systematically perverted one of the clearest Christian injunctions. Speaking very solemnly, the bishop proceeds:

"When people die, we know of but two places they have to go to; and one is heaven, the other hell. Now, heaven is a place of great happiness, which God has prepared for all that are good, where they shall enjoy rest from their labours. And hell is a place of great torment and misery, where all wicked people will be shut up with the devil and other evil spirits, and be punished for ever, because they will not serve God. If, therefore, we would have our souls saved by Christ, if we would escape hell, and obtain heaven, we must set about doing what he requires of us-that is, to serve God. Your own poor circumstances in this life ought to put you particularly upon this and taking care of your souls. Almighty

God hath been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you nothing but labour and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is His will that it should be so. And think within yourselves what a terrible thing it would be, after all your labours and sufferings in this life, to be turned into hell in the next life, and, after wearing out your bodies in service here, to go into a far worse slavery when this is over, and your poor souls be delivered over into the possession of the devil, to become his slaves for ever in hell, without any hope of ever getting free from it! If, therefore, you would be God's freemen in heaven, you must strive to be good and serve Him here on earth. Your bodies, you know, are not your own; they are at the disposal of those you belong to; but your precious souls are still your own, which nothing can take from you, if it be not your own fault. Consider well, then, that if you lose your souls by leading idle, wicked lives here, you have got nothing by it in this world, and you have lost your all in the next. For your idleness and wickedness are generally found out, and your bodies suffer for it here; and what is far worse, if you do not repent and amend, your unhappy souls will suffer for it hereafter.

'Having thus shewn you the chief duties you owe to your great Master in heaven, I now come to lay before you the duties you owe to your masters and mistresses here upon earth. And for this you have one general rule, that you ought always to carry in your minds, and that is, to do all service for them as if you did it for God himself. Poor creatures! you little consider when you are idle and neglectful of your masters' business; when you steal, and waste, and hurt any of their substance; when you are saucy and impudent; when you are telling them lies and deceiving them; or when you prove stubborn and sullen, and will not do the work you are set about without stripes and vexation-you do not consider, I say, that what faults you are

guilty of towards your masters and mistresses, are faults done against God himself, who hath set your masters and mistresses over you in His own stead, and expects that you will do for them just as you would do for Him. And pray do not think that I want to deceive you when I tell you that your masters and mistresses are God's overseers, and that, if you are faulty towards them, God himself will punish you severely for it in the next world, unless you repent of it, and strive to make amends by your faithfulness and diligence for the time to come; for God himself hath declared the same.

....

'And in the first place, you are to be obedient and subject to your masters in all things. "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them;" that is, do by all mankind just as you would desire they should do by you, if you were in their place, and they in yours.

'Now, to suit this rule to your particular circumstances. Suppose you were masters and mistresses, and had servants under you, would you not desire that your servants should do their business faithfully and honestly as well when your back was turned as while you were looking over them? Would you not expect that they should take notice of what you said to them, that they should behave themselves with respect towards you and yours, and be as careful of everything belonging to you as you would be yourselves? You are servants: do, therefore, as you would wish to be done by, and you will be both good servants to your masters, and good servants to God, who requires this of you, and will reward you well for it, if you do it for the sake of conscience, in obedience to His commands. . . . . Take care that you do not fret, or murmur, or grumble at your condition; for this will not only make your life uneasy, but will greatly offend Almighty God. Consider that it is not yourselves-it is not the people you belong to-it is not the men that have brought you to it, but it is the will of God, who hath by His providence made you servants, because, no doubt, He knew that condition would be best for you in this world, and help you the better towards heaven, if you would but do your duty in it. So that any discontent at your not being free, or rich, or great, as you see some others, is quarrelling with your heavenly Master, and finding fault with God himself. . . . . There is only one circumstance which may appear grievous that I shall now take notice of; and that is CORRECTION.

'Now, when correction is given you, you either deserve it, or you do not deserve it. But whether you really deserve it or not, it is your duty, and Almighty God requires, that you bear it patiently. You may, perhaps, think that this is hard doctrine; but if you consider it rightly, you must needs think otherwise of it. Suppose, then, that you deserve correction; you cannot but say that it is just and right you should meet with it. Suppose you do not, or

at least you do not deserve so much or so severe a correction for the fault you have committed; you perhaps have escaped a great many more, and are at least paid for all. Or suppose you are quite innocent of what is laid to your charge, and suffer wrongfully in that particular thing; is it not possible you may have done some other bad thing which was never discovered, and that Almighty God, who saw you doing it, would not let you escape without punishment one time or another? And ought you not in such a case to give glory to Him, and be thankful that He would rather punish you in this life for your wickedness, than destroy your souls for it in the next life? But suppose that even this was not the case—a case hardly to be imagined—and that you have by no means, known or unknown, deserved the correction you suffered; there is this great comfort in it, that if you bear it patiently, and leave your cause in the hands of God, he will reward you for it in heaven, and the punishment you suffer unjustly here shall turn to your exceeding great glory hereafter.'

All that need be said is after this, anything! Mrs Stowe (Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin) observes that such discourses only 'shew how perfectly use may familiarise amiable and estimable men with a system of oppression, till they shall have lost all consciousness of the wrong which it involves.' The bishop, she adds, has since emancipated all his slaves.

By way of variety, we shall conclude with a quotation from a recent work, entitled The Hireling and the Slave, by William J. Grayson, published at Charleston, South Carolina, 1856. Mr Grayson is a poet who devotes his muse to the praise of southern institutions; and thinks, with Dr Rice, that the negro is brought to America for wisely providential purposes, and that nothing can equal the comforts of his position as a slave. Here is his picture:

And yet the life, so unassailed by care,

So blessed with moderate work, with ample fare,
With all the good the starving pauper needs
The happier slave on each plantation leads;
Safe from harassing doubts and annual fears,
He dreads no famine in unfruitful years;

J

If harvests fail, from inauspicious skies,
The master's providence his food supplies;
No paupers perish here for want of bread,
Or lingering live, by foreign bounty fed;
No exiled trains of homeless peasants go,
In distant climes to tell their tales of wo:
Far other fortune, free from care and strife,
For work,, or bread, attends the negro's life,
And Christian slaves may challenge as their own,
The blessings claimed in fabled states alone-
The cabin home, not comfortless though rude,
Light daily labour, and abundant food,

The sturdy health that temperate habits yield,
The cheerful song that rings in every field,
The long, loud laugh, that freemen seldom share,
Heaven's boon to bosoms unapproached by care,
And boisterous jest and humour unrefined,
That leave, though rough, no painful sting behind;
While, nestling near, to bless their humble lot,
Warm social joys surround the negro's cot,
The evening dance its merriment imparts,
Love, with its rapture, fills their youthful hearts,
And placid age, the task of labour done,
Enjoys the summer shade, the winter sun,
And, as through life no pauper want he knows,
Laments no poor-house penance at its close.'

Mr Grayson subsequently tells his mind freely about the whole tribe of fault-finders with slavery. Mrs Stowe comes in for a large share of coarse abuse.

ECONOMIC VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.

THE number of slaves in the United States in 1850, as formerly stated, was 3,204,313. The ratio of increase differs greatly in different states. While very rapid in the more southern, it is comparatively small in the more northern slave states; the explanation of this being, that there is a breeding and a consuming set of states. The increase of slaves in the whole slave states, was, between 1790 and 1800, 27.9 per cent.; between 1800 and 1810, 33-4 per cent.; between 1810 and 1820, 29.1 per cent.; between 1820 and 1830, 30.6 per cent.; between 1830 and 1840, 23.8 per cent.-the average of all these ratios being 28.96 per cent. These statistics are given in a welldigested compendium of official documents, by Messrs Chase and Sanborn,* who proceed to say: 'In 1840, the slave-exporting states, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, contained 1,479,601 slaves. Had they increased in the ratio of 28.96 per cent., the number in 1850 would have been 1,908,093. The actual number given is 1,689,158, being a difference of 218,935, or 21,893 for each year to be accounted for. Applying the same rule to the slave-importing states, we have the following result: Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri contained, in 1840, 1,002,031 slaves. Increasing in the ratio of 28.96 per cent., their

*The North and the South; a Statistical View of the Condition of the Free and the Slave States. By Henry Chase and Charles W. Sanborn. Boston: 1856.