exigencies of the times, and the wants of the despised race, to whose service they have especially devoted themselves, nearly three hundred of the students, some having completed their course of study, and others having gone through only a part, have left the Oberlin, to labour as teachers, lecturers, and otherwise. The influence of the Oberlin has thus been powerful and happy, while the expenditure of time, talents, and money has been great.*

8. The presumed benefits arising to individuals and the public?

Answer. The same results are realized at the Oberlin Institute which proceed from other well-conducted collegiate establishments;viz. the benefits of a good education. But it has, besides this, a specific character, and a definite and noble object.

It is a Manual Labour School. Each student is required to work three hours each day. This exercise results in improved and confirmed health, the strengthening of the physical faculties, industry, energetic habits, good morals and economy in the students.

Amidst reproach and opposition, the Oberlin has stood prominent for its Christian firmness, self-denial, and devotion to the principles acknowledged in the abstract by all, but acted upon, in every-day life, by too few. It is the repository from which the essential materials may be derived for the great moral contest now fierce in the United States, between the claims of mercenary violence on the one hand, and of depressed human rights on the other. The sufferers, formerly heard only by their stifled groans, are now listened to through their advocates; and the Oberlin stands forth as the faithful monitor of the slave-holding body. The strong hope of the abolitionists, and the strong fear of the slave-holder is that the Oberlin may flourish. Its present benefits are beyond those wrought by any other American institution whatever; and those which are in prospect are commensurate with the importance of the destruction of slavery, with all its evil influences over the two races of tyrants and of slaves.

* While the Abolitionists of the United Staes have nurtured the Oberlin, they have also been called to very heavy appropriations of time and money to the general cause of Emancipation. Some idea of their liabilities may be formed from the Historical Sketch which follows: but a few facts may be added here. An entirely new public sentiment respecting Slavery was to be formed: an Anti-slavery literature was to be created. The success has been cheering, though, to the ardent, it appears painfully slow. They have procured the organization of 1650 Anti-slavery Societies.They publish nine weekly, and one fortnightly paper; and four monthly Journals, all of which are conducted with ability and success. During the year ending May, 1839, they issued from the press 38,460 Circulars and prints; 19,950 bound volumes; 1,000,000 Tracts; and 210,639 Pamphlets. There are besides, expenses for the salaries of agents, for the conduct of occasional prosecutions in favour of fugitives, and various other operations. The outlay in money and in other ways for the past year does not fall short of £30,000,-a sum small in proportion to the wants of the cause, though enormous, when it is considered that it is contributed by a persecuted class, persecuted to the peril of the lives of some, to the ruin of the fortunes of many, and to the pecuniary injury of all.

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The case of the Oberlin Institute being now before us, the next consideration is, of its claims to British aid. We conceive these to be so strong that a brief mention of them will be sufficient.

We gave the Americans slavery. The slavery of the United States is a British institution. The opportunity being presented to us, we are, in principle, as much bound to aid in its abolition wherever we established it, as in those colonies which still belong to us.

If it be asked why the Americans cannot themselves do it, we refer to the following history to show that, with time, they will annihilate slavery within their borders; but at an expense of toil, privation, and suffering, in which we are morally bound to take our share. It is too much the custom now in England to speak with contempt and disgust of the Americans on account of their institution of slavery. Our own virtue on that head is so young, that our tone of pride is unbecoming, and in making our censure so general, we are unjust. The United States are the birth-place of a far nobler abolition spirit than we have ever yet had to boast of; since the cause requires (on any soil where slavery actually exists) a more patient heroism, a more strenuous martyr-spirit, than those friends of the slave can ever be called upon to show who are separated from the slave-holders by the breadth of the ocean. From the time that the story of the American abolitionists becomes known, it stands forth as an unquestionable fact that slavery was imposed upon the United States, while their abolitionism is indigenous.

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The American supporters of the Oberlin declare that it is with reluctance and humiliation that they appeal to us for aid. We do not wonder at their national feelings being thus wounded: but it is for us to remember that they have a right to make this appeal. Much might be said of what we owe them for the charity of their country towards hundreds of thousands of our countrymen and women whom they are perpetually welcoming to their shores. Of this never-failing and absolutely unbounded charity we hear little or nothing in England; but eye-witnesses can tell that these emigrants are,-not merely received because their coming cannot be helped, but welcomed, protected and assisted by regular agencies, established for their benefit, and conducted at great expense. Much might be said of this; but a yet nearer consideration is, that we are under direct obligations to the Oberlin Institute for the education of our fellow-subjects of colour in the West Indies and in Canada. The Oberlin is situated about eleven miles from Lake Erie, and therefore but a short way from the landing-places of fugitive slaves on our free shores, and from the settlements of the coloured population of Canada, amounting to above 10,000 persons. Twenty members of the Oberlin are now at work among these settlers, our fellow-subjects. These missionaries are toiling for us, without our request or recognition, without endowment, salary, or prospect of fee or reward. Their stimulus is in the needs of the coloured race, and especially in the eagerness of these escaped fugitives for knowledge and independence. "Where they have the means," writes one of these missionaries, (Hiram Wilson) "of doing something, as is generally the case, towards boarding the teachers, and furnishing, in part, his or her wages, I think it proper to impress upon their minds

their obligations to do all for themselves that they reasonably can. This course I have invariably pursued with cheering results. Were the coloured people wanting in ardent desire for instruction, and a noble spirit of self-application to science and industry, I should conclude, either that they were less than human, or that slavery had done its perfect work, and despair of doing them much good: but I can cheerfully testify that facts in their case are far otherwise. They need only encouragement to bring them forward, and prepare them for respectability and usefulness. Like the infant child that begins to walk, they should be strengthened and led in the most tender and affectionate manner, yet so as to depend mainly on their own strength. It should be borne in mind, however, that, with few exceptions, they come into this country miserably poor; consequently, they labour for a long time to great disadvantage; especially those who have families to support."

If we feel any thankfulness towards the devoted American men and women who offer a welcome to fugitives on our shores, and who train them in the principles and habits of virtuous citizenship, now is the time to make our acknowledgments. A singularly appropriate occasion now offers itself in an appeal from the institution which has sent forth these our benefactors.

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Another reason why we should lend aid to the Oberlin is, that a substantial testimony in favour of emancipation from this country would do more to dignify the cause in the eyes of the slave-holders than any other action upon the question whatever. The Americans are accustomed to say that the voice of Europe is to them somewhat like the voice of posterity, reaching them, calm and authoritative, over the expanse of the ocean, as it might from some distant reach of the stream of time. Accordingly, while the multitude neglects or ridicules the sublime movements which are working in the bosom of their own society, the whole question presents a different aspect to them when sent back to them, as news from our periodicals. We know this to have been the case with several particulars of the following historical sketch, and remarkably so with the speech of Lovejoy (p. 35). American citizens, of generally just and kind habits of feeling, saw this speech in their own newspapers, and either passed it over, or despised it. Meeting with it in the pages the London and Westminster Review, they declared that in all the records of human speech there exists no address more heart-moving and soulstirring. It may thus be imagined what is likely to be the effect on this multitude of our reflecting back to them that which ought to be their own public sentiment. Every voice from our corporations, our pulpits, our newspapers, will be to them the voice of prophecy. Every hundred pounds sent over from this country will be as the writing on the wall to the southern legislatures, warning them that their unrighteous dominion over their fellow-men is about to pass away. When the first instalment (£600) of English contributions reached the Oberlin, this last autumn, the members were overcome with joy and thankfulness. They wept together, as their hearts grew strong under our sympathy. The same news, told in a southern legislature, would have the opposite effect. Some might be angry, some might be filled with doubt, others

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with fear; and yet a few others, silently suffering under the system against which they dare not openly protest, secretly transmitting funds to the abolitionists whose names they dare not breathe in the streets, might inwardly rejoice in the tidings; but all would alike see, in the substantial testimony of the sympathy of this country with the abolitionists of theirs, the doom of their institution of slavery, with all its restrictive operation upon the liberty of the whites of the republic.

Some persons in this country, we have heard, hesitate to do as they would on behalf of the abolitionists, from a fear that to do so, would be to fly in the face of the American government. A mere glance at the constitution of the United States would obviate such fear. The subject of slavery is never once mentioned in the constitution of the United States, and only twice remotely alluded to: and then not as an institution. The General Government has no concern whatever with it, and is no more affected by support being given to the Oberlin than our government would be by subscriptions to the proprietory schools of Birmingham and Hull. Again, in the United States, the people are the government. Action for the people, is action in favour of the government. Win over, or aid the people to feel and do what is right, and you win over and aid the government. Sympathise with any portion of them, and in proportion to that number will this sympathy re-appear in their national councils, that is, in their government. It is not with them as with us, that there is a permanent ruling interest, distinguished from, though modified in its acts by the separate interest of the ruled. The government and the governed are, with them, one and the same.

This is the case with the State, as well as the General Government. The opinion of the majority prevails; and to strengthen the best part of public opinion is to serve and aid the best part of the State Government. For instance, it is to be argued, this session, in the legislature of Ohio, (the state in which the Oberlin is established,) how the free people of colour are to be treated. The state has to settle this matter for itself, the General Government having nothing whatever to do with it. According to the existing law, any citizen who furnishes food and assistance to a person of colour, being a fugitive, becomes liable to a fine of 500 dollars, and to an imprisonment not exceeding three months. This law is so opposed to the opinions and feelings of a large number of the inhabitants of Ohio, that they are strenuously exerting themselves to get it repealed. As soon as the majority of the citizens desire to treat the negro or mulatto as a man and a brother, the law will be repealed, whether during the present session, or the next, or the one after. If, by our aid, we enable the Oberlin to add the influence of its principles, its learning, and its numbers to the right side, we are not opposing any administration, or tampering with any institution, but only strengthening the voice of a principle, which will finally stand or fall only as it is righteous or otherwise.

We have thought it worth while to give this explanation, because the unfounded apprehension we have specified has been believed to stay the hand of some well-wishers to the Oberlin.

With us, however, there is, we acknowledge, a reason more powerful

than any we have stated, why we should yield our best aid to the American abolitionists. They are the confessors and martyrs of our age of the world; the principles for which they make their stand are for all time, irrespective of country, and of the particular forms of Society therein and the duty and privilege of men, in every part of the world, is to strengthen this stand for principles, let it happen where it may, and for whatsoever cause. Some have suffered and died for truth and love on the advent of Christianity; some for the sake of Protestantism; some for the honour and safety of their respective countries. In every age, there have been some who have had faith to suffer and die for the right. In our age, it is the American abolitionists who have most eminently lived by this faith. The humble duty and privilege are offered to us of strengthening and cheering them under trials which we are not ourselves called upon to endure. If we do not now see that this is our duty and privilege, and act accordingly, the time will come when, too late, our case will be clear to our own eyes. Slavery will pass away, whither the feasts of Jupiter, and the shrines of Diana, and the smoke of Smithfield fires, and the trophies of warlike monarchs have gone; but the principles for which the Christian, the Protestant, the patriot and the philanthropist, have suffered and died, will live while God and Duty exist. In one form or another, these principles are for ever giving out their sentence, for or against every human being who has lived in the knowledge of them. No power can hush their everlasting voice. The axe may be no more heard in the forests of the Oberlin, nor the murmur of speech from within its walls: the roar of the neighbouring Niagara may die away, and the ocean itself be stilled; but the utterance of principles will yet be heard, approving or condemning every one who, in view of the faithful of his age, was with them or against them. If there be any who honestly doubt the fidelity of the American abolitionists to these everlasting principles,-if there be any who doubt whether theirs is the gentle heroism and the pure disinterestedness of the wisdom that is from above,-let such enquire and satisfy themselves. But on those who are already convinced that the cause is just, and its agents sincere, the abolitionists of America have a claim, as strong as that of conscience itself, for the sympathy and help of their hearts and hands.

Of many testimonies from well-known advocates of social justice in this country, we subjoin one, feeling that the cause will be alike strengthened and adorned by the honour of his name.

To William Dawes.

My Respected Friend,

Playford Hall, Oct. 14, 1359.

I am very sorry that, in consequence of my having passed several sleepless nights, I was not able to enter so fully as I could have wished, into the object of your mission to this country, when' you did me the honour of calling upon me.

It is a matter of great pleasure to have had from you an account of the Oberlin Establishment. I cannot but take a deep interest in its welfare, seeing how many desirable objects it combines, and how well calculated it is, but particularly at this moment, to meet prejudices, and to oppose the efforts of interested