LESSON L. Influence of Slavery.-JEFFERSON. There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave, is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions-the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave, he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive, either in his philanthropy or self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one, that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry is also destroyed. For in a warm elimate, no man will labor for himself, who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves, a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be Doubtless, doût'lês, undoubtedly. Slavery, involuntary servitude. -Commerce, intercourse, connection, mutual trade. Restraining, curbing, keeping under. .Intemperance. What is the primitive? What are other derivatives? What should be a sufficient reason for restraining passion? Is it generally sufficient? Lineaments, lin'nè-â-mênts, features, lines. -Airs, light songs, looks, appearances, mein, manner. .Tyranny, tir'rân-nè, absolute monarchy, despotism. -Stamped, pounded, coined, impressed, crushed. Odious, o'dè-ûs, or, o'jè-ůs, hateful, unpleasant, disgusting, -Prodigy, prod' dè-jè, omen, portent, monster, uncommon person. Manners, habits, traits of social character. .Execration, detestation, scorn, curse, abhorrence. Country, nation, beloved land, native soil. Can the slave love the country in which he is a slave? Lock up, shut up, keep from view, confine. Faculties of his nature, powers of his mind, genius. Evanishment, annihilation, destruction, escaping from notice. Entail, give in inheritance, bequeath. Must not this be complete wretchedness? What is destroyed besides the morals of the people ? What are the effects of a warm climate on industry? Is it just to make you labor for another without pay ? thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that their liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events -that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. But it is impossible to be temperate and pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating-that of the slave, rising from the dust-his condition mollifying; the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation; and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extermination. LESSON LI. The Complaint of a Dying Year; an allegory.—HEN DERSON. Reclining on a couch of fallen leaves, wrapped in a fleecy mantle, with withered limbs, hoarse voice, and snowy beard, appears a venerable old man. His pulse beats feebly, his breath becomes shorter; he exhibits every mark of approaching dissolution. ;* and as This is old Eighteen Hundred and every class of readers will remember him a young man, as rosy and blithesome as themselves, they will, perhaps, feel interested in hearing some of his dying expressions, with a few particulars of his past life. His existence is still likely to be prolonged a few days by the presence of his daughter December, the last and sole survivor of Can liberty be taken from man without incurring the wrath of God? Why not? Because liberty is the gift of God to every man. Numbers. What is the present number of slaves? Nature, natural means, leaving out of view God's providence. Revolution, turning over, change. Wheel of fortune, change of circumstances, in allusion to the fickleness of fortune. Supernatural, almighty, what is above natural means. Interference, direct expression of Divine displeasure. Considerations, arguments, things to be considered. Take side, join us, be on our part. Policy, expediency, political expediency. Civil. How do natural and civil history differ? Revolution, American revolution, separation from Mollifying, softening, growing more gentle. Auspices, âw'spis-ês, favor, direction, superintend ence. Emancipation, freedom, deliverance from bondage, -Disposed, willing, desirous, arranged. Did Mr. Jefferson think it probable that the slaves will be emancipated? Extermination, destruction, utter excision. Allegory. See Appendix. Reclining, resting, reposing, bending, leaning. Couch, bed, place of repose. Snowy, white, abounding with snow, like the snow. Pulse, motion of the artery as the blood passes through it, vibration. Dissolution, death, act of dissolving. Old Eighteen. What is the year represented to be? *The reader will fill up this blank with the proper year. .Blithesome, bliтH'sům, gay, cheerful, sportive. Dying expressions, expressions uttered when dying, Particulars, events, notices, circumstances. Prolonged, protracted, continued, made long. Survivor, one who outlives another. The derivation? his twelve fair children; but it is thought the father and daughter will expire together. The following are some of the expressions taken down, as they fell from his dying lips :-"I am," said he, "the son of old father Time, and the last of a numerous progeny; for he he had no less than five thousand eight hundred and of us, but it has ever been his fate to see one child expire before another was born. It is the opinion of some, that his own constitution is beginning to break up, and that, when he has given birth to a hundred or two more of us, his family will be complete, and then he himself will be Here the old year called for his account book, and turned over the pages with a sorrowful eye. He has kept, it appears, an accurate account of the moments, minutes, hours, and months which he has issued, and subjoining in some places memorandums of the uses to which they have been applied; and of the losses he has sustained. These particulars, it would be too tedious to detail, and perhaps the recollection of the reader may furnish them as well or better; but we must notice one circumstance ;-upon turning to a certain page in his accounts, the old man was affected—and the tears streamed down his furrowed cheeks as he examined it. was the register of the forty-eight Sundays which he had issued; and which, of all the wealth he had to dispose of, had been, it appears, the most scandalously wasted. "These," said he, "were my most precious gifts. I had but fifty-two of them to bestow. Alas! how lightly have they been esteemed !" This "I Here upon referring back to certain old memorandums, he found a long list of vows and resolutions, which had a particular reference to the fifty-two Sundays. This, with a great emotion of grief and anger, he tore into a hundred pieces, and threw them on the embers by which he was endeavoring to warm his shivered limbs. feel, however," said he, "more pity than indignation towards these offenders, since they were far greater enemies to themselves than to me. But there are a few outrageous ones, by whom I have been defrauded of so much of my substance, that it is difficult to think of them with patience, particularly that notorious thief, Procras |