Syrians and Zidonians. "At the close of his oration, the multitude saluted him as a God, according to the customs of that period. ***Both Luke and Josephus concur in the statement, that the disease of the intestines, with which he was attacked, was a divine judgment."

To some, the points we have now noticed, may seem to be of little importance; but they forget the inexperience and susceptibility of the youthful mind, and the necessity of an early and unshaken confidence in the truth of the Bible. Things that are trifles to mature and ripened judgment, may be full of danger, when opinions are forming, and the soul is receiving a bias, to determine perhaps its eternal welfare.

We were grieved and disappointed to find, in this history for the perusal of families, the birth, the life, the miracles, the teachings, the example, the sufferings, and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, all glanced over in the short space of a solitary page-noticed, indeed, in so abrupt, hasty, and general a manner, that the mind is scarcely conscious of the presence of Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write ;—him, because of whom Abraham was called, and the very Israelites were constituted a people, and sustained in their national existence through so many ages and so many changes, by the miraculous interposition and the over-ruling providence of God. The author seems to imagine that this subject belongs to the Christian, rather than the Jewish historian ;--but its place too, is here,--and a man of deep piety would have made it the most interesting, solemn, and instructive chapter in the whole work. Instead of this, the reader is turned aside, with a dry reference to the pages of the Evangelists;and Christ and his cross, the very life, centre, energy of all revelation-the story which the genius of the poet and the heart of the Christian might have united to display-they are lost from the volume; the reader expects them in vain, and the work goes on in the same vivid, indeed, and highly coloured, but soulless and secular strain. Others may regard the omission with a different feeling, but we deeply regret it.

It is easy enough to see, that Mr. Milman's opinions, in regard to inspiration, are very loose. "A late writer," he remarks in his preface, "of great good sense and piety, seems to think, that inspiration may safely be limited to doctrinal points, exclusive of those which are purely historical. This view, if correct, would obviate many difficulties."

We should more than doubt both the good sense and the piety which could dictate such an opinion. It is however the clue to our author's style of narration, particularly his manner of relating the miracles. The history gains, in his opinion, "both in clearness and consistency," by considering it in some respects erroneous. It obviates also many difficulties, to regard the purely historical parts of Scripture,as uninspired! These are creditable max

ims, truly, for a minister of the Church if England, and equally so, for the Professor of Poetry in Oxford University! The venerable Lowth, who long ago adorned that office with so much dignified piety and learning, would have looked upon them with equal astonishment and reproach. We desire to keep aloof from the library of our family, a history of the Jews, written under the influence of such opinions, however interesting it may be in other respects.

ACTUM EST DE REPUBLICA! The contemplated perfidy is accomplished; the constitution has been violated by its appointed guardians; and whatever may be its consequences to the Indians, a page of the darkest guilt is already written in our country's history. The passage of the Indian Bill has disgraced us as a people, has wounded our national honor, and exposed us to the merited reproach of all civilized communities in the world. If we go on in this way, we shall become a by-word to the nations. It will no longer be Punica fides, that points the moral of the schoolboy, and tips the arrow of the public satirist with gall. The memory of the wicked shall rot ;-but the memory of a faithless nation cannot mingle itself with perishable elements; can never stagnate in the forgetfulness of contempt. Ours will be embalmed, unless we prevent it by a timely interposition, in curses that can never lose their energy, or weary the tongue which utters them.

The world may now see what reliance can be placed upon the faith of a republic. Had we been dealing with a European community, instead of an Indian tribe, who would have dared mention the claims of selfishness, or the clamors of party, against the solemn obligation of treaties? The frown of the eastern continent alone would have intimidated the most reckless politician. But a nation that will cheat an inferior, will also, should a fair opportunity occur, overreach and violate justice with a higher power; nor can any confidence be placed, either in an individual or a community of individuals, proved to have acted, on a great and important occasion, rather as a furious partisan, or an unprincipled marauder, than from a sense of duty, or a knowledge of the truth. This is not the first time that the American Republic has shown a disposition to trifle with the sacredness of its plighted faith; it was all that the eloquence of an Ames could do, to keep his countrymen, in

The speeches against this Bill are now in press in this city, and will shortly be pub. lished in a neat duodecimo volume.

the memorable winter of 1796, from the guilt and the dreadful consequences of violating the British Treaty.

"Let me not even imagine," said this illustrious orator, "that a republican government, sprung, as our own is, from a people enlightened and uncorrupted, a government, whose origin is right and whose daily discipline is duty, can, upon a solemn debate, make its option to be faithless; can dare to act, what despots dare not avow: what our own example evinces that the States of Barbary are unsuspected of."

When the subject of Indian rights began to be agitated in this country, it was regarded by reflecting minds as by far the most important which had occupied the public attention for many years. The apathy manifested throughout the nation as to the possible fate of these interesting communities was looked upon with anxiety, as an indication of the most alarming blindness or insensibility. It seemed to argue a torpor of patriotic feeling, a selfish indifference as to the treatment of a defenceless people, which was cruel and criminal in the highest degree. It argued a melancholy disregard of the sacredness of national faith; a point on which the citizens of a republic should be exquisitely sensitive-on which they could hardly be sensitive to a fault.

On a subject like this, no people can be made to feel deeply without information; unless, indeed, oppression enter their very doors, and come in a palpable form to each man's senses. No question, therefore, involving the rights, the property, and the privileges of a large body of men, ought to be discussed in a republican legislature, till the public mind has first been rightly directed to it and informed respecting it.

The subject of Indian rights was too long delayed, to admit of its being examined before the tribunal of public opinion, till it was on the eve of a final decision in Congress. It should have been foreseen and studied by the people at a period previous to the last election of their representatives, that they might have sent them prepared to vote for the nation, and thus have preserved a question of such vast importance from the possibility of being influenced in its decision by the bitterness of party prejudice. This is done in regard to such bills as the tariff; and why should a mere political business be treated with more solicitude, than that which touches the honor of the nation, and is to influence the lives and liberties, as well as the fortunes of men. In respect to the Indian bill, sufficient time was not afforded for the people to form and utter their judgement. Memorials were indeed numerous; yet the expression of public feeling was faint, compared with what the exigencies of the case demanded, and with what we should have witnessed, had the true nature of the bill, the character, prospects, and rights of the Indians, and the wretched sophistry of their enemies, been largely exhibited, and illustrated with familiarity and power.

There is, however, a portion of our people who cannot plead ignorance in excuse for their apathy, and whose course would not

have been altered by the greatest degree of additional light and information. The people of Georgia, or their leading partizans, know well the merits of this case; but there, as in some other parts of the country, the prevalent feeling in regard to the Indians seems to be not merely reckless, but inhuman and savage. If the toasts at public celebrations are not a totally false indication of the tone of public feeling, then what must be the degradation of morality and honor which could dictate or tolerate such sentiments as some of those delivered at public dinners, on the late 4th of July in Georgia? The style of expression adopted by some members of Congress from Georgia, in speaking of the Indians, is another proof of the cruel indifference and contempt, if not absolute hatred, with which this portion of our race are regarded in the scale of human existence. The idea of sympathy for their distresses, or anxiety for their fate, was scouted, as if it were perfectly ridiculous. The designation of "poor devils," applied to them by Mr. Forsyth, was an outrage on the moral sense of the whole community; an insult to the Senate; a contemptible taunt upon the Cherokee nation, which a child's sense of honor might have taught him to spare; a wanton violation of the delicacy due to the feelings of the Cherokee Chiefs in his hearing. With what a sense of wounded dignity, with what grief of soul, with what ideas in regard to Christian and civilized refinement, must they have departed that day from the halls of Congress!

The discussion of this bill in the Senate and House of Representatives produced appearances not often witnessed in the deliberative proceedings of a national assembly. In the Senate, the American Senate, which ought, of all bodies in the world, to be most illustrious for its dignity and virtue, was witnessed, not an implied, but a direct, disgraceful refusal to maintain inviolate the public faith. There was witnessed the evasion of an appeal, repeatedly urged in the most solemn manner, and intended to obtain a pledge, that nothing in the measures about to be adopted should be construed as denying the obligation of existing treaties, or operating to suspend their execution. Messrs. Sprague and Frelinghuysen, it will be remembered, both offered amendments to the bill, whose total and repeated failure placed the Senate repeatedly in this disgraceful attitude. The last proviso offered by Mr. Frelinghuysen was the following:

"Provided always, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed, as to authorize the departure from, or non-observance of, any treaty, compact, agreement, or stipulation, heretofore entered into and now subsisting between the United States and the Cherokee Indians."

This was rejected by the Senate, which thus publicly authorized the violation of its own most solemn acts. Mr. Sprague's previously proposed amendment was as follows:

"Provided always, That until the said tribe or nation shall chocse to remove, as is by this Act contemplated, they shall be protected in their present possessions, and in the enjoyment of all their rights of territory and government, as promised and guarantied to them by treaties with the United States according to the true intent and meaning of such treaties."

This was rejected by the Senate, thus publicly reiterating the denial of the President to the demand of the Cherokees for protection! We were astonished and grieved when we found that this avowal of a determination to break the plighted faith of the United States excited so little alarm and indignation.

The discussion of the bill in the House of Representatives, was attended with circumstances, if possible, more fatal to the cause of justice, and more discreditable to the character of a legislative assembly. For some time at first, the supporters of the measure seemed anxious; but all at once, their whole manner changed; their air was confident; they gave up the floor to their opponents, scarcely deigning to be present, or listening to them with the utmost indifference, and evincing by their whole deportment, what was know nto be true, that they had brought about an arrangement among the members, by which they had secured to themselves a majority, before the hearing of the case.

Our disgrace and guilt as a community are great; and if it be possible, (which we will not believe,) that this measure can ever be executed according to the intention of its authors, this nation will be criminal indeed. In a mere worldly point of view, the plan in question can bring nothing but unmingled odium now, and incalculable expense and injury hereafter. These would grow out of the natural operation of the bill itself. Then too, we must remember the terrific consequences of blotting the national reputation, and breaking down the national spirit, involved in the act of annihilating the public faith. Individually, a liar is the basest creature that walks the earth: can the spirit of a perjured nation be less degraded? Still more, let us remember, this cause must be heard in the chancery of Heaven; and for a nation to incur the vengeance of that court, is an evil which no mind can grasp—no words

express.

But in spite of its present result, the discussion of this question in congress must prove, unless all honor and humanity in the country be extinct, eminently advantageous to the interests of the Indians. It could hardly be otherwise, so long as opportunity of free discussion was not prevented. No course could be more fatal to the Indians, than silence on the part of their friends, either in congress or out of it. Truth, justice and benevolence, are on their side; the power of argument, and the power of Christian feeling; any discussion therefore, though ever so limited, if respectable talents are engaged, must be favorable to the Cherokees. Accordingly, if this interesting people are saved, it will be in a great measure,