sick, the still more fearful silence which succeeded, and the frequent plunge into the deep-the owner meanwhile, sitting down coolly to calculate how many he could afford to lose, and yet gain by his voyage-presents altogether an aggregate of atrocity, which we with difficulty associate even with the semblance of humanity. This terrible record is sufficient; we want no other, as we can have no greater, instance of oppression; when in the midst of the ocean the sea-monsters gambolled around

the execrable bark, in expectation of the feast provided for them, and, as she approached the shores, the vulture snuffed the tainted atmosphere, and scented the prey from afar.

When all this is viewed, when principle is opposed to cupidity, right to expediency, justice to oppression, equity to power-whatever parties may be accused or implicated, whatever instrument may have been employed or suffered, whatever participants in the wrong or in the spoil may have been admitted; we cannot conceal from ourselves that the crime has been national, and that the restitution ought to be so likewise. Whoever spread the toils, and hunted down the prey, the country battened on the quarry, and divided the plunder. Long had the cry gone up to heaven before Britain would listen: long had the wail been poured into her ears before she would regard it; long had she conceded the validity of the principle before she would relinquish the graspings of interest. She created a property, founded upon violence, holding out large returns of profit, in which she allured others to embark widely, sharing the pillage, and compelling its continuance afterwards on the plea of state necessity. We leave the statesman to digest the disorder which the national plan had created, to calculate and appease claims which centuries had changed into inheritance. We contend for such reparation of these wrongs as alone are available to the depth of their character and the breadth of their extent, and call for national atonement for the national guilt, and a prompt and corresponding attention to the religious claims of the Colonies. It is true much is without remedy: the early victims of oppression are out of the reach of the oppressor; even a nation's repentance cannot recall a single departed spirit from its dreadful abode: but the children are in the place of the fathers A debt of crime is incurred which the consecrated energies of the nation alone can repay let the inheritors of the wrongs of their ancestors remove and redress all their grievances in the ample compensation which the parent state has it yet in her power to effect, in sending to them the glad tidings of salvation. The slave trade has been abolished in vain, and in vain are you now proclaiming liberty to the captive, if this great obligation be neglected. You have not given freedom to the slave thoroughly, until you have given him the Gospel; heavier, invisible, infrangible chains remain when you have taken the yoke from his shoulders and struck the fetters from his limbs. The slave and his master are equally in bondage by nature; sold under sin, led captive of Satan at his will: heaven alone can furnish the emancipation. "He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,

And all are slaves beside."

And the pre

But if the Lord shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. cious deposit is lodged in the hands of Britain, pre-eminently, as if to give her opportunity to heal the wounds which she has inflicted, and which admit of no cure, and no alleviation besides.

Another consideration bearing on this subject is, fourthly, THE SENTENCE PRONOUNCED AGAINST NATIONAL GUILT. "I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire." This judgment proceeds on two principles: The one is a personal degradation: "I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God." It is national irreligion. The privileges of the Gospel have been

neglected or despised: they shall be removed; they shall be insulted no longer; the prosperity that made them of no account shall be withdrawn also. The other principle on which judgment proceeds is relative, commercial, colonial, bears expressly upon the point discussed. "Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." "By the multitude of thy merchandize they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned; therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire."

This is the judgment of Tyre. Go and look at her now, with every monnment of greatness overthrown; every trace of power and dominion obliterated ; the very site of her emporium a barren rock, upon which the fisherman spreads his net, amidst silence, and solitude, and desolation. And what has Britain to say in arrest of judgment, when the sentence against merchandize proceeds upon the ground of violence and iniquity? "Shall not I visit for these things, saith the Lord? shall not my soul be avenged upon such a nation as this?" If Tyre was not spared, so neither was Jerusalem-Jerusalem, assimilated no less with us in religious pre-eminence, than Tyre in commercial and maritime power and distinction. "You only have known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish your iniquities." And what is particularly alleged against this professed and privileged people! "In thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these. Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold I will plead with thee, because thou savest, I have not sinned." Every part of this sentence is full of meaning. It is the soul that as been trifled with; it is the blood of souls that is required; it is the blood of the souls of " poor innocents," who knew not what they did, abandoned to ignorance, to negligence, to misery. The negligence is palpable, multiplied; the consequences deplorable; yet insensibility and security fortify the guilty city, even in the midst of impending retribution; and they justify themselves under the scrutiny of that eye from which nothing can be concealed The judgment threatened is just.

Again, as in a glass, the crimes, the danger, and the duty of the country, are alike apparent, and the religious claims of her Colonies depicted. Jerusalem is not, because of these oppressions, combined with this other neglect of the souls of those depending upon her: and shall we altogether escape? "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we know it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?" The appeal lies here to the conscience of every individual, while the charge goes forth to the country. But woe to the land, and to the professors in it, against whom the complaint shall be raised by the perishing individuals of its Colonies—“ No man cared for my soul.” Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandize, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandize, and all thy men of war that are in thee, and in all this company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of thy seas, in the day of thy rain:"

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