tianity was not. And while the system itself is a great fact, its influence, its happy uplifting influence on people is undoubted. We do not say that all which is called Christianity has secured such results. But we say that the Christianity of the New Testament is adapted to bless the life that now is, and that it does this where it is purely and uncorruptedly carried out. Our understanding, our heart, and our conscience unite to commend to you the teaching of Jesus Christ. Take a New Testament, read it, meditate upon it, and you will find in it the strength in which young men glory and the wisdom which is needful to direct. My hopes for the industry of all nations rest mainly on the Gospel of Christ being preached to all nations. SELECT LECTURES. VI. Man and his Masters. BY JOHN B. GOUGH, ESQ. DELIVERED BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, IN EXETER HALL, LONDON, IN THE WINTER COURSE FOR 1854-5. VI. Man and his Masters. THE HE subject that has been appointed for me to speak upon is one that is very, very suggestive. It seems as if a mine of thought was opened before us; and I hardly know where to begin, or what to say. I have not come before you to give you a literary entertainment or an intellectual feast. I have come before you, young men, to say something, if I may be able, God helping me, to inspire you with some higher idea of the dignity of your manhood than you had when you came into the house. "Man and his masters!" What is man as God has made him the Triune God-giving him a body fearfully and wonderfully made, and which he alone can purify, till it shall be the fit temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; a mind capable of appreciating the greatness of the infinite God in the atoms through the microscope, and in the rolling worlds through the telescope; and a soul capable of loving him, "and with the strong wings of faith and love building its nest under the very eaves of heaven!" Man, standing up in the godlike attitude of a man, lifting his forehead to the stars-to whom power and dominion have been given-who has been crowned nature's king; man, with the faculty of looking right up into the heavens; man, with a destiny set before him vast as eternity, and large as infinity; man, glorious in the image of God, what is he, fallen and debased as he is by sin? As he stands upright in the freedom and the dignity of his manhood, he is a glorious being, but "little lower than the angels;" but, in the weakness of his humanity, he is exposed to influences which may debase him below the level of the brute creation. The very gifts and endowments which dignify his nature may be the sources of his degradation. Man, glorious man, may live only as a minister of evil. Man, born for immortality, may find his end in "the blackness of darkness forever." Then we contemplate, if you please, man and his masters. And in the whole history of the world, how have we seen man, glorious man, debasing himself to servitude! What servitude! We pity the abject beings who are reduced to slavery by the power of a master; 0, how we pity them! How the flood of our sympathy seems to pour forth in behalf of the downtrodden and oppressed! I remember how my heart ached, in going down the James river, and seeing a company of men-yes, men, but made chattels by man's agency-as they clustered together on the forward deck of the canal boat. They were singing in a low tone, and I came up near them. It was one of the negro refrains. One of them said, "Whar we going? Whar we going?" The other said, "Ah! we're sold, we're sold, and we're going away to Alabama;" and my eyes filled with tears as I looked upon them, debased and degraded by slavery, ay, the slavery of a master. And when you hear of the wild free spirit that will not be tamed-when you hear of the man bursting his shackles, and, through trial and misfortune, and pain, and anguish, hunted, bayed at, persecuted, peeled, standing up again free from |