dition as not to find sympathy and reverence from him. He confessed his brotherhood with all God's children, although separated from them by rivers, mountains, and seas; although a torrid sun had left upon them an unchangeable Ethiopian skin. Filled by this thought, he sought in all that he did to promote their elevation and happiness. He yearned to do good, to be a spring of life and light to his fellow-men. "I see nothing worth living for," he said, "but the divine virtue which endures and surrenders all things for truth, duty, and mankind." In this spirit, so long as he lived, he was ever, through good report and evil report, the champion of Humanity.

In the cause of education and of temperance he was an earnest laborer. He saw how essential was knowledge to a people who governed themselves,- that without it the right of voting would be a dangerous privilege, and that with it the state would be elevated, and the means of happiness and power infinitely diffused. His vivid imagination saw the blight of intemperance, and exposed it in glowing colors. In these causes he was sustained by the kindly sympathy of those among whom he lived.

But there were two other causes in which his soul, more than in any other, was engaged, particularly at the close of his life, and with which his name will be inseparably associated, I mean the efforts for the abolition of those two mighty wrongs, Slavery and War. Fain would I pass these by, on this occasion; but not to speak of them would be to present a portrait from which the most distinctive features had been carefully removed.

And, first, as to Slavery. To this his attention was particularly drawn by his residence, early in life, in Virginia, and, at a later day, for a season, in one of the West India Islands. His soul was moved by its injus

tice and inhumanity. He saw in it an infraction of God's great law of Right and of Love, and of the Christian precept, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." He regarded it as contrary to the law of nature; and here the Philanthropist unconsciously adopted the conclusions of the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking by the mouth of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall,* and of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, at a later day, speaking by the mouth of Mr. Chief Justice Shaw. A solemn decision, which is now a part of the jurisprudence of this Commonwealth, has declared that "Slavery is contrary to natural right, to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy." +

With these convictions, his duty as a Moralist and a Philanthropist did not admit of question. He saw before him a giant wrong. Almost alone he went forth to the contest. On his return from the West Indies, he first declared his views from the pulpit. At a later day, he published a book entitled Slavery, the most extensive treatise on any subject from his pen. Other publications followed, down to the close of his life, among which was a prophetic letter, addressed to Henry Clay, against the annexation of Texas, on the ground that it would entail upon the country war with Mexico, and would extend and fortify slavery. It is

*The Antelope, 10 Wheaton's Rep. 211. + Commonwealth v. Aves, 18 Pick. 211.

important to mention that this letter, before its publication, was read to his classmate Story, who listened to it with admiration and assent; so that the Jurist and the Philanthropist here join in upholding benign truth.

In his defence of the liberty of the African race, he always invoked the great considerations of justice and humanity. The argument of economy, which is deemed by some minds the only argument pertinent to the subject, never presented itself to him. The question of profit and loss was absorbed in that of right and wrong. His maxim was, "Any thing but slavery; poverty sooner than slavery." But while he exhibited this institution, in the blackest colors of reprobation, as unhuman, unjust, unchristian, unworthy of an age of light and of a republic professing freedom, his gentle soul found no word of harshness for those whom birth, education, and custom have bred in its support. He was implacable towards wrong; but used soft words towards wrong-doers. He looked forward to the day when they too, encompassed by a moral blockade, invisible to the eye, but more potent than navies, and under the influence of increasing Christian light, diffused from all the nations, shall with righteous magnanimity acknowledge the wrong, and set their captives free.

At the close of his life, he urged with peculiar clearness and force the duty, it was of duties that he spoke, of the Northern States to free themselves from all support of slavery. To this conclusion he was driven irresistibly by the ethical principle, that what is wrong for an individual is wrong for a state. No son of the Pilgrims would hold a fellow-man in bond

age. Conscience forbids it. No son of the Pilgrims can help, through his government, to hold a fellow-man in bondage. Conscience equally forbids it. We have among us to-day a brother who, reducing to practice the teachings of Channing and the suggestions of his own soul, has liberated the slaves which have fallen to him by inheritance. This act finds a response of gratitude and admiration in all our hearts. In asking the Free States to disconnect themselves from all support of slavery, Channing wished them to do, as States, what PALFREY has done as a man. At the same time he dwelt with affectionate care upon the Union. He sought to reform, not to destroy; to eradicate, not to overturn; and he cherished the Union as the mother of peace, plenteousness, and joy.

Such were some of his labors in behalf of human liberty. As the mind dwells upon them, it instinctively recalls the parallel exertions of John Milton. He, too, was a defender of liberty. His Defence of the People of England drew to him, living, a wider homage than his sublime epic. But Channing's labors were of a higher order, more instinct with Christian love, more truly worthy of renown. Milton's Defensio pro populo Anglicano was in behalf of the political freedom of the English people, supposed at that time to number about four and a half millions. It was written after the "bawble" of royalty had been removed, and in the confidence that his cause was triumphantly established, beneath the protecting genius of Cromwell. Channing's Defensio pro populo Africano was in behalf of the personal freedom of three millions of his fellow-men held in dismal, abject bondage, none of whom knew

that his eloquent pen was pleading their cause. The labors of Milton caused his blindness; those of Channing exposed him to the shafts of obloquy and calumny. How truly might the Philanthropist have exclaimed, in the exalted words of the Sonnet to Cyriac Skinner,

What supports me, dost thou ask?

The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied
In liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side.

The same spirit of humanity and justice, which animated him in defence of liberty, inspired also his exertions for the abolition of the barbarous custom or INSTITUTION Of War. When I call war aninstitution, I mean the legalized, technical war, sanctioned, explained and defined by the Law of Nations, as a mode of determining questions of right. I mean war, the arbitrator, the umpire of right, the Ordeal by Battle, deliberately continued in this age of Christianity and civilization, as the means of justice between nations. Slavery is an institution sustained by private municipal law. War is an institution sustained by the public Law of Nations. Both are relics of the early ages, and have their root in violence and wrong.

And here the principle, already considered, that nations and individuals are bound by one and the same rule of right, applies with unmistakeable force. Our civilization brands the Trial by Battle, by which justice in the early ages was determined between individuals, as monstrous and impious; and it refuses to recognize any Glory in the successful combatant. Christianity turns from these scenes of strife, as abhorrent to her highest injunctions. And is it right for nations to con