says Voltaire, always chary of praising any church dignitary, "ought to render his name dear to all the people of the earth." For the form of slavery which has since grown up in the New World we are no apologists. It was established under reiterated remonstrances and anathemas from the Church, and would never have gained a firm foothold, could her voice have been heard and her arm felt with unabated power across the intervening waste of waters. But the slavery of which we now speak is far less extensive than the Pagan system, is held in check by numerous legal restraints, is connected with many alleviating circumstances, and with a large preponderance of humanity and kindness over violence and cruelty, and binds a race, to which, though a wrong and an outrage, it is the less galling from their never having known the blessings of freedom and refinement, and to which it may be ultimately beneficial in bringing them and their whole continent under civilizing and Christianizing influences. Meanwhile the axe is already laid at the root of this tree of evil. By the unanimous consent of Christian nations, the slave-ship is now an outlaw and a pirate; and universal emancipation is retarded less by a surviving attachment to the wrong, than by the difficulty of readjusting on principles of perfect equity the balance of rights and interests once deranged by the intrusion of evil. But in order to trace most satisfactorily the benign agency of Christian institutions and ideas in behalf of the poor, we must look into their homes. It is a significant fact, that there is no word in the Greek or Latin corresponding to our word home; for the inflections of oikos and domus denote a mere local habitation, without any of the numberless associations of a moral nature which distinguish home from house, and make the former one of the most complex words in the language. Home, the name, the idea, the fact, is the creation and gift of Christianity. To her we owe the unity and permanence of the conjugal relation, with the laws of modesty and chastity that guard it, the equal and honored place of woman in the household, and the principles and culture that make her in soul and character a wife and mother. To her we owe the abolition of infanticide, the emancipation of the child from the father's untempered despotism, and all the truths, sentiments, and motives that can be relied on to sustain parental duty or to nourish filial piety. And while our religion has bestowed these positive benefits upon man in his domestic relations, it has made itself the faithful ally of art and taste (which previously served only for public uses or for the selfish ostentation of wealth and luxury) in the enriching and adorning of quiet home-life. At the same time, it early lent its aid to banish the vile and cruel forms of public amusement, which could not be enjoyed without crushing in the germ those tender, genial elements of character on which the happiness of home depends. The first edict against gladiatorial shows was issued by the first Christian emperor, and in less than a century from that time Honorius completed the work which Constantine had so well begun. In these domestic blessings the poor share to the full. Where the spirit of Christianity breathes, the house, however wretched, is still a home, and those under its roof experience a happiness in one another, an outflow of parental, filial, brotherly and sisterly affection, a divine and heavenly harmony of interest, feeling, and hope, which they would not yield up for uncounted millions. In such a family, penury ceases to be abject, and is almost never comfortless. An air of grace and refinement invests the meanest hovel, and sheds a charm over the lowliest domestic group, if the homeless wanderer of Galilee has blessed the dwelling. In many an abode, from which the pampered nursling of fortune would turn with disgust, the father, coarse and rude in outward aspect, when he has washed off the dust and dew of daily toil, puts on all the modest dignity of teacher, patriarch, priest, dispenses lessons of virtue for which Socrates would have gladly sat at his feet, and pours out at the household altar the pure offering of the innocent, contented, thankful hearts which Providence has bound up with his. Nor does it take centuries or generations to transform the den of pagan strife and misery into the Christian home. In many of the islands of the Southern Pacific, where twentyfive years ago there were only hordes of naked, filthy savages, destitute of all the arts and the decencies of life, may now be seen whole villages of neatly whitewashed cottages, clean, well furnished and well ordered, the families neatly and tastefully clad, happy in the discharge of all domestic duties and charities," singing the songs of Zion in a strange land," and uniting in the morning and evening sacrifice to "Him in whom all the families of the earth are blessed." We feel tempted to quote from the speeches of some of these islanders at an anniversary meeting held at one of the Hervey islands. The peculiar rhetoric gives us ample warrant of the reporter's fidelity, even were he a less reliable man than the eminently learned, faithful, and philanthropic Williams, the leading spirit of the London Mission in the South Sea Islands. 6 "Let us remember,' said the first speaker, our former state, how many children were killed, and how few were kept alive; but now none are destroyed. Parents now behold with pleasure their three, five, and even their ten children; the majority of whom would have been murdered, had not God sent his word to us. Now hundreds of these are daily taught the word of God. We knew not that we possessed that invaluable property, a living soul.' "Then said Fenuapeho:- We were dwelling formerly in a dark house among centipedes, lizards, spiders, and rats; nor did we know what evil and despicable things were around us. The lamp of life, the word of God, has been brought, and now we behold with dismay and disgust these abominable things. Some are killing each other this very day, while we are rejoicing; some are destroying their children, while we are saving ours; some are burning themselves in the fire, while we are bathing in the cool waters of the Gospel.' "Then Mahamene continued the narrative : 'The servants of our chiefs would enter our houses, and strip us of every thing. The master of the house would sit as a poor captive, without daring to speak, while they would seize his rolls of cloth, kill the fattest of his pigs, pluck the best of his bread-fruit, and take the very posts of his house for firewood with which to cook them. Is there not one here, who buried his new canoe in the sand, to hide it from them? But now all these customs are abolished; we live in peace, without fear. We do not now hide our pigs underneath our beds, and use our rolls of cloth for pillows to secure them; our pigs may now run where they please, and our property may hang in our houses, no one touching it. Now we have cinet bedsteads; we have excellent sofas to sit on, neat plastered houses to dwell in, and our property we can call our We have thus endeavoured to present what seems to us the chief point of contrast between ancient and modern, pagan and Christian civilization. The difference consists * Williams's Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, pp. 220 -222. not so much in what the few might, as in what all may, attain. The growth of refinement and luxury in the ancient states increased the burdens and multiplied the disabilities of the multitude, while every new element of Christian culture tends to elevate the masses. The social landscape of the Periclean and the Augustan age shows us mountains reaching to the clouds, separated by awfully deep, sunless ravines, both equally barren. Christian ideas and institutions are constantly tending so to remodel society, that gently swelling hills shall alternate with fertile, well-watered valleys, and that there shall be verdure, bloom, and beauty alike on hill and plain. The work, indeed, is only begun; but every antagonist principle with which it has to contend belongs to the old order of things, is of pagan origin, and is already yielding ground, as Christian ideas more and more pervade the great heart of society, are embodied in literature, adopted by governments, and made active by individual philanthropy. ART. VIII. 1. The Past, the Present, and the Future. By H. C. CAREY, Author of " Principles of Political Economy," etc. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart. 1848. 8vo. pp. 474. 2. The Religious Theory of Civil Government: a Discourse delivered before the Governor and the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the Annual Election, Wednesday, January 5th, 1848. By ALEXANDER H. VINTON, Rector of St. Paul's Church. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, Printers. 8vo. pp. 46. MANY excellent persons, if we may judge from their repeated declarations, have come to entertain very desponding views respecting the condition and prospects of the American people. They say that it is all over with the republic, that our country is too large for union, too sordid for patriotism, and too democratic for liberty; and that our doom is sealed, and we are fast hurrying to ruin. We cannot wonder that such thoughts find frequent utterance, since, from the rapidity of communication from one extremity of the land to the other, and from the craving of the public mind for news and scan dal, every crime against the laws, every offence against the higher rules of Christian courtesy and morality, and every weak or foolish action of those who occupy prominent positions in the state, are matters of immediate record in the newspapers, which convey the intelligence with incredible speed to every fireside in the country. Whoever turns over the files of the city or the village news-room finds so many instances of depravity and corruption chronicled there, that, in the spirit of the self-accusing Edgar in Lear, he may exclaim of our countrymen, They love wine deeply, dice dearly, and are "false of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand." Perhaps, too, when musing upon what is passing around him, or when looking at "the great image of authority," he is reminded of the words of the mad old king himself: "A man may see how this world goes with no eyes"; for "The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tattered clothes small vices do appear: We propose to discuss some of the questions suggested by these remarks, and to inquire whether the prediction of Proud, the loyalist historian of Pennsylvania, and of others of similar political views, that "the revolt of the Colonies would prove the certain cause and commencement of the decline of national virtue and prosperity," has been, or is likely to be, fulfilled. More than this, we would inquire whether we have not in fact made some progress in morals since the duty of maintaining our institutions devolved upon ourselves, and whether many of the sins and evils, which now appear overwhelming and disheartening, were not bequeathed to us by our fathers. In performing this task we shall endeavour to remember the injunction of the excellent and gifted Ames, that "the earth we tread on holds the bones of the deceased patriots of the Revolution," though, in comparing the past with the present, allusion to the faults and imperfections of the men whom we are taught, and most justly, to reverence, will be both unavoidable and continual. They, it is of importance to observe, were colonists, and were destitute of the means of moral and intellectual improvement which are possessed by us, and which we ob |