without their consent—from the older slave states to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, during the year 1836, the enormous number of two hundred and fifty thousand slaves."—Eman.

We deeply deplore the situation of our free colored citizens in the slaveholding states, we sympathize in their trials, we know that the oppressive laws enacted against them are to use the language of a writer in the Richmond Whig of March 21, 1832, "A code of penal laws in many respects worthy the temper of Draco, written indeed in blood.... By this code information to them is proscribed, social intercourse interdicted, religious worship in most of its forms prohibited." We know that these unrighteous decrees have driven many of our Southern brethren to a foreign land in the hope of finding on the shores of heathen Africa, a degree of liberty, independence and happiness which they saw no human probability of enjoying in Christian America, but while we sympathize with them in their sufferings, of which the free people of color in the non-slaveholding States largely participate, yet we believe that patient submission to these cruel inflictions, would have identified their interests more with that portion of our countrymen who are toiling in bonds, and would have advanced the cause of emancipation. The cruel policy of the slaveholder to separate as much as possible the free people of color from the slaves, to prevent all coalition between them, to destroy all sympathy of feeling and oneness of interest, has succeeded but too well—the free colored people of the South stand by themselves, unacknowledged as men by their haughty superiors, unknown as brethren by their down-trodden "countrymen in chains," a few of them have even been tempted to join hands with the oppressor and rivet bonds on those for whose deliverance they should have toiled and wept and prayed. One of the results of this crafty policy has been, that many have been seduced to abandon their country and their enslaved brethren, to seek for themselves and their families an asylum from the oppression of Christian, Republican, America. These, however unintentionally, have, we believe, fully answered the designs of the subtle politicians of the South and have bound more firmly around the quivering limbs of their kindred the manacles of slavery.—The desertion of such has added strength to the Colonization interest, and cherished the insane hope that all our valuable free colored citizens might in time be transported to Africa. We, therefore, deprecate the departure of every free colored American, unless impelled by a sense of duty, because it is injurious to the interests of the slave and contributes to foster in the bosoms of their white fellow-citizens that prejudice which Satan created and which he is now using as one of the most powerful engines to prevent the elevation of the free and the enfranchisement of the enslaved.

Our brethren and sisters in bondage have their eyes fixed with the deepest intensity of interest upon their friends in the Northern States, they are looking unto us as unto "Saviours who shall come up on Mount Zion" to deliver them out of the hand of the spoiler. Jehovah has entrusted us with a high and holy commission he has commanded us to "Defend the poor and fatherless, to do justice to the afflicted and needy, to deliver the poor and needy; to rid them out of the hand of the wicked" and we believe God will bless our efforts in this righteous cause, if we are willing to endure the reproach, the calumny, the self-denial which is involved in this Reformation, but beloved friends let us keep ever in mind, that unless we are men and women of prayer, we shall not be able to effect what we profess so earnestly to desire, viz., that God would melt the hearts of the slaveholders thro' the powerful influence of his Holy Spirit that they may "let their captives go," "not for price nor reward," but for their own peace sake and because the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts. When the Redeemer of men was about to ascend to the bosom of the Father and resume the glory which he had with Him before the world was, he promised his disciples that the power of the Holy Ghost should come upon them, and that they should be witnesses for Him to the uttermost parts of the earth. What was the effect upon their minds?" "They all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women." Stimulated by the confident expectation that Jesus would fulfil his gracious promise, they poured out their hearts in fervent supplications, probably for strength to do the work which he had appointed them unto, for they felt that without Him they could do nothing and they consecrated themselves on the altar of God, to the great and glorious enterprize of preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to a lost and perishing world. Have we less precious promises in the Scriptures of Truth, may we not claim of our God the blessing promised unto those who consider the poor, the Lord will preserve them and keep them alive and they shall be blessed upon the earth. Does not the language "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me," belong to all who are rightly engaged in endeavoring to unloose the bondman's fetters? Shall we not then do as the Apostles did, shall we not in view of the two millions of heathen in our very midst, in view of the souls that are going down in an almost unbroken phalanx to utter perdition, continue in prayer and supplication that God will grant us the supplies of his Spirit to prepare us for that work which he has given us to do. Shall not the wail of the mother as she surrenders her only child to the grasp of the ruthless kidnapper, or the trader in human blood, animate our devotions. Shall not the manifold crimes and horrors of slavery excite more ardent outpourings at the throne of grace to grant repentance to our guilty country and permit us to aid in preparing the way for the glorious second Advent of the Messiah, by preaching deliverance to the captives and the opening of the prison doors to those who are bound.

But not alone for the down-trodden slave should we be engaged to labor, our country from Maine to Florida is more or less connected with, and involved in, the awful sin of slavery, "the blood of the poor innocents is found in our skirts," the free states are partakers with those who rob God of his creatures, for although most of them have nominally no slaves on their soil, they do deliver unto slaveholders the servant that is escaped from his master, in direct violation of the command of Jehovah "Hide the outcasts: bewray not him that wandereth.—Let mine outcasts dwell with thee; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler."—The unhappy fugitive goaded almost to madness by oppression finds no resting place for the sole of his foot until he reaches the icy shores of Canada. An exile from his native land, because his soul cannot bow down to the unbridled passions of his fellow-worm; because he nobly dares to take the freedom which Jehovah gave him with the first inspiration of his vital breath, because rather than be a slave he braves the storm and plunges through the flood and suffers hunger and thirst and nakedness and cold. For thus magnanimously recoiling from unjust usurpation he is branded as a fugitive, and hunted through our free states with all the fierceness of savage barbarity, while no measures are adopted to procure the repeal of these unrighteous decrees. Oh when in this proud republic God maketh inquisition for blood, when he remembereth the cry of the humble—where shall we appear? will not the language be uttered against us "the land is full of blood; the iniquity is exceeding great, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head."

Nor is the