in the spirit of sincere gratitude to those who, living or dead, have fostered by their liberality our hospitals, asylums, and colleges, express the hope that they who in our own day have risen by industry, good fortune, or inheritance, to the possession of great wealth, may feel the obligations under which they also lie, to contribute of their superfluity to works and objects of common utility, only with such judgment, that they shall not, by their benefactions, offer any premium to vice or idleness. When these greater interests have been secured, we should truly rejoice, if the lesser interests of taste were not neglected; if something were done to satisfy our love of what is merely beautiful. Do we not need the softening and the polish to be added to our national character, which a more general knowledge of, and devotion to the fine arts would tend to impart? We can never deem such devotion of time, means, affection, to such objects morally blameworthy, so long as Heaven paints the tulip's cup, the clouds at sunset, and the breast of a humming-bird.

The objection to the monument, that it violates the great principles of peace, we cannot sympathise with, any more than with that just noticed. Life is not the best thing, nor war the worst, as the extreme advocates of peace would have us believe. Honor, using the word in its best sense, is worth more than life, liberty is worth more, a good name is worth more, the safety and innocence and virtue of those we love are worth more. For any of these he does well, who gives up, what, in the comparison, is the merest dross, his life. We would erect a monument of honor and praise in our hearts, of marble, too, if we could, to him, who, rather than stand idly by with folded arms, while a mother, a wife, or a daughter, was borne away to slavery, or worse, obeyed the impulses of his nature, and saved innocence, virtue, or life, by taking life. What were the lives of many so taken, compared with the salvation wrought out for the weak and the innocent? And what the soil contracted by the soul of their slayer, compared with that which would have defiled it forever, had he stood for peace, rather than for innocence and right. So it is, we think, with nations. Sooner than be insulted, trampled upon, enslaved, sooner than tamely endure the aggressions of a selfish, tyrannic, haughty power, if there be no other way, let life be freely offered up; let it be poured out like water; let the bones of half a generation whiten the field of battle. Life, which is a thing of infinitely less account than liberty, than the respect of others, and our own, has indeed been sacrificed in hecatombs. But the exchange has been profitable, not only immediately for the national glory, but, in a wider estimate of consequences, for morals, virtue, religion, nay, and for peace itself. Rights, jus

tice, first; then peace. There can be no lasting peace, that is not founded in a general virtue; in the justice and righteousness of one nation, as well as the submissiveness of another. When we cease to honor, in every way, those who carried on our Revolution to its successful issue, by the free expenditure of their blood and treasure, may we lose the possession of the inheritance they won and have bequeathed.

But we began these remarks with a different purpose. We are the advocates of national monuments. They are, if not greatly useful, at least a harmless expression of generous feelings. We are inclined to believe in their positive utility. Yet we admit, we can spare them. They are not among the moral essentials. And we would say, never let them rise until more urgent duties have been first discharged. In the present case, we think society has erred in its choice of duties. There was one other, at least, which should have had priority of this. We refer to the rebuilding of the Convent at Charlestown. We confess to a feeling of shame and guilt, when we look at the aspiring column on Bunker Hill, and turn our eye upon the ruins of the Ursuline Convent on the neighboring height. Those walls should long ago have been restored. If the infamy, which attaches to those who projected and engaged in the work of their destruction, and those who stood by and applauded, though they committed no overt act, and to those who laughed when justice was afterwards mocked and cheated of her victims, can never be extenuated or washed away, neither can that which shall hereafter attach to our whole community, if it make no reparation for the injury inflicted upon the innocent by some of its members, if it fail to set the seal of its indignant reprobation upon the deed of that ferocious, cowardly mob, by some such intelligible sign as the reërection of the demolished structure, the reimbursement of the total loss sustained; and the cordial invitation to the dispersed fugitives to return and reinhabit in peace their long abandoned home. It is nothing that we say we regret the past; it is nothing to confess that we stand justly dishonored in the eyes of the nation and the world. Words are but breath. Repentance must be shown by deeds. There must be ample remuneration; there must be complete restitution; there must be a public pledge of future kindness and protection. Nothing less can make our atonement. Nothing less can make our peace, not with the wronged Catholics, for they have uttered no complaint, as they have attempted no retaliation, but with ourselves, and the spirit of our insulted constitution, our violated Faith.

We are astonished at the insensibility which has so long delayed the performance of this religious duty. It is now five years

that justice has slept. It is five years that we have been content to see the odium of religious intolerance, even unto persecution in its most revolting form, resting upon our Capital, and its neighborhood. Not satisfied with the ill name we have inherited from our persecuting ancestors, for whom many an extenuating clause may be found, we seem resolved to heap new infamy upon that name, first, by an act on the part of a few of not less savage cruelty than any our fathers were guilty of, and then by a delay or refusal of justice on the part not of a few, but of the whole body of our people. In its present aspect, the case is black enough. We truly believe, however, we trust we are not mistaken, that our guilt lies no deeper than a criminal apathy. But if this lasts much longer, it will look very much like a sullen, silent approbation of what we dare not openly justify. We can fully enter into the feelings of a gentleman in our neighborhood, distinguished not more for his wealth than his high sense of justice, who, as is reported, upon being asked to subscribe to the Bunker Hill Monument, replied, "not till the Convent is rebuilt." So should have answered every individual in the city and the neighborhood. So we believe multitudes would have answered, had not time almost blotted out the memory of an event, which so many reasons make it painful to remember; which, like other misdeeds, we are so willing to forget. But the memory of that event must be kept alive, until the day of restitution shall come. We can hardly doubt, that were a movement once made, in a right quarter and a right manner, the day of restitution might be to-day. And happy, indeed, would it be for New England, and the influence of her character at home and abroad, for her present honor and her future fame, if the same day that witnessed the completion of the Monument on Bunker Hill, beheld the convent risen again from its ruins, and restored to its rightful possessors.

Two Sermons on the Kind Treatment and on the Emancipation of Slaves. Preached at Mobile, on Sunday the 10th, and Sunday the 17th of May, 1840. With a Prefatory Statement. By GEO. F. SIMMONS. Boston: W. Crosby & Co. 1840.

pp. 30.

WE are glad that Mr. Simmons has published the Sermons preached by him at Mobile, on the subject of Slavery. Whatever opinion one may have of the good judgment shown in delivering discourses of such a character in a Southern pulpit no one, we think, would find it easy to say beforehand what he would or would not do, placed in the same circumstances - there can be but one opinion as to the admirable manner in which he treated the

VOL. XXIX.

3D S. VOL. XI. NO. II.

33

"rugged question," when it came up before him. Truths are stated, necessarily unpalatable to the slaveholder; but he is treated throughout with Christian courtesy, not a violent or ungentle word is to be found in either discourse. Yet are they bold, manly, independent. As it would not be easy for the topics handled in them, the duties of compassion toward the slave, and the Christian duty of emancipation,-to be managed with kinder consideration for the difficult position of the slaveholder, while at the same time the truth was uttered freely, it proves to our mind, that the Southerner cannot and will not endure the discussion of the subject, nor allow that the religion which he professes, at least to honor, may take cognizance of it, except, perhaps, in certain prescribed relations. The experiment upon his magnanimity could not have been more fairly tried. The subject was presented with modesty, it was treated ably, and, as we have said, in the spirit of the gentlest humanity, as well toward the master, as the slave. The experiment could not have more signally failed. The preacher was driven from the pulpit and the city.

As the preaching of these discourses has often been spoken of as the effect of an inconsiderate and intemperate zeal, we have been particularly gratified to see the statement made in the preface, showing how far such a charge is from the truth. The sermons were preached in the month of May, yet at the beginning of the winter, Mr. Simmons had used the following language, in a letter to the trustees of the church, in reply to their invitation to him to become their permanent pastor.

"Moreover, were I ready to settle, the state of the public mind here with regard to slavery, would, I fear, not tolerate my presence. Believing, as I do, that slavery is wrong, and that man cannot hold property in man, the occasion calling for the expression of these opinions, could not long fail of presenting itself, especially in the exposition of those passages of Scripture, which condemn, or which are thought to favor, the depression of a portion of the race into the condition of involuntary servants. On such occasions, I should preach what I believe to be the truth, with the utmost openness, and thereby draw public odium upon myself and upon the church. This result you would greatly deprecate.

"Nevertheless, were good of peculiar magnitude to be accomplished thereby, I should not hesitate to expose myself to whatever peril there might be from this quarter. But, &c." - Preface, p. iv.

Here is satisfactory evidence of a calm and thoughtful deliberation.

We have space but for one brief extract, but it is the most inflammatory one in either discourse, and it will enable the reader to judge, whether the preacher most deserve censure or the people commiseration.

“The question, as a question of Right and of Religion, seems to be very plain. Slavery is wrong. We can own servants only as we own wives and children. They cannot be a part of our property; nor, without great injustice, can they be treated as such. This conclusion, indeed, is not in general controverted. While it remains abstract and general, it is allowed. But when we come to apply it to our own circumstances, we are perplexed with doubts, and a thousand insuperable difficulties are thought to present themselves before us. The incapacity of people long inured to bondage, their reluctance to work except when compelled, our entire dependence on them for the necessary labor in our fields and houses, are supposed to make it necessary to continue the bondage of the present generation. But in a few years the present generation will be gone; and does this reason apply to the generation that is to come? May not the law decree the freedom, and provide for instruction in necessary knowledge, and for the necessary discipline and protection, of those born after the present time? May it not mitigate the condition of those now living, by permitting them to be instructed, by securing them in their families from forced separations and from violation of their sacred rights? Ought not some limit to be set to the freedom with which they are bought and sold? In short, if Slavery be wrong, ought not the removal of it to be the settled policy of the people among whom it exists? pp 27, 28.

Scripture Truths, in Questions and Answers; for the Use of Sunday Schools and Families. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1840.

THIS little manual is conceived on an excellent plan, and executed with ability. It forms a very valuable addition to our stock of Sunday School Books, and will, we hope, be widely adopted. The author has thrown the book into the form of question and answer, the answer being for the most part in Scripture language; so that, while the child is receiving his religious instruction in a methodical manner, he is at the same time storing up in his memory the most pregnant passages of the Old and New Testaments. The design of the author is thus stated in the preface.

"The design of this little work is a practical one: to form in the minds of the young the great principles of piety, morality, and true religion, and the graces of the Christian temper, as they are exhibited in the Bible. Without neglecting or interfering with this object, the author was desirous of making this manual a vehicle of Scripture truth, in teaching that the Father is the Only True God, and that Jesus Christ is to be honored as his Son and Messenger, but not as his equal. In the Notes and the Appendix, explanations of certain texts have been given in accordance with this view, for the information of Teachers, who may not have ready access to books and commentaries, to be used by them or not, according to their own judgment, and the age and capacity of the children under their care.". p. iv.

--