his severity of speech, with much significance and great good. sense declared that he would call a fig a fig, and a spade a spade. "Woe unto them" says one of the world's great prophets, "that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter."

Popular sins are never regarded by the people as sins; they are never called sins. Terms are invented to describe them which fall upon the ear without harshness, and which, whenever uttered, give no alarm to the moral sense. This is what is called in Scripture the transformation of Satan into an angel of light. Thus, they who are engaged in upbuilding the horrid slavesystem in this country, a system which presents no single feature of decency or utility, and which John Wesley comprehensively and justly called "the sum of all villainies"-the Southern slaveholders and their abettors, designate it as "the peculiar institution," as "the corner-stone of our Republican edifice." This description of it conveys no idea to the mind that is revolting or disagreeable, but quite the contrary-and yet it means theft and robbery; it means assault and battery; it means nakedness and penury; it means yokes, fetters, branding-irons, drivers and bloodhounds; it means cruelty and murder, concubinage and adultery; it means the denial of all chances of intellectual and moral culture, gross mental darkness, and utter moral depravation; it means the transformation of those who, in the scale of creation, are but a little lower than the angels, to the condition of brutes and the fate of perishable property; in one sentence, it means the denial of God as the common Father of us all, and of Christ as our common Saviour and Redeemer. Still, we wrap it up in the fine linen of a deceitful phraseology-we call it the "peculiar institution" outwardly, we garnish this sepulchre, and make it pleasant to the eye, but carefully hide the bones, the uncleanness, and the pollution, which are festering beneath. ***

Of all the reformers who have appeared in the world— whether they were prophets, the Son of God, apostles, martyrs

or confessors; whether assailing one form of popular iniquity or another; whether impeaching the rulers in the State, or the teachers in the Church; not one of them has been exempt from the charge of dealing in abusive language, of indulging in coarse personalities, of libelling the characters of great and good men, of aiming to subvert time-honored and glorious institutions, of striking at the foundation of the social fabric, of being actuated by an irreligious spirit. The charge has ever been false, malicious, the very reverse of the truth; and it is only the reformer himself who has been the victim of calumny, hatred and persecution. His accusations are denied, his impeachments are pronounced libellous, simply because the giant iniquity which he assails has subdued to its own evil purposes all the religious and political elements of the land, and everywhere passes current as both necessary and reputable. Of Jesus it was said, "This man is not of God! he keepeth not the Sabbath day; he is a blasphemer; he hath a devil.” Of the Apostles it was said, "They are pestilent and seditious. fellows, who go about seeking to turn the world upside down." And Paul declares that they were treated as the offscouring of all things. Luther and his coadjutors were represented as the monsters of their times. Those excellent and wonderful men, Penn, Fox, Barclay, with the early Friends, suffered every kind of reproach, and experienced great tribulation, as infidel emissaries and fanatical disorganizers. Before the abolition of the African slave trade, Wilberforce and Clarkson were vehemently denounced as interfering with vested rights, and seeking to cripple the prosperity of England; and a murderous attempt was made to drown the latter in the river Mersey at Liverpool. It is needless to ask how those heroic and unfaltering pioneers of our race are now regarded. The mid-day sun shining in the fullness of its strength is not brighter, the firm set earth is not more solid than their fame; and down through all coming time shall they be hailed by countless processions of new-born generations as among the saviors of their race. There will be

none to distrust their disinterestedness, none to question their

sanity, none to scoff at their testimony.

*

In taking

a retrospect of the past, the present stands ostensibly amazed and shocked at the treatment of those glorious old reformers. It sees nothing in the sternest language of the prophets to condemn; it hails Jesus as the true Messiah, and weeps over his crucifixion; it venerates the memories of the apostles and martyrs; it places Luther, Calvin, Penn, in the calendar of saints. It mourns that all these were beyond its countenance and succor, and takes infinite credit to itself, that it is animated by a far higher and nobler spirit. All this is spurious virtue and mock piety; it is a cheap mode of being heroic and good, for it costs nothing. * * * But let it not be so with us. Let us prove ourselves worthy of the great and good who have gone before us. Truth needs our help; let her have it. Right is cloven down in the land; let us come to the rescue. Liberty is hunted with blood-hounds, and lynch law is threatened to her advocates; let us form a body-guard around her, and bare our bosom to the shafts that are aimed at her. Christianity, as exemplified in the life of its great Founder, is tarnished, modified, perverted to the sanctioning of enormous crimes, to the justification of sinners of the first rank; let us endeavor to remove its stain, to hold it up in its pristine purity, as against all wrong, all injustice, all tyranny, and embracing all mankind in one common brotherhood.

Millions of our countrymen are in chains, crying to us for deliverance; on the side of their oppressors there is power; let us rally for their emancipation, and never retire from the conflict until victory or death be ours. The demon spirit of war is driving his chariot wheels over the bodies of prostrate thousands, and kindling the flames of hell throughout our borders; let us be volunteers in the cause of peace; and give no countenance whatever to the spirit of violence. To do all this, it will cost us something; we must think no more of the bubble reputation of the hour than did Jesus; we must have entire faith in God, and be baptized into the divine spirit of love; we must see of the travail of our souls, and be satisfied; we must be strength

ened and consoled by the thought that, in addition to the sweet approval of our own consciences, we shall secure the gratitude of a redeemed posterity, and the smiles of God.

* * *

Generally speaking, I care not how highly any one praises the dead, or how great may be his professed veneration for Luther or Calvin, for Whitefield or Wesley, for David or Moses, for Jesus or Paul. As at this day all this is popular, and is everywhere well received, it gives me no evidence of any vital appreciation of the character of those intrepid reformers, on the part of the encomiast. The cowardly and time-serving, the hypocritical and pharisaical are always prompt to appear as the special champions of all departed canonized worth.

* * *

To every great reform the same objections, substantially, are urged until it triumphs. First-That it is against the Scriptures. Second-That it disturbs the peace, and endangers the safety of the Church. Third-That it is generally discarded by the priesthood, who being divinely appointed, must know all about it. Fourth-That it is contrary to long-established precedent and venerated authority. Fifth-That it lacks respectability and character; those who espouse it are generally obscure, uninfluential, and none of the rulers believe in it. Sixth-It

is sheer fanaticism, and its triumph would be the overthrow of all order in society, and chaos would come again. Lastly-Its advocates are vulgar in speech, irreverent in spirit, personal in attack, seeking their own base ends by bad means, and presumptuously attempting to dictate to the wise, the learned and the powerful.

Be not intimidated by any of these outcries. They are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Or rather they indicate the standard around which it is your duty and my duty to rally; and that is the standard of right, whether storm or sunshine be our portion, or whatever may be the consequences.

First of all, let us maintain freedom of speech; let us encourage honest and fearless inquiry in all things. Let us recognize no higher standard than that of Reason, and dare to summon to its bar all books, customs, governments, institutions

and laws, that we may prove them, and render our verdict accordingly. Whatever in this great universe is above our reason, with that we need have no controversy, nor should it give us any anxiety; whatever is contrary to our reason, that let us promptly reject, though a thousand books deemed sacred should declare it to be true-though ten thousand councils should affirm it to be right-though all nations should pronounce us to be guilty of a terrible heresy in rejecting it. If God does not address us as reasonable beings, he cannot address us as accountable beings, and hence we are absolved from every moral obligation to him; we take our place with the beasts of the field, with the fowls of the air, with stocks and stones. But he has created us in his great and glorious image; and.

"In our spirit doth His Spirit shine,

As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew."

For its oppor

It is for us to

Thank God, the Past is not the Present. tunities and deeds, we are not responsible. discharge the high duties that devolve on us, and carry our race onward. To be no better, no wiser, no greater than the Past, is to be little, and foolish and bad; it is to misapply noble means, to sacrifice glorious opportunities for the performance of sublime deeds, to become cumberers of the ground. We can and must transcend our predecessors in their efforts to give peace, joy, liberty to the world.-William Lloyd Garrison.

THE REFORMER.

We may regret that in this stage of the spirit's life, the sincere and self-denying worker is not always permitted to partake of the fruits of his toil, or receive the honors of a benefactor. We hear his good evil-spoken of, and his noblest sacrifices counted as naught,—we see him not only assailed by the wicked, but discountenanced and shunned by the timidly good, followed on his hot and dusty pathway by the execrations of the hounding mob, and the contemptuous pity of the