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language, it was not because he cared little for the feelings, or was reckless of the character of his antagonists, but because his zeal for the truth made him less alive than were the lukewarm and the timid, to the effect his occasional warmth might have, on those with whom a sense of duty brought him into collision. In a struggle, unusually protracted, and in which, on the side of the opposite party, in some memorable instances, not the courtesies of debate merely, but the restraints of Christian feeling and ordinary decorum were violated, it is not to be wondered at that he should at times have caught the tone of his assailants-that he should occasionally have descended from the high ground of principle to occupy a position, in which, though he was not less formidable, he appeared personally to less advantage-that, in short, like Luther and Calvin, and others, his predecessors in the task of correcting great abuses, he should occasionally have been tempted to forget that "long forbearing" is sometimes the surest parent of "persuasion," and that it is "a soft answer" which the wise man tells us "breaketh the bone." If more need be said on the subject, he himself has said it,* in terms that leave us only to regret the close alliance of great virtues with occasional errors, and which must satisfy even those who have least sympathy with the workings of such a nature as his, that insensibility to his imperfections formed no feature of his character.

During the course of the winter preceding that in which he died, he composed and preached a series of discourses in reference to certain errors prevalent at

* See Dr. Thomson's speech at the extraordinary meeting of the Edinburgh Bible Society, on the 1st March, 1830.

the time among many sincere, it is to be hoped, though mistaken Christians. These discourses are before the public; and in them, and in the notes appended to them, such as feel an interest in the confutation of the errors in question, will find the kindred subjects of universal pardon, and of personal assurance as essential to the nature of genuine faith, discussed with much eloquence and judgment; while they who wish merely to obtain clear and scriptural views of the doctrine of the atonement, and of the nature and workings of Christian experience, will meet with much in the volume to reward a careful perusal. In many parts of it, the author, in addition to his usual acuteness in the discrimination of character, and power of addressing himself to the conscience and heart, displays an extent of theological knowledge, and a clearness of doctrinal statement, of which his preceding publications had not perhaps afforded such decided examples. His acquaintance with human nature, his dexterity in searching to the bottom of it for the remote springs of thought and action, and his happy faculty of disembarrassing perplexed and intricate subjects, and of imparting a practical interest to topics which, in other hands, are apt to appear scholastic and uninviting, are also displayed to great advantage.

The last great public effort of Dr. Thomson was in behalf of the slave population of our West India colonies. In a note to a sermon published in his volume of "Discourses on various Subjects," he had taken up the question of the remedial measures proposed in behalf of that oppressed class of our fellow-subjects, and, with his characteristic frankness, declared himself an

advocate for immediate emancipation. The opinion he thus expressed was not the result of sudden impulse, but of a deliberate and well weighed consideration of the subject of compulsory servitude in all its bearings. On the one hand, he looked to the principles of morality and of the Scriptures; and from them he learned that to hold a fellow-creature in bondage is directly to violate the rule which dictates the same treatment of our neighbor as we ourselves have a right to expect from him. And to the mind of Dr. Thomson it appeared no less a crime to assume a right of property in a man under the tropics, than it would be to transfer that claim to the mother country, and to extend it over those who go out and come in among ourselves.

And, if in this conclusion, at which, in common with all disinterested persons, he had arrived, he was fortified by an appeal to the first principles of justice and humanity, his convictions acquired additional strength when he adverted to the evils which the system of slavery entails upon those by whom it is upheld, no less than upon those whose comfort and improvement it more immediately affects. For some time past, the public has been familiar with the complaints of the planters, that their property has fallen in value; and the least consideration of the subject is sufficient to convince every reasonable mind, that the cause is to be sought, not in accidental circumstances, but in the system of slavery itself. According to the West India proprietors, nothing can save their property and restore it to its former value, but a return to the system of absolute noninterference on the part of this country with their treatment of their slaves, or perhaps, as the language

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of one of their recent manifestoes would seem to intimate, a renewal of the traffic in slaves. Great Britain obviously is not prepared. are things then to continue as they are? desire it? or will the slave long permit it? Colonial produce is at present depreciated; the colonies themselves are not what they were in point of productiveness; a spirit of insubordination and misrule is prevalent among the negroes the slave eyes his master with the feeling of a foe, and goes through his work with the langor and reluctance characteristic of a state, in which the impulse of gratitude and the stimulus of hope are unknown. Some remedy for such a state of things must be sought and found. And Dr. Thomson, and those who think with him on this important subject, conceive that such a remedy presents itself in the abolition of slavery itself. The efficacy of the remedy they conceive to be founded in the immutable principles of human nature. Nor, in the conclusion to which they come in regard to it, do they rely on mere abstract and general principles. In the history of all states that have arrived at real and permanent greatness, they think they can trace a connexion, between the diffusion of freedom and the growth of national prosperity; and, in following the unwavering light of experience, they conceive that they are proposing neither an uncertain nor a hazardous experiment-depriving the planter of nothing really valuable in his property, but placing that property upon a firm and stable foundation, by removing the causes which are silently sapping and undermining it.

With the friends of humanity and religion, and, it may be added, of true policy, Dr. Thomson was so far cordially united. The only point on which his views differed from those of any of this class, related to the time at which the grand measure of abolition should be carried into effect. It has been already observed that he declared for immediate steps with a view to this object. And to this conclusion he came, not only as a legitimate deduction from the general principles already adverted to, but as a consequence of his observation of the conduct of some of those persons who, while they acknowledged his principles, found pretexts for evading the practical results to which these naturally conducted. For years the evils of a state of slavery had been denounced; and, such was the notoriety of the facts, that they could not be denied. Parliament, reluctantly perhaps, but, governed by the voice of the nation, decidedly had expressed its desire that an immediate period should be put to the more glaring of these evils, and had even gone the length of recommending a course of ameliorating measures, with a view to the ultimate extinction of the state of society which gave them birth.* Yet years had passed, and nothing comparatively had been done. In some quarters the recommendation of government had been met on the part of the planters and the colonial legislatures, by a decided expression of contempt, accompanied by a declaration of their irresponsible right of property in their slaves. And in those islands where something like a show of deference and compliance was exhibited,

* See Mr. Canning's resolutions in 1823, on which the colonies have been called to act, with a few exceptions, in vain.

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