father or a mother have no pleasure in looking on the green sod that should cover the grave of an infant child, compared with the thought that he might be groaning under the lash in a distant land of bondage? And can the things ordained in this Christian land professedly to keep the slaves in bondage, and to prevent a possibility of their asserting their freedom, be less offensive to God than were similar things among the heathen of Egypt?

(5.) There is a resemblance between Egyptian and American slavery, in a remarkable feature, which has always perplexed those who have written on the subject of population-the increase of those who are oppressed. The growth of the Hebrews in Egypt, compared with the native population, was such as to lead to the apprehension that they would ultimately have power to bring the country under their own control. Ex. i. 7, 9. It was particularly alarming that the more they were oppressed the more they increased. Ex. i. 12. It became necessary, therefore, to resort to additional measures of rigor, to prevent their becoming so numerous as to endanger the government. Ex. i. 11, 14, 16. The similarity between this increase and that of the slaves in our own country, is such that it cannot fail to have arrested the attention of all those who have ever looked at slavery. It is sufficient, on this point, merely to refer to the undisputed fact. The increase of the population in the free states, from 1830 to 1840, was at the rate of 38 per cent., while the increase of the free population of the slave states was only 23 per cent. A single statement will show the progressive advance of the slaves over the free population of some of those states.

In 1790, the whites in North Carolina were to the slaves, 2.80 to 1; now as 1.97 to 1.

From this it is apparent that, in spite of all the oppressions

and cruelties of slavery; of all the sales that are effected; of all the removals to Liberia; and of all the removals by the escape of the slaves, there is a regular gain of the slave population over the free, in the slaveholding states. No oppression prevents it here more than it did in Egypt, and there can be no doubt whatever that unless slavery shall be arrested in some way, the increase is so certain that the period is not far distant when, in all the slave states, the free whites will be far in the minority. At the first census, taken in 1790, in every slave state there was a very large majority of whites. At the last census, in 1840, the slaves outnumbered the whites in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisi

ana.

The tendency of this, from causes which it would be easy to state, can be arrested by nothing but emancipation.

(6.) There is a striking resemblance in regard to the numbers held in bondage in Egypt, and those now in servitude in this country. When Moses led the children of Israel forth, the number of men, capable of bearing arms, was six hundred thousand. Ex. xii. 37, 38. According to this enrolment, allowing the usual proportion for age, infancy, and the female sex, there were full three millions that had been held in "the iron furnace," in Egypt. Jer. xi. 4. There are in the United States now, according to the census of 1840, 2,486,465 of a foreign race held in bondage. Of these 432,727 are men more than twenty-four years of age, and 391,206 are males between the ages of ten and twenty-four; and probably the number of those capable of bearing arms would be found to be nearly the same as among the Hebrews whom Moses conducted out of Egypt. As in Egypt, also, there is a vast number of women and children, and of the aged and the infirm, held in a state that, in the main, without any poetic colouring, may be called a "furnace of iron."

II. The second inquiry in regard to the servitude in Egypt, is, whether the interposition of God, in that case, was such as to make it proper for us to derive any conclusions as to his will in regard to slavery. He delivered the oppressed with

an “outstretched arm, and with great signs and wonders." Is it right to infer, from this remarkable interposition in the behalf of that people, any thing respecting his views in cases of similar oppression? Is the case sufficiently parallel to lay the foundation of an argument on the principle on which we are accustomed to appeal to the dispensations of Providence and the course of events? We judge of the divine will in relation to intemperance, not only from the declarations in the Bible, but from the wo and sorrow, the poverty, rags, and disease, which God in his Providence brings upon the drunkard. Is it right, on similar principles, to judge of his sentiments on the subject of slavery, from one of the most direct and remarkable interpositions of heaven in human affairs, which has ever occurred? Here stands in his word the record of these great and wonderful facts in history -millions of slaves delivered by direct divine interposition; a series of most overwhelming calamities on those who held them in bondage; frequent allusions to the event in the subsequent inspired writings; a mighty arm stretched out from heaven to conduct the oppressed and the down-trodden to a land of freedom. What are we to infer from these things? Did God regard that; does he regard a similar institution now, as a good arrangement, and as one on which he is disposed to smile, and which he desires should be perpetuated for the good of mankind? Let the following facts in the

case be considered:

(1.) It would have been as just for the Egyptians to retain the Hebrews in bondage, as it is for white Americans to retain the African race. All the right in either case is derived from mere power. In the case of the Egyptians, it could not be pretended that they had a right to enslave the nation because they had purchased Joseph some hundreds of years before; and as little can the right to enslave the posterity of the Africans be founded on the fact that their ancestors were purchased in Congo. It could not be pretended that they had a right to enslave them because they

were a foreign race, or were of different complexion; and as little can the plea be set up to vindicate the retaining of the African in bondage. If the vindication of slavery now should be set up on that ground, it would be difficult to see why it would not apply in the case of the Hebrews as well as of the African race; nay, it would be difficult to see why this might not be imbodied in a general principle-that all foreigners, of a different complexion from our own, may be lawfully enslaved. Further; if the right to retain the African race in bondage be based on the laws of the land, the same plea might have been urged in the case of the Hebrews. Under the authority of Pharaoh, it had become the law of the land that the Hebrews should be held to servitude. If it be further urged that it is difficult to free the slaves in this country; that emancipation might be attended with peril to the master; that to let loose two millions and a half of slaves from a state of deep degradation might be fraught with dangerous consequences, the same thing might have been urged with equal force in regard to the servitude in Egypt. The simple truth is, that the sole claim in either case is founded in power, and that is just the same in the one instance as the other. The Egyptians had power to enslave the Hebrews, and they did it; the American has power to hold the African in bondage, and he does it. The right is as clear in the one case as in the other; and if God approves of slavery as it exists now in this land, he must have approved the same thing in Egypt.

Will it be said that the Hebrews were his chosen people, and that he was especially displeased with the Egyptians, not because the oppression was itself wrong, but because they oppressed his friends? And are not the Africans his people, (Acts xvii. 26;) and is there any thing that more certainly excites the sympathy and compassion of God, than the fact that an individual or a community is trodden by the foot of violence to the earth?

Will it be alleged that there is a difference in the two

r

cases, because the slaves in Egypt were held not by individuals but by the government, and that there was no claim of property in them-that they were not bought and sold as chattels and as things? If this is alleged, the case is not affected. God may be as little displeased that the head of a nation or a government should do wrong, as an individual. Besides, if it be alleged that the cases are not parallel because the Hebrews were not held as chattels and as things, this is all the worse for the American slaveholder; for, from this very fact, slavery here must be just so much more offensive to God than it was in Egypt. In all the acts of Egyptian oppression; in the heavy tasks imposed; in the grievous burdens laid on the Hebrews; in the murder by authority of law of all their male children, the refinement of cruelty was never thought of which has become essential in American slaverythat of reducing a man to a chattel; an immortal soul to a thing. The Hebrews were oppressed men, they were not chattels and things. And if God frowned upon slavery as it was then; if he brought ten successive judgments upon a heathen nation in order to express his abhorrence of the system, and to deliver an enslaved people, is it not right to infer that he has at least as deep feelings of indignation against a system of deeper degradation and oppression in a Christian land?

(2.) The divine declarations in regard to Egyptian bondage, and all the expressions of disapprobation of what occurred in Egypt, are applicable to the system of things in this country. No one can pretend that God approved of servitude as it was in Egypt, or that the measures which were adopted to perpetuate it were pleasing in his sight. The heavy burdens; the withholding of the material for work, and yet exacting the full amount which had been before required; the murder of the male children; and the entire series of acts designed to keep them from insurrection, and to prevent their joining an enemy, are all recorded with expressions of decided disapprobation. And can we suppose that God will be pleased.