HISTORY OF THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.






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CHAPTER I.

[Sidenote: No subject more pleasing than that of the removal of
evils.--Evils have existed almost from the beginning of the world; but
there is a power in our nature to counteract them--this power increased
by Christianity.--Of the evils removed by Christianity one of the
greatest is the Slave Trade.--The joy we ought to feel on its abolition
from a contemplation of the nature of it; and of the extent of it; and
of the difficulty of subduing it.--Usefulness also of the contemplation
of this subject.]

I scarcely know of any subject, the contemplation of which is more
pleasing, than that of the correction or of the removal of any of the
acknowledged evils of life; for while we rejoice to think that the
sufferings of our fellow-creatures have been thus, in any instance,
relieved, we must rejoice equally to think, that our own moral condition
must have been necessarily improved by the change.

That evils, both physical and moral, have existed long upon earth there
can be no doubt. One of the sacred writers, to whom we more immediately