LESSONS FOR THE LITERATI. 265 



ages to come, and Afric's swarthy sons will pour forth prayers for her 

 honour and prosperity to the Giver of all good. She was the last nation 

 in Europe to enter into that accursed traffic of human beings, to her 

 eternal honour be it said, she was the first to relinquish it to strike the 

 manacle from the slave, to bid the bond go free ! 



" Tell me not that Christianity has no power over the soul when I wit- 

 ness the consummation of this splendid act, of which the history of pagan- 

 ism affords no parallel. Slavery we are told existed from the period when 

 time was, and for four thousand years has continued to afflict the earth ; 

 under the benign influence of our Christian faith it ceases on the first 

 day of August, Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-four! it ceases throughout 

 an empire on which the sun never sets ; and myriads f redeemed, regene- 

 rated, disenthralled/ walk forth in all the majesty of freedom." 



Yes ! Mr. Martin, it is to Christianity that we are to ascribe the 

 eternal annihilation of slavery in the British dominions. Who was 

 tbe first to proclaim the wrongs of the poor fettered African ? Was 

 it not Mr. Wilberforce, a man whose whole life, in public and 

 private, was regulated by the precepts of Christianity ? And who 

 were they who instituted and composed and supported the Anti- 

 Slavery Society were they not a body of men distinguished for 

 their attachment to the Christian religion ? And whence or from 

 whom did the myriads of petitions emanate which year after year 

 poured in on the legislature, praying for liberty to the captive slave ? 

 Were they not at least the great majority of them from Christian 

 churches and chapels in all parts of the kingdom ? We sometimes 

 hear of the benevolence and humanity of deism. Alas ! had the 

 poor Africans been left to its tender mercies, the lash and the chain, 

 and all the horrors of slavery, would have been their portion till 

 " the crack of doom." 



LESSONS FOR THE LITERATI. 



THE SILKWORM AND THE SPIDER. 



FROM THE SPANISH OF YBIARTB. 



Once on a time, an ill-bred spider, 



Of her curious weaving proud, 

 Addressed a silkworm, who, beside her, 



Calmly spun his silken shroud. 



Mister Silkworm, what d'ye say 



To the web before my cell ? 

 The whole, the work of half-a-day, 



Don't it look delicate and well ?" 



It does look well, and that is all," 

 The silkworm answer'd from his ball. 



