he likes the abolitionists, and is a prodigious admirer of George Thompson.

'My neighbours call me an abolitionist,' said he; 'I tell them they may do so, in welcome; for it is a pity they shouldn't have one case of amalgamation to point at.'

This singular individual has been conversant with all sorts of people, and seen almost all parts of the world. 'I have known the Malay and the African, the North American Indian and the European,' said he; 'and the more I've seen of the world, the less I understand it. It's a queer place; that's a fact.'

Probably this mixture with people of all creeds and customs, combined with the habit of looking outward for his guide of action, may have bewildered his moral sense, and produced his system of balancing evils!' A theory obviously absurd, as well as slippery in its application; for none but God can balance evils; it requires omniscience and omnipresence to do it.

His conversation produced great activity of thought on the subject of conscience, and of that 'light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world.' Whether this utilitarian remembers it or not, he must have stifled many convictions before he arrived at his present state of mind. And so it must have been with the pious John Newton,' whose devotional letters from the coast of Africa, while he was slavetrading there, record 'sweet seasons of communion with his God.' That he was not left without a witness within him, is proved by the fact, that in his journal he expresses gratitude to God for opening the door for him to leave the slave trade, by providing other employment. The monitor within did not deceive him; but his education was at war with its dictates, because it taught him that whatever was legalized was right. Plain as the guilt of the slave trade now is, to every man, woman, and child, it was not so in the time of Clarkson; had it been otherwise, there would have been no need of his labours.

He was accused of planning treason and insurrection, plots were laid against his life, and the difficulty of combating his obviously just principles, led to the vilest misrepresentations and the most false assumptions. Thus it must always be with those who attack a very corrupt public opinion.

The slave trade, which all civilized laws now denounce as piracy, was defended in precisely the same spirit that slavery is now. Witness the following remarks from Boswell, the biographer of Dr. Johnson, whose opinions echo the tone of genteel society:

'I beg leave to enter my most solemn protest against Dr. Johnson's general doctrine with respect to the slave trade. I will resolutely say that his unfavourable notion of it was owing to prejudice, and imperfect or false information. The wild and dangerous attempt which has for some time been persisted in, to obtain an act of our legislature to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots, who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of planters, merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received, excites my wonder and indignation; and though some men of superior abilities have supported it, (whether from a love of temporary popularity when prosperous, or a love of general mischief when desperate), my opinion is unshaken. To abolish a status which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to African savages; a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now, when their passage to the West Indies, and their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To abolish that

trade, would be to shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

These changes in the code of morals adopted by society, by no means unsettle my belief in eternal and unchangeable principles of right and wrong; neither do they lead me to doubt that in all these cases men inwardly know better than they act. The slave-holder, when he manumits on his death-bed, thereby acknowledges that he has known he was doing wrong. Public opinion expresses what men will to do; not their inward perceptions. All kinds of crimes have been countenanced by public opinion, in some age or nation; but we cannot as easily show how far they were sustained by reason and conscience in each individual. I believe the lamp never goes out, though it may shine dimly through a foggy atmosphere.

This consideration should renew our zeal to purify public opinion; to let no act or word of ours help to corrupt it, in the slightest degree. How shall we fulfil this sacred trust, which each holds for the good of all? Not by calculating consequences; not by balancing evils; but by reverent obedience to our own highest convictions of individual duty.

Few men ask concerning right and wrong of their own hearts. Few listen to the oracle within, which can only be heard in the stillness. The merchant seeks his moral standard on 'Change-a fitting name for a thing so fluctuating; the sectary in the opinion of his small theological department; the politician in the tumultuous echo of his party; the worldling in the buzz of saloons. In a word, each man inquires of his public; what wonder, then, that the answers are selfish as trading interest, blind as local prejudice, and various as human whim?

A German drawing-master once told me of a lad who wished to sketch landscapes from nature. The teacher told him that the first object was to choose

some fixed point of view. The sagacious pupil chose a cow grazing beneath the trees. Of course, his fixed point soon began to move hither and thither, as she was attracted by the sweetness of the pasturage; and the lines of his drawing fell into strange confusion.

This is a correct type of those who choose public opinion for their moral fixed point of view. It moves according to the provender before it, and they who trust to it, have but a whirling and distorted landscape.

Coleridge defines public opinion as the average prejudices of the community.' Wo unto those who have no safer guide of principle and practice than this 'average of prejudices.' Wo unto them in an especial manner, in these latter days, when 'The windows of heaven are opened, and therefore the foundations of the earth do shake!'

Feeble wanderers are they, following a flickering jack-o'-lantern, when there is a calm, bright pole-star for ever above the horizon, to guide their steps, if they would but look to it.

LETTER XXIV.

July 28, 1842.

When the spirit is at war with its outward environment, because it is not inwardly dwelling in trustful obedience to its God, how often does some very slight incident bring it back, humble, and repentant, to the Father's footstool! A few days since, cities seemed to me such hateful places, that I deemed it the greatest of hardships to be pent up therein. As usual, the outward grew more and more detestable, as it reflected the restlessness of the inward. Piles of stone and rubbish, left by the desolating fire, looked more hot and dreary than ever; they were building brick houses between me and the sunset-and in my requiring selfishness, I felt as if it were my sunset, and no man had a right to shut it out; and then to add

the last drop to my vexation, they painted the roof of house and piazza as fierce a red as if the mantle of the great fire, that destroyed its predecessor, had fallen over them. The wise course would have been, to try to find something agreeable in a red roof, since it suited my neighbour's convenience to have one. But the head was not in a mood to be wise, because the heart was not humble and obedient; so I fretted inwardly about the red roof, more than I would care to tell in words; I even thought to myself, that it would be no more than just and right if people with such bad taste should be sent to live by themselves on a quarantine island. Then I began to think of myself as a most unfortunate and ill-used individual, to be for ever pent up within brick walls without even a dandelion to gaze upon; from that I fell to thinking of many fierce encounters between my will and necessity, and how will had always been conquered, chained, and sent to the treadmill to work. The more I thought after this fashion, hotter glared the bricks, and fiercer glowed the red roof, under the scorching sun. I was making a desert within, to paint its desolate likeness on the scene without.

A friend found me thus, and, having faith in Nature's healing power, he said, 'Let us seek green fields and flowery nooks.' So we walked abroad: and while yet amid the rattle and glare of the city, close by the iron railway, I saw a very little, ragged child stooping over a small patch of stinted, dusty grass. She rose up with a broad smile over her hot face, for she had found a white clover! The tears were in my eyes. God bless thee, poor child!' said I: 'thou hast taught my soul a lesson, which it will not soon forget. Thou poor neglected one, canst find blossoms by the dusty wayside, and rejoice in thy hard path, as if it were a mossy bank strewn with violets.' felt humbled before that ragged, gladsome child. Then saw I plainly that walls of brick and mortar