injustice. How great, then, must be the injustice when such a doom is inflicted, not upon criminals convicted of atrocious wickedness, but upon men, women, and children who have never been accused of any crime, and against whom there is not even the suspicion of guilt! Can any moral creature of God be innocent that inflicts such punishment upon his fellow-creatures who have never done any thing to deserve it? I ask, what have those poor, defenceless, and undefended black men done, that they and their children forever should thus be consigned to hopeless servitude? If they have done nothing, how can we be innocent if we inflict such punishment upon them? But yet more. The spirit of Christianity, if I understand it aright, teaches us not merely the principles of pure and elevated justice, but those of the most tender and all-embracing charity. The Captain of our salvation was anointed "to preach the gospel to the poor; he was sent to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised." "He is the comforter of them that are cast down." Can the disciple of such a Saviour, then, inflict the least, how much less the greatest of punishments upon a human being who has never been guilty of a crime that should deserve it?

THE TRUE GOSPEL MINISTRY.

It so chanced that, at the close of the last war with Great Britain, I was temporarily a resident of the city of New York. The prospects of the nation were shrouded in gloom. We had been for two or three years at war with the mightiest nation on earth, and, as she had now concluded a peace with the continent of Europe, we were obliged to cope with her single-handed. Our harbors were blockaded. Communication coast-wise, between our ports, was cut off. Our ships were rotting in every creek and cove where they could find a place of security. Our immense annual products were moulding in our warehouses. The sources of profitable labor were dried up. Our currency was reduced to irredeemable paper. The extreme portions of our country were becoming hostile to each other, and differences of political opinion were embittering the peace of every household. The credit of the Government was exhausted. No one could predict when the contest would terminate, or discover the means by which it could much longer be protracted.

It happened that, on a Saturday afternoon in February, a ship was discovered in the offing, which was supposed to be a cartel, bringing home our commissioners at Ghent, from their unsuccess ful mission. The sun had set gloomily, before any intelligence from the vessel had reached the city. Expectation became pain

fully intense as the hours of darkness drew on. At length a boat reached the wharf, announcing the fact that a treaty of peace had been signed, and was waiting for nothing but the action of our Government to become a law. The men on whose ears these words first fell rushed in breathless haste into the city, to repeat them to their friends, shouting, as they ran through the streets, Peace! peace! peace! Every one who heard the sound repeated it. From house to house, from street to street, the news spread with electric rapidity. The whole city was in commotion. Men bearing lighted torches were flying to and fro, shouting like mad men, Peace! peace! peace! When the rapture had partially subsided, one idea occupied every mind. But few men slept that night. In groups they were gathered in the streets and by the fireside, beguiling the hours of midnight by reminding each other that the agony of war was over, and that a worn-out and distracted country was about to enter again upon its wonted career of prosperity. Thus, every one becoming a herald, the news soon reached every man, woman, and child in the city, and in this sense the city was evangelized. All this you see was reasonable and proper. But when Jehovah has offered to our world a treaty of peace, when men doomed to hell may be raised to seats at the right hand of God, why is not a similar zeal displayed in proclaiming the good news? Why are men perishing all around us, and no one has ever personally offered to them salvation through a crucified Redeemer?

But who is thus to preach the gospel? What would be the answer to this question, if we listen to the voice of common humanity? When the brazen serpent was lifted up, who was to carry the good news throughout the camp? When the glad tidings of peace arrived in the city, who was to proclaim it to his fellow-citizens? When the news of peace with God, through the blood of the covenant, is proclaimed to us, who shall make it known to those perishing in sin? The answer in each case is, every one. Were no command given, the common principles of our nature would teach us that nothing but the grossest selfishness would claim to be exempted from the joyful duty of extending to others the blessing which we have received ourselves.

But let us see how the apostles themselves understood the precept. Their own narrative shall inform us. "At that time there was a great persecution against the church that was at Jerusalem, and they were scattered abroad throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." "Therefore, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word." These men were not apostles, nor even original disciples of Christ; for they were men of Cyprus and Cyrene. Yet they went everywhere preaching the word, and in so doing they pleased the

Master, for the Holy Spirit accompanied their labors with the blessing from on high. The ascended Saviour thus approved of their conduct, and testified that their understanding of his last command was correct.

Indeed, the Saviour requires every disciple, as soon as he becomes a partaker of divine grace, to become a herald of salvation to his fellow-men; and every man possessed of the gifts for the ministry mentioned in the New Testament is bound to consecrate them to Christ, either in connection with his secular pursuits, or by devoting his whole time to this particular service. If this be so, you see that in the church of Christ there is no ministerial caste; no class elevated in rank above their brethren, on whom devolves the discharge of the more dignified or more honorable portions of Christian labor, while the rest of the disciples are to do nothing but raise the funds necessary for their support. The minister does the same work that is to be done by every other member of the body of Christ; but, since he does it exclusively, he may be expected to do it more to edification. Is it his business to labor for the conversion of sinners and the sanctification of the body of Christ? so is it theirs. In every thing which they do as disciples, he is to be their example. I know that we now restrict to the ministry the administration of the ordinances, and to this rule I think there can be no objection. But we all know that for this restriction we have no example in the New Testament.

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, 1796-1859.

THIS eminent historian was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the 4th of May, 1796. His grandfather was Colonel William Prescott, who, in conjunction with General Putnam, commanded at the battle of Bunker Hill. His father, Hon. William Prescott, was born in Pepperell, Massachusetts, and, after residing in Salem from 1798 to 1808, removed to Boston, where for nearly forty years he practised law, eminently distinguished as a jurist and as one of the wisest and best men Massachusetts has produced.

Our author had the benefit of his early classical training under Dr. Gardner, of Boston, who was a pupil of Dr. Parr; and in 1814 he graduated at Harvard College. It was bis intention to devote himself to the profession of his father, but just before commencement an accident deprived him of one of his eyes, and the other, from sytapathy, became so weak that he could not use it with safety. He spent two years in travelling in England and on the continent, where he consulted the best oculists, but obtained no relief. On his return home, the question presented itself to him, to what he should devote his life. Feeling that profes sional life would make greater requisitions upon the organs of sight than literary

occupation, in which he could make greater use of the eyes of others, he resolved on becoming an historian, and to devote ten years in preparing himself for the works. It was a beautiful sight to see a young man of fortune, whose partial deprivation of sight might have been an excuse for declining all exertion, thus rising above his affliction, and, with an industry that never tired, and a courage that never faltered, toiling day after day and year after year for an end so worthy and so noble.

He selected for his subject the History of Ferdinand and Isabella, one of the few important subjects of European history which had not been fully treated of, and which seemed to invite the hand of a master. This great work appeared in 1838, and was published simultaneously in London and Boston. It was received on both sides of the Atlantic with the highest praise. It has since run through many editions, and been translated into German, Italian, French, and Spanish. This was followed by his Conquest of Mexico, in 1843; and in 1847 appeared his Conquest of Peru. In both of these works he draws largely from manuscript materials received from Spain; both are written in the author's most attractive and brilliant style, and both were followed by the highest and most gratifying success in Europe and America.

In 1850, Mr. Prescott made a short visit to England, where he was received with marked kindness and respect by men most distinguished in society and letters, and where the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor in Civil Law.

He now planned his last, (as it has proved to be,) and most comprehensive work, The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, and collected a large amount of materials for it. But of this he lived to complete and publish only three volumes, comprising about fifteen years of Philip's reign, leaving twenty-eight more to be treated; when his indefatigable labors were cut short by his sudden death. He was seized with apoplexy, at his residence, Beacon Street, Boston, on the 28th of January, 1859, at half-past twelve, and expired at two o'clock.

Mr. Prescott was not only a man of genius and elegant scholarship, who has shed a lustre on the literature of America, but one whose high moral worth, amiable disposition, and charming companionable qualities made him the ornament and delight of every social circle. His death, therefore, was a great loss to society as well as to the nation and the world of letters.2

"Mr. Prescott's work is one of the most successful historical productions of our time. Besides the merits which we have already alluded to, the author possesses one which, in our opinion, is worth all the rest,-that is, impartiality. The inhabitant of another world, he seems to have shaken off all the prejudices of ours: he has written a history without party spirit and without bias of any sort. In word, he has, in every respect, made a most valuable addition to our historical literature."-Edinburgh Review, lxviii. 404.

"An historical work that need hardly fear a comparison with any that has issued from the European press since this century began."-London Quarterly Review, lxiv. 58.

The London "Athenæum," which has rarely of late years praised the work of any American author, devotes five columns to a review of the new volume of Prescott's History of the Reign of Philip the Second. It says, "In no previous compositions has he exhibited, we think, so much sustained, varied, and concen. trated power. The style throughout runs on a high level, but is free from all artificial pomp and rhetorical redundance. It is at once simple, firm, and digni

RETURN OF COLUMBUS.

Great was the agitation in the little community of Palos, as they beheld the well-known vessel of the admiral re-entering their harbor. Their desponding imaginations had long since consigned him to a watery grave; for, in addition to the preternatural horrors which hung over the voyage, they had experienced the most stormy and disastrous winter within the recollection of the oldest mariners. Most of them had relatives or friends on board. They thronged immediately to the shore to assure themselves with their own eyes of the truth of their return. When they beheld their faces once more, and saw them accompanied by the numerous evidences which they brought back of the success of the expedition, they burst forth in acclamations of joy and gratulation. They awaited the landing of Columbus, when the whole population of the place accompanied him and his crew to the principal church, where solemn thanksgivings were offered up for their return; while every bell in the village sent forth a joyous peal in honor of the glorious event. The admiral was too desirous of presenting himself before the sovereigns, to protract his stay long at Palos. He took with him on his journey specimens of the multifarious products of the newly-discovered regions. He was accompanied by several of the native islanders, arrayed in their simple barbaric costume, and decorated, as he passed through the principal cities, with collars, bracelets, and other ornaments of gold, rudely fashioned. He exhibited also considerable quantities of the same metal in dust, or in crude masses, numerous vegetable exotics, possessed of aromatic or medicinal virtue, and several kinds of quadrupeds unknown in Europe, and birds whose varieties of gaudy plumage gave a brilliant effect to the pageant. The admiral's progress through the country was everywhere impeded by the multitudes thronging forth to gaze at the extraordinary spectacle, and the more extraordinary man, who, in the emphatic

fied." The review concludes as follows:-"The genius of Mr. Prescott as a historian has never been exhibited to better advantage than in this very remarkable volume, which is grounded on varied and ample authority."

At a meeting of the New York Historical Society, shortly after Mr. Prescott's death, Mr. Bancroft, the historian, made some feeling and appropriate remarks, from which we select the following:-"Mr. Prescott's personal appearance itself was singularly pleasing, and won for him everywhere, in advance, a welcome and favor. His countenance had something that brought to mind 'the beautiful disdain' that hovers on that of the Apollo. But, while he was high-spirited, he was tender, and gentle, and humane. His voice was like music; and one could never hear enough of it. His cheerfulness reached and animated all about him. He could indulge in playfulness, and could also speak earnestly and profoundly; but he knew not how to be ungracious or pedantic. In truth, the charms of his conversation were unequalled, he so united the rich stores of memory with the ease of one who is familiar with the world."