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of men-stealing, which are known to have occurred in the State of Delaware, within the recollection of many of the citizens of that State, would require a volume. In many cases, whole families of free colored people have been at. tacked in the night, beaten nearly to death with clubs, gagged and bound, and dragged into distant and hopeless slavery, leaving no traces behind, except the BLOOD from their wounds.

"The ingenuity and stratagems employed by kidnappers in effecting their designs, are such as to prove that the most consummate cunning is no evidence of wisdom or moral purity, nor incompatible with the most consummate villainy. A monster in human shape was detected in Philadelpha, pursuing the occupation of courting and marrying mulatto women, and selling them as slaves.

"From the best information that I have had opportunities to collect, I am fully convinced that there are at this time, within the jurisdiction of the United States, several thousands of legally free people of color, toiling under the yoke of invol untary servitude, and transmitting the same fate to their posterity." - Portraiture of Dom. Slav. &c. by Dr. J. Torry. 22. Maketh himself a prey.

It is so common for men generally to practice iniquity, that he who repents and forsakes it, becomes a prey, a byword, and a reproach among his neighbors. The Rev. J. D. Paxton, formerly minister of a congregation at Cumberland, Va. in right of his wife, was a slaveholder. But having with his pious companion become convinced of the sin of enslaving the human species, he repented of his error, and set his slaves free. He very soon after become a prey to the ill-will of those whose sins his conduct reproved, and was accordingly reproached and dismissed from his people.

A writer in the Christian Advocate and Journal, a religious paper published at New-York, stated, not long since, that the

Rev. Dr. Coke, one of the first bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church, said and preached so much against the sin of slavery, at the South, that it was thirty years before the enslavers, whom it irritated, ceased to reproach the Dr. and the people with whom he was connected, on this account! This was said to show the impolicy of preaching against slavery, at the present day!

CHAPTER VIII.

JEREMIAH.

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God has pronounced the bitterest of woes upon all such as are concerned in stealing men,· and upon all such as use the labors of their species without wages.

1. For among my people are found wicked men ; they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. Jer. v, 26.

2. They are waxen fat, they shine; yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked; they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Jer. v, 28.

3. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways, and

your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place; then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. Jer. vii. 5.

4. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Oh that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. Jer. ix, 1.

5. Thus saith the LORD, Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Jer. xxi, 12.

6. Thus saith the LORD, Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor; and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. Jer. xxii, 3.

7. Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work. Jer. xxii, 13.

8. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but

for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence to do it. Jer. xxii, 17

9. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you saith the LORD; and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD. Jer. xxix, 13.

10. Now when all the princes and all the people which had entered into the covenant, heard that every one should let his man-servant, and every one his maid-servant go free, that none should serve themselves of them any more, then they obeyed and let them go. Jer. xxxiv, 10.

11. But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids. Jer. xxxiv, 11.

12. Therefore thus saith the LORD; ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor; behold I proclaim a liberty for you saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine. Jer. xxxiv, 17.

13. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, The children of Israel, and the children of Judah were oppressed together; and all that took them captives held them

fast; they refused to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of hosts is his name; he shall thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the land. Jer. 1, 33-34.

NOTES ON CHAPTER VIII.

1. They set a trap; they catch men.

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The Rev. G. Bourne, who resided some time in Virginia, remarks concerning the " man catchers" and their " traps in this country as follows:

"Nothing is more common than for two of these white partners in iniquity, Satan-like, to start upon the prowl, and if they find a free man upon the road, to demand his certificate, (a certain writing which all free colored people at the South must have with them, or be deemed and taken for slaves) tear it in pieces or secrete it, tie him to one of their horses, hurry to some jail, while one whips the citizen along as fast as their horses can travel. There, by an understanding with the jailor, who SHARES in the spoil, all possibility of intercourse with his friends is cut off. At the earliest possible period, the captive is sold to pay the felonious claims of the law, brought through jugglery by this trio of manstealers; and then transferred to some of their accomplices in iniquity, who fill every part of the Southern States with fraud, rapine and blood."

Dr. Torry, before mentioned, describes another kind of "trap" by which thousands of poor souls have been "caught" in this land of Christians; he says: "They have lately, (this was in 1817,) invented a method of attaining their objects through the instrumentality of the laws. Having selected a suitable free colored person, to made a pitch upon,

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