this wicked traffic, virtually denied that man was a moral being; they substituted the law of force for the law of reason:  but the great act now under our consideration has banished the impious doctrine, and restored the rational creature to his moral rights.  Nor is it a matter of less pleasing consideration, that, at this awful crisis, when the constitutions of kingdoms are on the point of dissolution, the stain of the blood of Africa is no longer upon us, or that we have been freed (alas, if it be not too late!) from a load of guilt, which has long hung like a mill-stone about our necks, ready to sink us to perdition.

In tracing the measure still further, or as it will affect other lands, we become only the more sensible of its importance; for can we pass over to Africa; can we pass over to the numerous islands, the receptacles of miserable beings from thence; and can we call to mind the scenes of misery which have been passing in each of these regions of the earth, without acknowledging that one of the greatest sources of suffering to the human race has, as far as our own power extends, been done way?  Can we pass over to these regions again, and contemplate the multitude of crimes which the agency necessary for keeping up the barbarous system produced, without acknowledging that a source of the most monstrous and extensive wickedness has been removed also?  But here, indeed, it becomes us peculiarly to rejoice; for though nature shrinks from pain, and compassion is engendered in us when we see it become the portion of others, yet what is physical suffering compared with moral guilt?  The misery of the oppressed is, in the first place, not contagious like the crime of the oppressor; nor is the mischief which it generates either so frightful or so pernicious.  The body, though under affliction, may retain its shape; and, if it even perish, what is the loss of it but of worthless dust?  But when the moral springs of the mind are poisoned, we lose the most excellent part of the constitution of our nature, and the divine image is no longer perceptible in us; nor are the two evils of similar duration.  By a decree of Providence, for which we cannot be too thankful, we are made mortal.  Hence the torments of the oppressor are but temporary; whereas the immortal part of us, when once corrupted, may carry its pollutions with it into another world.

But, independently of the quantity of physical suffering, and the innumerable avenues to vice, in more than a quarter of the globe, which this great measure will cut off, there are yet blessings, which we have reason to consider as likely to flow from it.  Among these we cannot overlook the great probability that Africa, now freed from the vicious and barbarous effects of this traffic, may be in a better state to comprehend and receive the sublime truths of the Christian religion.  Nor can we overlook the probability that, a new system of treatment necessarily springing up in our islands,