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he was surprised to see him sit ting in his virandah with his gun in his hand, earnestly watching a slave in the court, who was looking up at him with great emotion, as if meditating an escape. By and bye the overlooker came and took the slave away. My friend turned to the planter,and asked him what was the matter. He replied, "While I was at breakfast, that Negro came and delivered himself up, telling me that he had run away from my plantation, to avoid a threatened flogging, but that, as he had returned voluntarily, he hoped I would intercede with the overseer and get him excused. I told him I seldom interfered with the overseer, but would send and inquire into the circumstances. I sent for him, but the Negro in the mean time, appre hending the result, looked as if he would dart off into the woods. I ordered my gun, and if he had attempted to stir, I should have been obliged to shoot him dead; for there is no other way of enforcing obedience and subordination."

A very short time since, a cruel wealthy planter tried to work his slaves half the night as well as the whole of the day. They remonstrated with the overseer and became refractory, on which the planter undertook to controul them. He took his seat on the trunk of a tree to inspect them, with his gun in his hand to shoot the first who should shrink. About twelve o'clock at night he fell asleep. The slaves seized his gun, shot him, and burnt him to ashes on the fires which he was compelling them to make at midnight, of the wood they were employed in clearing. The case was so glaring, and the planter's cruelty so notorious, that the matter was hushed up as well as it could be, and the slaves were not punished; though while at Charleston I saw an account of a young Negro woman being burnt to death in South Carolina the week before, for murdering her master. An acquaintance of mine told me he was staying at

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the time at an inn in the neighbourhood, from which many of the company went to see the horrid spectacle. On so serious a subject as this, I am particularly guarded in mentioning to you nothing for which I have not unquestionable authority. The following fact rests on the evidence of my own senses. At a dining party of five or six gentlemen, I heard one of the guests, who is reputed a respectable planter, say, in the course of conversation, that he shot at one of his slaves last year with intent to kill him for running away; that on another occasion finding that two runaway slaves had taken refuge on his plantation, he invited some of his friends out of town to dinner and a frolic; that after dinner they went out to hunt the slaves, and hearing a rustling in the reeds or canes in which they believed them to be concealed," they all fired at their game, but unfortunately missed." Does not your blood curdle? Yet he did not appear to be sensible that he was telling any thing extraordinary, nor to understand the silence of astonishment and horror. I could extend this sad recital; but why should I harrow up your feelings? No incident could supply, indeed imagination could scarcely conceive, a more striking and decisive proof than is afforded by the last anecdote of the degree to which the Negro is degraded in the public estimation. If any place is allotted to him in the scale of humanity, it is so low, and so distant from that occupied by his White brethren, as for the most part to exclude him from their sympathy. Experience proves, what reason would anticipate, that it is impossible to regard the same objects one moment as merchandize or cattle, and the next as fellowmen. The planter whom example and habit have led to believe, that he must render the Negro industrious by the use of the lash, and obedient by shooting the refractory, acts as you and I should probably

have acted under similar circumstances; but is not that a horrible system which can so eradicate from men of education and liberal attainments all fellow-feeling for their kind? Nothing but familiarity with the degradation and sufferings of the Negroes could induce their White masters, many of whom are respectable, liberal, and humane in the ordinary relations of life, to tolerate the constant use of the lash. You continually see the overseer stalking about with his long lash whip, while the poor slaves are toiling with little rest or respite from morn to night-for here I observe they seem to work many hours longer than in Carolina. A friend told me, that while walking on the Levée at New Orleans, he has distinctly heard the successive lashes on the back of a poor slave on the other side of the Mississippi, which is half a-mile across. Another friend, who was riding with me here, told me, that one evening lately spending a night at the house of a planter who was from home, the planter's wife said how glad she was to see him, as she was just going to flog one of her slaves, and he would be kind enough to save her the trouble. My friend, however, who was from the north, had not been accustomed to the office of executioner, and did not choose to take the hint, broad as it was. The lady resumed the subject before supper, and again as soon as the cloth was drawn, when my friend told her he could not think of complying with her wishes. She was extremely offended, and evinced her displeasure so openly, that had there been another house within a few miles, my friend would have withdrawn. Before bed time, however, another traveller arrived, to whom the lady complained aloud of the ungentlemanly conduct of her first guest, who in common courtesy undertook to lacerate Cato's back, without inquiring into his offence. You will not wonder, after these details, that a White man

considers it a degradation to eat with a Black one; and that if you take a White servant to a planter's or an inn, he is obliged to have separate meals; and, where it is practicable, an apartment separate from the Black servants. I remember that as the mail stopped in Virginia and Carolina, I generally saw a little White boy stuffed in one corner; and for a long time without being particularly struck with the circumstance. At last, something leading me to inquire into the cause, I found there was a law prohibiting the mail bags being entrusted to a Black man. Now, as the coachmen were Negroes, this little lad was stuffed in, as a matter of form, as the nominal White guard of the United States' mail bags,

And who are these fellow-creatures who are thus degraded below the level of their kind; and what is the crime which is visited with the atrocious cruelties I have detailed? Are they cannibals, who have invaded these peaceful regions to massacre and devour its inhabitants? monsters whom no bonds of amity can restrain from rapine and devastation, whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand, therefore, of necessity and in self-defence against them? No, my friend: they are the simple, docile, unof fending natives of a distant land, whose colour is their crime, and who have been torn from their kindred and their country by stratagem and force. They are the people of whom Mungo Park observes, after alluding to those traces of our general depravity which are to be found among the Negroes as much as in every other branch of the human family; "It is impossible for me to forget the disinterested charity and tender solicitude of many of these poor heathens, from the sovereign of Sego to the poor women who received me at different times into their cottages when I was perishing with hunger, sympathized with me in my sufferings, relieved my distresses, and contri

buted to my safety. This acknowledgment, however, is more particularly due to the female part of the nation. In all my wanderings and wretchedness, I have found them uniformly kind and compassionate; and I can truly say, as my predecessor, Mr. Ledyard, has eloquently said before me, To a Negroe woman I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship without receiving a decent and friendly answer. If I was hungry and thirsty, wet or sick, they did not hesitate, like the men, to perform a generous action. In so free and kind a manner did they contribute to my relief, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry I eat the coarsest morsel, with a double relish."

These are the people whose progressive improvement will, I hope, ere long, vindicate the prophetic strain of one of our most beautiful and devotional poets:

But his mother's eye That gazes on him from her warmest sky, Sees in his flexile limbs untutored grace, Power on his forehead, beauty in his face; Sees in his breast where lawless passions rove, The heart of friendship, and the home of love; Sees in his mind, where desolation reigns, Fierce as his clime, uncultured as his plains, A soil where virtue's fairest flowers might shoot, And trees of science bend with glorious fruit; Sees in his soul involved in thickest night, An emanation of eternal light, Ordained midst sinking worlds his dust to fire, And shine for ever when the stars expire.

But I must lay down my pen for the present; though I have much more to say on the subject, and shall resume it before I leave this place. I am, &c.

(To be continued.)

Tothe Editor of the Christian Observer. YOUR readers were early apprized by your learned correspondent, T. Y. S., in your volume for 1820, p. 162, of the discovery made by Angelo Maï in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, of various ancient classical fragments, particularly the principal part of the last work of Cicero de Republica, upon palimpseste manuscripts, — manuscripts

of which the ancient writing had been obliterated, though not completely, to furnish vellum for the transcription of other productions. Some further discoveries of a similar kind in the Vatican Library were noticed in the Christian Observer for 1820, p. 129. But the most interesting of these discoveries are large portions of the Gothic version of the Scriptures. The particulars are detailed by Signor Maï, and his colleague Signor Castillionæi, in a work lately published at Milan, entitled, "Ulphilæ partium ineditarum, in Ambrosi anis palimpsestis, repertarum, specimen, &c." This publication is in Latin, and necessarily expensive; and very few copies have found their way to this country. Your readers, therefore, may not be displeased to see the following abridged account of this part of its contents taken from Mr. Horne's valuable "Supplementary Pages" to the third edition of his "Introduction to the Critical Study of the Scriptures," just published. Mr. Horne has accompanied his description by a very interesting and well-executed fac-simile of one of these codices' rescripti.

The researches of M. Maï and his colleague have been rewarded with the discovery of five Codices Rescripti, containing portions of the Gothic version. They are as follow.

1. The first of these Gothic manuscripts consists of 204 pages, quarto, on vellum. The latter writing contains the Homilies of Gregory the Great on the Prophecies of Ezekiel, and from the character must have been executed before the eighth century. Beneath this, in a more ancient Gothic hand, are contained the following Epistles of St. Paul: Romans, 1st and 2d of Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2d of Timothy, Titus, and Philemon; with a fragment of the Gothic calendar. Several of these Epistles are entire; of others only

fragments remain. The manuscript is apparently written by two different copyists; one of whom wrote more beautifully and correctly than the other; and various readings, in a smaller hand, may occasionally be traced in the margin. Entire leaves have been turned upside down by the re-transcriber.

2. The second manuscript, also quarto vellum, contains 156 pages. The Latin writing on it is of the eighth or ninth century, and comprises Jerome's exposition of Isaiah. Under this has been discovered, though with difficulty, on account of the thickness of the Latin characters and the blackness of the ink, the Gothic version of the Corinthians, 1st and 2d Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians (1st and 2d), and Titus.

3. The third manuscript is a quarto Latin volume, containing the comedies of Plautus, and Seneca's tragedies of Medea and Edipus. Under these Signor Maï has discovered fragments of the two books of the Kings, Ezra, and Nehemiah. This discovery is the more valuable, not only because not the smallest portion of the Gothic version of the Old Testament was known to be in existence; but because it refutes an idle tale repeated by Gibbon after preceding writers; namely, that Ulphilas suppressed the four books of Kings, lest they should tend to excite the fierce and sanguinary temper of his countrymen.

4. The fourth specimen is a single sheet, small quarto, containing four pages of St. John's Gospel, in Latin; under which are found the very fragments of the 25th, 26th, and 27th chapters of St. Matthew which are wanting in the celebrated manuscript of the Gothic Gospels preserved at Upsal, and usually known by the name of the Codex Argenteus.

5. The fifth is a volume of the proceedings of a council of Chalcedon, under which have been dis

covered fragments of ancient authors, and a fragment of a Gothic Homily, in which several passages of the Gospels are cited, apparently in a translation from some of the Greek fathers. D.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THAT prudence is essential to the completeness of the Christian character, will not be denied. He who bestowed upon His people "the spirit of power and of love," was also mercifully pleased to endue them with " a sound mind." And, as the great Apostle was himself preeminently distinguished by "sound wisdom and discretion," so he successfully employed every instrument to conciliate the Jew, and to attract the Gentile.

There is one department of religious prudence, to which the attention of your readers has not, to the best of my recollection, been called by your numerous correspondents. I allude to the recommendation of religious books to persons avowedly kostile to the genuine spirit of (hristianity, or who may be said like Gallio,to "care for none of these things." I have myself perceived, in more than one instance, the unhappy effects of furnishing a friend or relation, with a "serious book," without first considering how far it may be calculated, by the blessing of God, to engage his attention, to soften his prejudices, and to "win" his mind to "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord." In the cases to which I allude, either the bluntness of the phraseology, the coarseness extravagance of the illustration, or the frequent use of such " experimental" terms (not to mention those which partake of a controversial character) as are wholly unintelligible to any but the established and advanced Christian, have at once repelled the reader, even before he could be said to have had the doctrine, which the well-meaning author intended to

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maintain, fairly represented to him. So that it might, perhaps, be justly said, that it was not so much the essential principles of Christianity as the peculiar form which they assumed in an injudicious publication, that proved offensive to the mind of the reader, and defeated the salutary intention of his friend.

It may be replied, that "the things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to the natural man," and that this fact will sufficiently explain the circumstances which I have just stated. This proposition I fully admit in its fair scriptural extent; but I cannot assent to the conclusion intended to be derived from it. If of two treatises which develop with equal clearness and fidelity "the truth as it is in Jesus," the one is better calculated than the other to remove prejudices and to excite attention, doubtless an irreligious friend should be presented with that which is the more conciliatory and striking. In general, perhaps, those works which convey the doctrines of the Fallthe Crucifixion Justification by grace through faith-the renovation of the soul by "the power of the Holy Spirit," and, in a word, all that may unite the heart in love and gratitude to the Redeemer through the medium of a biogra

phical memoir an historical narrative a book of travels, or interesting Christian poetry,—are more likely to gain admittance to the prejudiced or thoughtless mind, than publications which exhibit the same Divine truths in an express didactic form. For instance, the Christian Researches of a Buchanan or Jowett, or the Memoirs of Henry Martyn or Kirke White, are more likely, by the blessing of Him without whom nothing is strong or holy, to engage the affections of the youthful, or to soften the asperities of the prejudiced, mind, than Law's "Serious Call," or "Alleine'sAlarm,” or many excellent treatises which enter deeply into the spiritual life, warfare, and triumph of the matured Christian. Nor should we forget that even the classical predilections of an irreligious friend may very innocently guide our choice of a religious book to be presented to him.

I will only, in conclusion, recommend to the consideration of your readers, in reference to their conduct with worldly relatives and friends, that "He that winneth souls is wise;" together with the practice of an Apostle, "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat." Πισις.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Conversation of our Saviour with Nicodemus illustrated; a Sermon, preached June 20, 1821, before the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of Massachusetts; with Notes, and an Appendix on Regeneration. By S. F. JARVIS, D.D. Rector of St. Paul's, Boston. Boston. 1822. pp. 76.

WE should scarcely perhaps be justified in reviewing the discourse

of Dr. Jarvis, if it were not from the great importance of the question which it involves, and our desire of marking from time to time the progress of the controversy respecting it. The sermon itself is not, we think, remarkably striking in its arguments, or clear in its arrangement; but it is followed by an appendix which contains some truly valuable observations, and the whole publication assumes a higher importance from its expressing, as we

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