possession, of his tools, as that a given reformation can be effected by unapplied general principles.  Of these principles, American philanthropists have been possessed from time immemorial; and yet all the while American slavery has been flourishing and growing strong.  Of late, however, these principles have been brought to bear upon the system, and it manifestly is already giving way.  The groans of the monster prove that those rays of truth, which did not disturb him whilst they continued to move in the parallel lines of abstractions and generalities, make it quite too hot for him since they are converged to a burning focus upon his devoted head.  Why is it, for example, that the influence of the Boston Recorder and New-York Observer—­why is it, that the influence of most of our titled divines—­is decidedly hostile to the abolition of slavery?  It is not because they are deficient in just general sentiments and principles respecting man’s duties to God and his fellow man.  It is simply because they stand opposed to the application of these sentiments and principles to the evil in question; or, in other words, stand opposed to the Anti-Slavery Society, which is the chosen lens of Divine Providence for turning these sentiments and principles, with all the burning, irresistible power of their concentration, against a giant wickedness.  What is the work of the Temperance Societies, but to make a specific application of general truths and principles to the vice of intemperance?  And the fact, that from the time of Noah’s intoxication, until the organization of the American Temperance Society, the desolating tide of intemperance had been continually swelling, proves that this reliance on unapplied principles, however sound—­this “faith without works”—­is utterly vain.  Nathan found that nothing, short of a specific application of the principles of righteousness, would answer in the case of the sin of adultery.  He had to abandon all generalities and circuitousness, and come plump upon the royal sinner with his “Thou art the man.”  Those divines, whose policy it is to handle slaveholders “with gloves,” if they must handle them at all, doubtless regard Nathan as an exceedingly impolite preacher.

But, not only is it far less difficult to instruct the people of the United States than it was the people of the Roman Empire, in the sin of slavery; it is also—­for the reason that the sin is ours, to a far greater extent, than it was theirs—­much more important for us than for them to be instructed in it.  They had no share in the government which upheld it.  They could not abolish it by law.  But, on the other hand, the people of the United States are themselves the government of their country.  They are the co-sovereigns of their nation.  They uphold slavery by law, and they can put it down by law.  In this point of view, therefore, slavery is an incomparably greater sin in us, than it was in them.