114 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



Independence of their former colonies. The 

 same principle commenced, and still carries on, 

 that abominable traffic, the slave trade, a traffic 

 which has entailed misery on millions of the 

 sons of Africa; which has excited wars, and 

 feuds, and massacres, among her numerous 

 tribes ; which has forever separated from each 

 other brothers and sisters, parents and children ; 

 which has suffocated thousands of human beings 

 in the cells of a floating dungeon, and plunged 

 ten thousands into a watery grave ; a traffic 

 which is a disgrace to the human species ; which 

 has transformed civilized men into infernal fiends; 

 which has trampled on every principle of justice ; 

 which has defaced the image of God in man, and 

 extinguished every spark of humanity from the 

 minds of the ferocious banditti which avarice 

 has employed for accomplishing her nefarious 

 designs .* 



Ambition, or, an inordinate desire of power, 

 superiority, and distinction, is another modifica 

 tion of this malignant principle. This passion is 

 manifested, in a greater or less degree, by men 

 of all ranks and characters, and in every situa 

 tion in life. It is displayed in the school-room 

 by the boy who is always eager to stand fore 

 most in his class ; in the ball-room, by the lady 

 who is proud of her beauty, and of her splendid 

 attire ; in the corporation-hail, by the citizen who 

 struts with an air of conscious dignity, and is 

 ever and anon aiming at pompous harangues ; 

 on the bench, by the haughty and overbearing 

 judge ; in the church, by those rulers who, like 

 Diotrephes, &quot; Love to have the pre-eminence ;&quot; 

 in the pulpit, by the preacher whose main object 

 it is to excite the admiration and applause of a 

 surrounding audience ; in the streets, by the pom 

 pous airs of the proud dame, the coxcomb, and 

 the dashing squire ; in the village, by him who 

 has a better house, and a longer purse, than his 

 neighbours ; in the hamlet, by the peasant who 

 can lift the heaviest stone, or fight and wrestle 

 with the greatest strength or agility ; ^and in the 

 city, by the nobleman who endeavours to rival 

 all his compeers in the magnificence of his man 

 sion, and the splendour of his equipage ; among 

 the learned, by their eager desire to spread their 

 name to the world, and to extend their fame to 

 succeeding generations ; and among all classes 



That this accursed traffic is still carried on, with 

 unabated vigour, by the civilized powers of Europe, 

 appears from the following statement: &quot;The boats 

 of a British Frigate, the Maidstone, boarded, in 

 eleven days of June, 1824, no less than ten French 

 vessels, at a single spot upon the coast of Africa ; the 

 measurement of which vessels was between 1400 and 

 1GOO tons, while they were destined for the incarce 

 rationwe might say, the living burial of 3000 hu 

 man beings !&quot; The report to Government says &quot; The 

 schooner La Louisa, Capt. Armand, arrived at Gau- 

 daloupe, during the first days of April, 1824, with a 

 cargo of 200 negroes, the remainder of a complement 

 of 375,whi,h the vessel had on board The vessel 

 not being large enough to accommodate so great a 

 number of men, the overplus were consigned ALIVE 

 to ihe waves by the. Captain /&quot; 



who assume airs of importance, on account of th 

 antiquity of their families, their wealth, their ex 

 ploits of heroism, and their patrimonial posses 

 sions. 



But it is chiefly on the great theatre of the world 

 that ambition has displayed its most dreadful en 

 ergies, and its most overwhelming devastations. 

 In order to gain possession of a throne, it has 

 thrown whole nations into a state of convulsion 

 and alarm. The road to political power and pre 

 eminence, has been prepared by the overflow of 

 truth andjustice, by fomenting feuds and conten 

 tions, by bribery, murder, and assassinations, by 

 sanguinary battles, by the plunder of whole pro 

 vinces, the desolation of cities and villages, and 

 by the sighs, the groans, and lamentations of un 

 numbered widows and orphans. In order to 

 raise a silly mortal to despotic power on the 

 throne of Spain, how many human victims have 

 been sacrificed at the altar of ambition ! how 

 many families have been rent asunder, and plung 

 ed into irremediable ruin ! and how many illustri 

 ous patriots have been immured in dungeons, 

 and have expired under the axe of the execution 

 er! At the present moment, the fertile vales of 

 Mexico, the mountains and plains of South 

 America, the forests of the Burmese, and the 

 shores of Turkey and of Greece, are everywhere 

 covered with the ravages of this fell destroyer, 

 whose path is always marked with desolation and 

 bloodshed. To recount all the evils which am 

 bition has produced over this vast globe, would 

 be to write a history of the struggles and con 

 tests of nations, and of the sorrows and sufferings 

 of mankind. So insatiable is this ungovernable 

 passion, that the whole earth appears a field too 

 small for its malignant operations. Alexander 

 the Great, after having conquered the greater 

 part of the known world, wept, because he had 

 not another world to conquer. Were there no 

 physical impediments to obstruct the course of 

 this detestable passion, it would ravage, not only 

 the globe on which we dwell, but the whole of the 

 planetary worlds ; it would range from system to 

 system, carry ing ruin and devastation in its train, 

 till the material universe was involved in misery 

 and desolation ; and it would attempt to subvert 

 even the foundations of the throne of the Eternal. 



Such are some of the dismal and destructive 

 effects of cnvetousness, when prosecuting the 

 paths of avarice and ambition : and when we 

 consider that it is uniformly accompanied in its 

 progress, with pride, envy, discontentment, and 

 restless desires, it is easy to perceive, that, were 

 it left to reign without control over the human 

 mind, it would soon desolate every region of the 

 earth, and produce all ihe destructive effects 

 which, as we have already shown, would flow 

 from a universal violation of the other precepts 

 of God s law. 



On the other hand, Contentment, the duty 

 implied in this command, would draw along with 



