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statute laws of the Union." He adds that "imported slaves are sold by the officers of government, and the proceeds paid into the public treasury." Bold charges these! He adds further," John Lafitte, the pirate, informed me, that in 1813, he introduced into Louisiana, eighteen hundred Slaves; and Mitchel has depots along the Georgia and Carolina shores, for the reception of slaves he intends to be discovered by the public authorities, and then his agents in Savannah and Charleston become the purchasers."-Centinel.

Many Articles of a similar character might easily be collected from the Newspapers. Indeed Articles of this kind have become so common that we fear they are read by many with as little emotion or astonishment as the every day advertisements for the sale of English and West India goods. But that we may have a more correct view of this traffic, let it be supposed that the advertisements for the sale of human beings were, taken from a Gazette of Algiers or Tunis, and that the victims to be sold were white citizens of the United States; what would be the feelings of our government, and of our countrymen in general? Suppose moreover that the names of the victims should be given and among them the name of a Son of His Excellency James Munroe, President of the United States, and a Son of His Excellency John Brooks, Governor of Massachusetts! with what emotion, what sympathy, what indignation would the Advertisements be read! Shall we then have no feeling for our black brethren who are kidnapped and sold, as thieves steal and sell horses! These man thieves ought to be regarded as the most detestable beings of the human racewar makers only excepted.

Shall then a government which boasts of being a free government, or a government for the protection of Jiberty, participate in the crimes of manstealers? Shall such a government under the pretext of checking the abominable practice of kidnapping, take human beings from the hands of abandoned villains, and then sell them as slaves to the highest bidder! In this case, may we not boldly

affirm, that," the partaker is as bad as the thief?"

What would be said of a parent who should take stolen horses from his sons, sell them at public auction, and convert the money to his own use! But how much more odious must it be in rulers thus to take human beings and sell them as slaves. What worse did the kidnappers do, or intend to do than this? With great propriety the Albany Register has said the law which authorises blacks to be sold for the benefit of the government, is a black page in our statute books that ought to be expunged." It may justly be added, that the barbarous sales under this black law are foul stains on our national character-Stains which can never be wiped away by all our boastings of freedom and independence, or of the blood which has been shed in the

cause of liberty. In vain do we claim the character of a just and magnanimous nation while as a people we tolerate such atrocious acts of barbarity and injustice.

ORDINATIONS.

At Vassalborough, Me. Aug. 26 Rev. Thomas Adams was ordained Pastor of the Society in that place. Introductory Prayer by Rev. Fifield Holt, of Bloomfield; Sermon by Rev. Jonathan Cogswell, of Saco; Consecrating Prayer by Rev. D. Lovejoy, of Fairfax; Charge by Rev. E. Gillet, of Hallowell; Right Hand by Rev. B. Tappan, of Augusta ;—and Concluding Prayer by Rev. J. Peet, of Norridgewock.

In Hallowell, Me. on the 9th of Sept. Rev. Winthrop Morse, to the care of the Baptist Society in that place.

Installed at Robbinstown, Me. Sept. 9th, Rev. D. Lovejoy, as Pastor of the Congregational Society in that town.

OBITUARY.

Died in Boston, Samuel Bradford, sq. Sheriff of the county of Suffolk. Also, Sept. 19, Rev. Francis Anthony Matignon, D. D. a much `respected Pastor of the Catholic Church.

At Brighton, Mrs. Nabby, the wife of Mr. Samuel Davis, aged 38.

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Character of Mrs. Susanna Wright, who died Sept. 12, 1818, aged 77, relict of the late Rev. Phinchas Wright of Bolton.

DIVINE providence appoints it as our duty to record the death of this eminent Christian. Her character may be exhibit ed to uncommon advantage for the imitation of her sex. Its leading traits would reflect honour on all christians.

She possessed the qualities of mind and heart, which formed her for an interesting and confidential acquaintance and friend. An improved understanding and a corrrect judgment, united with a social temper rendered her an object of respect and satisfaction in the circle of her friends. To these were added the sincerity, the candour, the freedom from disguise, the simplicity of manners, which strengthened her claims to general attention and confidence. "She opened her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue was the law of kindness."

She had always a mantle of charity in readiness to spread over involuntary errours of speech, judgment, and conduct. It was at the same time Vol. VI. No. 11.

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a prominent excellence, that she showed an independence, a decision, a marked abhorrence in her expressions of detestation for duplicity and notorious wickedness. In this she has seldom been surpassed, and we could only consider it as flowing from a high sense of virtue and from conscious rectitude.

She filled with honoar her' station as the head of a family; "looked well to the ways of her household ;" and mingled firmness with mildness and condescension in domestic government.

She was "a lover of hospitality." No visitants ever retired from her presence and habitation but with a full belief that the professions of friendship she had uttered, and her tokens of solicitude for their welfare and happiness had come from the heart.

Her desire for the plain and unceremonious intercourse of ancient times with her constitutional feelings of sympa-' thy and kindness, happily fitted her for the offices of good neighbourhood.

The people

with whom she lived, long bear grateful and respectful testimony to her affectionate

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and unremitted concern for their state. Where are the prosperous, whose prosperity did not enliven her countenance, and diffuse joy through her soul! Where are the Sons and Daughters of affliction, with whom she was not ready to weep! It is but a just tribute to those who shared her sympathy, to relate, that she unreservedly expressed her gratitude to heaven that her lot was cast, and that she was permitted to associate with christians, who were inclined to reciprocate acts of humanity and tenderness.

All who had the privilege of being her witnesses were constrained to venerate her discretion, her exemplariness, her uniform display of the spirit of her religion in those scenes, which were exposed to public observation.

We are most to admire her character as a christian professor. Her religion gave the most solid proof that it was a pure stream from the fountain. It was a religion of the understanding, affections, and life. Of few disciples of Jesus can we with more justice say, She was a cheerful Christian. Such were her ideas of God, of the Saviour, and of his Gospel, that she was alike preserved from indifference and insensibility on the one hand, and from gloominess and superstition on the other.

Her heart was warmed with charity. None ever heard from her lips an uncandid whisper against the sincere and humble of any denomination of Christians. A liberality

of feeling and sentiment, which was the fruit of correct ideas of the merciful purpose of christianity, caused her to mourn for the discords and alienations in the family of Christ.

Her Bible was her best treasure and her constant companion. "She read therein by day, and meditated by night."

From the tenour of her conversation and life; from her outward respect for christian ordinances; from her delight in the observance of them; and from the thoughts of her dependence on God and her obligation, which we have often heard, we have consoling evidence of her firm faith in the Son of God, and of the sincerity and constancy of her devotion. We may believe

that in the prospect of death with the elevation of feeling and thought which the language implies, she gave utterance to her piety in that devout strain; "whom have I, O God, in heaven, but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever"

It is not our design to represent this estimable christian as having no imperfections, but as one who had a governing sense of God and religion. When a disciple who had attained to such eminence in the school of her Master is no longer suffered to shed a lustre on religion by her example, it becometh us to bow with

submission to the will of God. We have cause of gratitude for his goodness in allowing her to live long, in making the evening of her life honourable, and in enabling her so to live as to die in the faith and hope of the gospel. We may even consider it an expression of mercy to her, that her removal took place at a time when she was useful, and had a remaining capacity to communicate and to receive enjoyment. Having the remembrance of her character and the hopes of

religion, her friends cannot want sufficient grounds of support and comfort.

In this distinguished female were wonderfully combined the virtues, which give dignity and worth to her sex. Let it be the employment of each surviving woman to survey this portrait, that she may learn the course to the moral and religious elevation and to the importance in society, for which a merciful providence has designed her.

THE WORD OF GOD PREFERABLE TO HUMAN SYSTEMS.

"IT is my earnest wish and prayer, that by a more general cultivation of biblical criticism, the lover of the scriptures may better understand and more deeply admire them; and that those who neglect a due examination of them, or who deny their authority may be convinced of their importance, and may discover the signatures of truth stampt on them. My ardent love and admiration of these divine writings lead me to conclude that they cannot be seriously and carefully read without pleasure and conviction. Ila ment that they are impiously interdicted to a large body of Christians; that they are so much disregarded, and of course misunderstood by the bulk of Protestants among ourselves; that many of our clergy, unmindful of the solemn engagement at their ordination, do not devote their time to the study of them, and

that while human learning is making a rapid progress in its various branches, the religion of Christ is almost every where overwhelmed by human formularies and systems. Christianity can never have its free course among men of improved understandings, and even among rational creatures in general, while gross misrepresentations of it are substituted in the place of the simple and perfect original "

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The foregoing excellent paragraph was taken from the Preface to Archbishop Newcome's "Observations on our Lord;" a book which we have already recommended to the perusal of our fellow christians. The passage which we have transcribed expresses our own views and feelings in regard to the excellency of the scriptures, the importance of biblical criticism, and the evil of having the religion of Christ "overwhelmed with human

formularies and systems," or human liturgies, creeds and confessions of faith.

We are aware that some worthy persons, whose characters we have no inclination to reproach, or depreciate, have been of opinion, that a confession of faith in the language of scripture is no definite expression of the views of those who may adopt it; and that creeds of human composure are a more sure criterion of a man's real sentiments. But we have never had the pleasure of seeing a creed, or confession of faith, in the words of man's wisdom in which the doctrines of the gospel were expressed in a more definite or unambiguous manner, than they may be stated in the simple and unadulterated language of inspiration.

We know indeed, that passages of scripture may be differently understood by different persons, and that persons of very contradictory sentiments may honestly subscribe to the same articles of faith, if stated in the language of the Bible. But this difficulty is not avoided by setting aside the language of scripture and substituting the language of fallible man. For it is a well known fact, that persons of very different sentiments have mutually adopted the "Assembly's Catechism" as a confession of faith, and that the different persons explain par ticular articles in that confession in a very different man

ner.

Indeed it is doubted whether there be one passage of Scripture which has been

explained in a greater variety of senses, than some of the articles of that catechism.

We have not mentioned the "Assembly's Catechism" for the purpose of reproaching it, nor as singular in regard to its being understood in different senses; but because it has been one of the most popular confessions in our country, and most generally known. Other confessions are liable to the same objection-that they are very differently understood by those who assent to them. Such in fact is the diversity of opinion among those who adopt the same creed or confession, that their formal assent is evidence of little more than this, that they have preferred a popular confession of faith, in the words of fallible men, to a confession in the words of the Holy Spirit.

When such a long confession of faith is adopted as that of the Westminster Assembly, or that of the Church of England, it may reasonably be doubted, whether one member in five hundred, understands each article according to the original intention of the compilers; and it may also be doubted whether so many as two in the five hundred agree in their views of each article. What important purpose, then, do such confessions answer excepting that of being Shibboleths boleths to distinguish one party of christians from another, and making a show of unanimity in sentiment, far beyond the true state of facts?

In most cases of adopting human confessions or systems,

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