Peril their element;—o'er land and flood
They carried fire, and quench'd the flames with blood;
Despairing captives hail'd them from the coasts;
They rush'd to conquest, led by Charib ghosts.

Tremble, Britannia! while thine islands tell
The appalling mysteries of Obi's spell;
The wild Maroons, impregnable and free,
Among the mountain-holds of liberty,
Sudden as lightning darted on their foe,
Seen like the flash, remember'd like the blow.

While Gallia boasts of dread Marengo's fight,
And Hohenlinden's slaughter-deluged night,
Her spirit sinks;—the sinews of the brave,
That crippled Europe, shrunk before the Slave;
The demon-spectres of Domingo rise,
And all her triumphs vanish from her eyes.

God is a spirit, veil'd from human sight,
In secret darkness of eternal light;
Through all the glory of His works we trace
The hidings of His counsel and His face;
Nature, and time, and change, and fate fulfil,
Unknown, unknowing, His mysterious will;
Mercies and judgments mark Him, every hour,
Supreme in grace, and infinite in power:
Oft o'er the Eden-islands of the West,
In floral pomp, and verdant beauty drest,
Roll the dark clouds of His awaken'd ire:
Thunder and earthquake, whirlwind, flood, and fire,
Midst reeling mountains and disparting plains,
Tell the pale world,—The God of vengeance reigns!

Nor in the majesty of storms alone,
The Eternal makes His dread displeasure known;
At His command the pestilence abhorr'd
Spares the poor slave, and smites the haughty lord;
While to the tomb he sees his friend consign'd,
Foreboding melancholy sinks his mind,
Soon at his heart he feels the monster's fangs,
They tear his vitals with convulsive pangs;

PART IV.

ARGUMENT.

The Moravian Brethren—Their Missions in Greenland, North America, and the West Indies—Christian Negroes—The Advocates of the Negroes in England—Granville Sharpe—Clarkson—Wilberfurce—Pitt— Fox—The Nation itself—The Abolition of the Slave Trade—The Future State of the West Indies—of Africa—of the whole World—The Millennium.

Was there no mercy, mother of the slave!

No friendly hand to succour and to save,

While Commerce thus thy captive tribes oppress'd,

And lowering vengeance linger'd o'er the west1

Yes, Africa! beneath the stranger's rod

They found the freedom of the sons of God.

When Europe languished in barbarian gloom,
Beneath the ghostly tyranny of Rome,
Whose second empire, cowl'd and mitred, burst
A phoenix from the ashes of the first;
From Persecution's piles, by bigots fired,
Among Bohemian mountains, Truth retired;
There, 'midst rude rocks, in lonely glens obscure,
She found a people scatter'd, scorn'd, and poor,—
A little flock through quiet valleys led,
A Christian Israel in the desert fed,—
While ravening wolves, that scorn'd the shepherd's hand,
Laid waste God's heritage through every land.

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Soothed by her presence, solaced by her song,
They toil'd through danger, trials, and distress,
A band of virgins in the wilderness,
With burning lamps, amid their secret bowers,
Counting the watches of the weary hours,
In patient hope the Bridegroom's voice to hear.
And see His banner in the clouds appear:
But when the morn returning chased the night,
These stars, that shone in darkness, sunk in light:
Luther, like Phosphor, led the conquering day,
His meek forerunners waned, and pass'd away.

Ages roll'd by, the turf perennial bloom'd
O'er the lorn relics of those saints entomb'd;
No miracle proclaim'd their power divine,
No kings adorn'd, no pilgrims kiss'd their shrine;
Cold and forgotten in the grave they slept;
But God remember'd them : their Father kept
A faithful remnant;—o'er their native clime
His Spirit moved in His appointed time,
The race revived at His almighty breath,
A seed to serve Him from the dust of death.

"Go forth, my sons, through heathen realms proclaim
"Mercy to sinners in a Saviour's name:"
Thus spake the Lord; they heard and they obey'd:
Greenland lay wrapt in Nature's heaviest shade;
Thither the ensign of the cross they bore;
The gaunt barbarians met them on the shore;
With joy and wonder hailing from afar,
Through polar storms, the light of Jacob's star.

Where roll Ohio's streams, Missouri's floods,
Beneath the umbrage of eternal woods,
The red man roam'd, a hunter-warrior wild;
On him the everlasting gospel smiled;
His heart was awed, confounded, pierced, subdued,
Divinely melted, moulded, and renewM;
The bold base savage, Nature's harshest clod,
Rose from the dust the image of his God.