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mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.

Whereupon as I went to Damascus, with authority and commission from the chief priests, at mid-day, O king! I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me, and them that journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me and saying, in the Hebrew tongue, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goads." And I said, "Who art thou, lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest; but arise and stand upon thy feet; for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee à minister, and a witness both of these things thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from this people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." Whereupon, O king Agrippa! I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but shewed first to them of Damascus and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea; and then to the Gentiles, that should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come, that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto this people, and to the Gentiles.

And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said, with a loud voice, "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad." But he said,

I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth

the words of truth and soberness: for the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa! believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." And Paul said,—

I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether, such as I am, except these bonds.

Section II.

SENTENCE PASSED BY JUDGE WILDS, ON JOHN SLATER, FOR THE INHUMAN MURDER OF HIS SLAVE, IN JANUARY 1806.

John Slater, you have been convicted, by a Jury of your country, of the wilful murder of your own slave; and I am sorry to say, the short, impressive, uncontradictory testimony, on which that conviction. was founded, leaves but too little room to doubt its propriety.

The annals of human depravity might be safely challenged, for a parallel to this unfeeling, bloody, and diabolical transaction.

You caused your unoffending, unresisting slave to be bound hand and foot, by a refinement in cruelty, compelled his companion, perhaps, the friend of his heart, to chop off his head with an axe; and to cast his body, yet convulsed with the agonies of death into the water! And this deed you dared to perpetrate in the harbour of Charleston, within a few yards of the shore, unblushingly in the face of open day.

Had your murderous arm been raised against your equal, whom the laws of self defence, and the more

efficacious laws of the land, unite to protect, your crime would not have been without precedent, and would have seemed less horrid. Your personal risque would at least have proved, that though a murderer you were no coward. But, you too well knew, that this unfortunate man, whom chance had subjected to your caprice, had not, like yourself, chartered to him by the laws of the land, the sacred rights of nature; and that a stern but necessary policy, had disarmed him of the rights of self-defence:

Too

well you knew, that to you alone he could look for protection, and that your arm alone could shield him from insult, or avenge his wrongs; yet that arm you cruelly stretched out for his destruction.

The counsel, who generously volunteered his services in your behalf, shocked at the enormity of your offence, endeavoured to find a refuge, as well for his own feelings, as for those of all who heard your trial, in a derangement of your intellect. Several witnesses were examined to establish this fact, but the result of their testimony, it is apprehended, was as little satisfactory to his mind, as to those of the Jury, to whom it was addressed: I sincerely wish this defence had proved successful; not from any desire to save you from the punishment which awaits you, and which you so richly merit; but from the desire of saving my country from the foul reproach, of having in its bosom so great a monster.

From the peculiar situation of this country, our fathers felt themselves justified, in subjecting to a very slight punishment, the man who murders a slave: Whether the present state of society requires a continuation of this policy, so opposite to the apparent rights of humanity, it remains for a subsequent legislature to decide. Their attention, would long ere this have been directed to this subject; but, for the honour of human nature, such hardened sinners as yourself, are rarely found, to disturb the repose of society; the grand Jury of this district, deeply impressed with your daring outrage against the laws

both of God and Man, made a very strong expression of their feelings on this subject to the legislature; and from the wisdoin and justice of that body, the friends of humanity may confidently hope soon to see this blackest in the catalogue of human crimes, pursued with appropriate punishment.

In proceeding to pass the sentence, which the law provided for your defence, I confess, I never felt more forcibly the want of power, to make respected the laws of my country whose minister I am. You have already violated the majesty of those lawsyou have profanely pleaded, the law under which you stand convicted as a justification of your crimeyou have held that law in one hand, and brandished your bloody axe in the other, impiously contending that the one gave a licence to the unconstrained use of the other.

But though you will go off unhurt in person by the present sentence, expect not to escape with impunity: your bloody deed has set a mark upon you, which I fear the good actions of your life will not efface. You will be held in abhorrence by an impartial world, and shunned as a monster by every honest manyour unoffending posterity will be visited for your iniquity, by the stigma of deriving their origin from an unfeeling murderer your days which will be few, will be spent in wretchedness; and, if your conscience is not steeled against every virtuous emotion; if you be not entirely abandoned to hardness of heart, the mangled, and mutilated corpse of your murdered slave will be ever present in your imagination: obtruding itself into all your amusements, and haunting you in the house of silence and repose.

But should you not regard the reproaches of an offended world; should you bear with callous insensibility the gnawing of a guilty conscience; yet remember! I charge you remember! that an awful period is fast approaching, and with you is close at hand when you must appear before a tribunal, whose want of power can afford you no prospect of impuni

ty; when you must raise your bloody hands at the bar of an impartial, omnipotent judge! Remember! I pray you remember! whilst you have time, that God is just, and that his vengeance will not sleep for

ever.

Section III.

Speech dictated by Doctor Johnson in defence of a school-master, in Scotland, charged with severity in the chastisement of his scholars, who had been deprived of his office by an inferior court, and afterwards restored by the court of Session; the court considering it to be dangerous to the interests of learning and education, to lessen the dig-· nity of teachers, and make them afraid of too indulgent parents, instigated by the complaints of their children; which was appealed against by his enemies to the House of Lords.

.

The charge is, that he has used immoderate and cruel correction :-Correction in itself is not cruel; yet as good things become evil by excess, correction, by being immoderate, may become cruel. But when is correction immoderate? When is it more frequent, or more severe than is required for reformation and instruction? No severity is cruel which obstinacy makes necessary; for the greatest cruelty would be to desist, and leave the scholar too careless for instruction, and too much hardened for reproof. Locke, in his treatise on education, mentions a mother, with applause who corrected her child eight times before she subdued it; for had she stopped at the seventh act of correction, her daughter, says he, would have been ruined.

The degrees of obstinacy in young minds are very different as different must be the degrees of persevering severity. A stubborn scholar must be cor

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