: them cruelly, was a great sinner of course; but the religious man, who called them in to family prayers and instructed them in their duties to God and to one another, was no sinner. Slavery, when mixed up with oaths and curses and cruelty, was indeed dreadful but when well seasoned with prayers, exhortations and hosannas, it was very tolerable! Ecclesiastical bodies, feeling the necessity of seeming at least to oppose slavery, passed cunningly-worded resolves, in which "holding slaves for gain" was condemned, it being quietly assumed, if not asserted, that religious slaveholders held their slaves from other and higher motives. Learned expositors of Scripture whom the churches looked with confidence as safe guides -wrote ingenious articles in magazines and reviews, in which they put forth all their dialectical skill and metaphysical subtlety to prove that holding property in man was not necessarily sinful, and that the demand for immediate emancipation was pure fanaticism. These expositors found an echo in the religious press. and preachers, instead of rebuking iniquity in high places, volunteered, in many instances, to "Hang another flower Of earthly sort about the sacred truth, With relish suited to the sinner's taste." men to Thus the slaveholders who felt the force of the warnings and rebukes of the Abolitionists, were comforted' in their sin, and encouraged to resist the demand for emancipation. Under such influences is it any wonder that the South "hardened her neck as in the day of provocation," and went on from one step of madness to another, until at last, in the hope of perpetuating her diabolical system, she plunged into a bloody rebellion? And when slavery was thus defended in church and pulpit and in all the high places of the land, what wonder if the lower stratum of society caught the infection and became infuriated in its hostility to the Abolitionists? Is it strange that a meeting of the Abolitionists of New York, assembled on the Fourth of July to listen to a famous orator from Philadelphia, was broken up by a mob, and that for several successive days and nights the city was in the possession of the rioters, who assaulted private dwellings and places of public worship? I am not sure whether it was in this or a subsequent riot that the Laight Street Presbyterian Church, of which the Rev. Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox was the pastor, was violently assailed and much damaged. Dr. Cox had lately been in England, and having caught the anti-slavery fire from the clergy of that country, he came home full of zeal, and evidently impressed with the belief that he could speedily enlist the churches of this country in a crusade against slavery. He preached on the subject in his own pulpit with much warmth, and in one of his sermons, on the subject of prejudice against color, he happened to remark that Jesus, born as he was in an Oriental clime, was probably a man of a swarthy complexion, who, if living in this country, might not be received into good society. This observation was reported with exaggerations in the newspapers, and cominented upon in such a way as to inflame the passions of the vulgar. While the mob was engaged in smashing the windows of the church, a gentleman who had been drawn to the spot by motives of curiosity, asked one of the rioters what was the reason for the attack. "Why," said the rioter, in reply, "Dr. Cox says our Saviour is a nigger, and me if I don't think his church ought to be torn down." It was in these days that the house of Mr. Lewis Tappan was sacked and its furniture destroyed. There were riots also in Philadelphia about the same time, in which the houses of many colored people were assailed, and several lives were sacrificed. The public mind throughout the country was in an inflamed condition, and the press, by misrepresentations and appeals to popular ignorance and prejudice, was constantly fanning the excitement. But in the midst of this darkness there was a sudden gleam of light, which filled the hearts of the Abolitionists with fresh hope. The Hon. William Jay, noble son of a noble sire, espoused the cause, and put forth a work in its defence which will live as a monument of his intellectual power as well as of his philanthrophy and courage. It was entitled "An Inquiry into the Character and Tendencies of the American Colonization and the American Anti-Slavery Societies." It was full of light and truth, and admirably adapted to convince any candid person who would read it of the righteousness and wisdom of the anti-slavery movement. It appeared at a most opportune moment, and exerted a powerful influence in many quarters. But the author's noble name and his judicial eminence did not save him from the fierce denunciations of the pro-slavery press. He was roundly abused on all sides, and not long afterward lost his place on the bench in consequence of his abolitionism. He was appointed a member of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and filled the place for many years with great fidelity. His trained mind, his ripe judgment and wide legal knowledge were a great acquisition to the cause. He was a devoted Christian and a man of large influence in the Protestant Episcopal Church. How faithful he was in rebuking that Church for its complicity with slavery, all the friends of the cause gratefully remember. His pen was always at the service of the oppressed, and his collected antislavery writings are a monument of his industry and devotion, and an illustration of the nobleness and the grandeur of the cause which the American churches rejected and contemned. This year (1834) was also signalized by the peaceful emancipation of 800,000 slaves in the British West India Islands. The event took place on the 1st of August, and the Abolitionists awaited the result with intense interest, but not a shadow of doubt. They knew that obedience to God in the breaking of the chains of so many slaves would be perfectly safe; and so it proved, for not a drop of blood was shed; the negroes received their freedom with grateful joy as a boon from Heaven, and all the predictions of the proslavery party were falsified. Naturally enough, American Abolitionists were mightily encouraged by this intelligence to persevere in their labors. X. The Lane Theological Seminary - Arthur Tappan and Dr. Beecher - A Remarkable Class of Students - Discussion of the Slavery Question - Conversion of the Students to Abolitionism - Intense Excitement - The Students Become Missionaries — The Trustees Enact a Gag-Law - The Faculty Submits-Dr. Beecher Yields to Temptation and Goes into Eclipse - The Students Refuse the Gag and Ask for a Dismission - The Faculty in SelfDefence, etc. MR. ARTHUR TAPPAN, not long after he procured Mr. Garrison's release from the Baltimore jail, gave ten thousand dollars to the Lane Theological Seminary, at Cincinnati, upon the condition that Dr. Lyman Beecher should become its President. The churches of the North and East were then just beginning to perceive that the day was not far distant when the centre of moral and political influence in this country would be in the vast and then comparatively unsettled region drained by the Mississippi; and hence there was much zeal and not a little organized effort to anticipate the oncoming tide of population that was so soon to fill that immense territory, and to provide, in advance, educational institutions suited to its needs. The founding of Lane Seminary, at the gateway of the great West, was a part of this plan, and Dr. Beecher, being generally recognized as the leader of New England Revivalism, and the strongest representative of the advanced school of Orthodoxy at that day, Mr. Tappan thought that he of all others was the man best fitted to train a body of ministers for the new field. The Doctor, after considerable delay, and to the great grief of his Boston church, accepted the |