current which has just begun to rush in a new channel; that it is destined to sweep slavery from this country, no one now can have a doubt.

Hereafter the thinking on the subject of American Slavery will be only in one line—how shall it be done away? If we would have an understanding where a few weeks may advance us, we have only to remember what was the point of thought in relation to this matter. It was, how shall slavery be kept from extending itself. We were content to let it live if it did not subjugate other lands, but the events have crowded us far beyond that, we have gotten past a thought of it, no living man fears now, or even dreams of it, it has simply gone forever out of a sane man's mind. What an advance a year has made! We have been hurried past the place of argument against slavery. We are done with all that; the books and the pamphlets, the documents and the statistics are growing quickly obsolete, for they have done their work; we need not be careful of them for our future use. We shall not need them except as relics of a well fought field.

Those of us who have for a life time been doing what we could to hasten forward this day, who have spoken and written and suffered for it, in the new atmosphere which we breathe are like men that dream. We know that it would come, we hoped to live long enough to see the day. We see it and are glad, we did not think to see it soon, it has come so suddenly, it shines so broadly and with so rich a promise that we recognize it as God's day; we see his wonder-working power moving marvellously, making—was it ever shown so before?—the wrath of man to praise him; we behold how God has taken the work into his own hand; how he has made slavery destroy itself. More than human wisdom, and beyond human guidance is here, the thick night would not have gone so wondrously had not He rolled it away, we hail the light. This is the day the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.

But like all of God's gifts, it demands work and gives responsibility, responsibility and work proportionate to the boon.

He has given us a day, but it brings with it work of which perhaps we have gotten only a mere glimpse. It is well that we should endeavour to understand and appreciate what that work is, for it is no holiday that He has given us. We have asked in many a prayer that it might come, and having come we must see what is to be done, and manfully deal with it.

It is easy to talk of emancipation, but he has thought loosely and ill who sees no great difficulties in bringing it to a happy issue; who has not questions arise in his mind to give him pause when he contemplates a social change so vast in state of a race of twelve millions of men. Let not the reader suppose a mistake in the figures, we mean twelve millions, and not four; there are, indeed, four millions of slaves to be made free, but a change is to be wrought in the social state of the eight millions of the whites, which is only less than that of the blacks. To alter radically, to remodel the whole social fabric of a great and numerous people, to shift the foundation stones, remove them, and place others in their palaces, without racking the edifice or tumbling it in a hideous ruin, is the work of no inexperienced or careless architect.

The gigantic war which has been desolating one half of this land, has been, as we have said, simply the mighty frantic effort of a social state to establish itself; of a peculiar civilization to consolidate its power. The result of the war will be the total defeat of this attempt; the very endeavor, the waging of the war has shaken its foundation, its end will remove it entirely. This civilization, whose basis is slavery, has chosen to risk its existence on the issue of the war: it must accept the alternative which it has raised, and be content to pass away.

The war will decide the question of slavery, and with it alter the whole form of society at the South which rests upon it. But one civilization cannot pass away and leave a vacuum; one state of society cannot cease and have no other in its palace. It is only changes, not new creations which take place in the social world; one civilization gives place to another; society passes from one state into another . We are, then, on the eve of a mighty change, perhaps the greatest ever seen in the world before. That it can or could take place without an awful struggle, pangs which are the birth-thores of a nation, let no one imagine; that it will be done in a few brief months is impossible. While we write, victories have just been gained, the great city of the South has passed into the hands of our army, and men begin to predict the speedy downfall of the rebellion; but, alas, we cannot felicitate ourselves with any such prospect. The great class which has made the war to maintain its existence, will not consent to die thus; every element of human nature in its fallen form is against it. It will yield to nothing but simply irresistible force, it will die only as it is killed. We confess, as we look over the whole ground and weigh well as we can the origin and caused of this gigantic war, to a feeling, not of despondency or uncertainty, for we believe that God will one day bring it to a happy end, but of heart-sorrow and care, even as a woman has sorrow and foreboding at the inevitable agony ere a man is born into the world. To lift twelve millions of men to a new better place, to open before them a good and happy future, instead of certain prospective woe and final dissolution, is a work worth the tears and groans of a nation, and they can well afford to be patient till the time has come. At present let not one's heart fail him if the horizon grows dark and hope seems at times blotted out; let him remember well what the meaning of the strife is, that it is no accident, but the death-struggle of a civilization two hundred years old, and based on all the worst and strongest elements of human nature. It can have no easy death.

Taking it for granted, then, that a great change is about to take place in the social state of the South, and taking it for granted that slavery on which it is based must, under the pressure of the forces which are bearing upon it, pass sooner or later away, a point which we are not disposed just now to consider even debatable, a great question comes up, What shall be the future condition of the colored race in this land? How shall the problem be solved? What shall be done with the slave? Hasty and inconsiderate persons may find ready answers, but it seems to us that just now there is no question of so great intricacy, and certainly no one of equal moment to which an American can address himself. We propose in the remainder of this article to discuss it. It is not a subject on which it is well to dogmatize; we have learned that there is room for a very wide diversity of opinion; the most that any one can hope to do is by discussion to endeavor to elicit light. After all the Providence of God will do the work; it is for us to be abreast of that Providence, ready to accept the trust and do the work which it assigns us.

We have dwelt thus long on the causes, and what we consider to be the true meaning of the war, because only by a right apprehension of them can we be prepared to deal with this great question. Those who are at the head of the government appreciate it most fully, and the President in his message frankly intimates that the only true hope of a lasting settlement of our national difficulties must be found in the ultimate emancipation of the blacks. But aware of the objections which must arise to the setting free of four millions of slaves and their remaining in the country, he proposes that a system of colonization shall be inaugurated by which they may be removed. Emancipation with colonization in lands provided for the freed slaves, is the scheme.

Without dealing with this proposition of the President in detail, let us look at