ed man? What effect is prosperity working upon the prospered man? If affliction in the one case is softening the heart, leading to reflection and prayer, weaning from the world, loosening one's hold on the earth, making one long for heaven, and inducing the temper of heaven in the heart, and a holy hatred of what is contrary to it, and the love and pursuit of whatever enthrones heaven in the soul, then the afflicted man is the happy man; for he will be so in the end, and his affliction is the necessary instrument to that blessed end, being the discipline employed by God to make him holy. And if, on the other hand, prosperity is hardening the heart, as it generally does, (for the contrary is the exception,) if it is making one worldly, and selfish, and self-confident, and forgetful of God; if it is making one more earnest for acquisitions in property than for acquisitions in holiness, more eager to be rich than to be good, more bent upon creating and accumulating, than upon distributing for God and religion, then the prospered man is the unhappy man, for he will be so in the end.

It is far from being always what makes us best off now, that is really best for us, but what will make us best off for the future; what is best for our characters; what is best to cure us of our besetting sins; what is best for our religious prosperity; what will most conduce to our growth in grace; what will be most likely to kill the seeds of sin in us, and keep down the weeds of worldliness, vanity, self-love and pride; what will tend to make us considerate and kind, duly regardful of others, and mainly anxious for the glory of God; what will be best for me as an immortal being, on trial for eternity, bound for the judgment, having a soul to be saved or lost; under instant obligation to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling, and to do all that is possible to save others; what, in fine, will make me the best man and the best Christian; the most conscientious, benevolent, and careful in my intercourse with men; the most upright, sincere, and dutiful towards God.

Constituted as men are, it is far from being continued prosperity that is likely to do this, and being blown upon long at a time, or always in life by favorable gales, and wafted along on a prosperous tide of success. But rather is it the blasts of adversity, and the rough handling of affliction and distress. It is one of the truest sayings of one of the sweetest poets and Christians that ever lived

"The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown."

Fallen and depraved as men are, naturally averse from God and good, this must be so. And hence it is affliction of some kind that first leads the most of men in adult life to think upon their ways, to turn their feet unto God's testimonies, and to seek durable riches and righteousness in heaven. It is rare for grown up persons to give the heart to God in the midst of worldly ease and prosperity, before the experience of trouble and trial within and without. And it is still rarer, perhaps, that Christians are brought into the state of freedom from the world and blessed union with God, of eminent holiness and high enjoyment of religion, without passing through great affliction, both inward and external.-N. Y. Evangelist.

MY IMPRISONMENT IN GLASGOW.

SINCE my return to the United States, numerous notices of my imprisonment in Glasgow, and of the alleged causes thereof, have appeared in the American newspapers. A respectable sample of them, we presume, has been forwarded to the office of the Millennial Harbinger. In these we have seen references and allusions to others. Editors, political and religious, “Anti-Slavery" and “ProSlavery," have, I learn, very generally noticed the occurrence. Few notices, indeed, from the anti-slavery press have been forwarded to me—at least few have reached my eyes; and of these, none of the violent and uncompromising partizans of immediate abolition.— If any one of this class has at all regretted the proceedings of Secretary Robertson, as I am informed, it is because of the supposed injury they may inflict upon the party. They express no sympathy with me, indeed; but rather think I deserved to suffer for presuming to say that the Bible justified the relation of master and slave in any case whatever.

But amongst anti-slavery men, as well as among all other professions, there are various orders and ranks-various castes and parties, as well as in all of these, gentlemen of various degrees of civilization and refinement. In this promiscuous communion there are, no doubt, Jews and Gentiles, Barbarians and Scythians, Christians and Infidels, of every degree of comparison. Amongst these, therefore, are many highly respectable persons-respectable in every point of view-in learning, talent, political eminence, and Christian excellence. There are, indeed, some of the advocates of immediate and universal emancipation and political equality, who are impersonations of the tyranny of opinionism—as proscriptive, denunciatory, and ultra as can be arranged under any profession of tyranny whatever.

Amongst my own personal acquaintance, indeed, it gives me pleasure to say, that there are zealous abolitionists of as great moral purity, benevolence, and general excellence, as I know in any party or association of men. Amongst this class I may be permitted, I hope, to say that I would give a very conspicuous position to my personal friend Dr. Bailey, Editor of the National Era, Washington City, from whose paper of the 18th November, I extract the following notice of the case, as one of the most friendly and impartial that I have seen:—

"ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.

"This eloquent preacher has returned to his home, after a stirring tour in Great Britain, of several months. A series of letters from

him while abroad, several passages in which we have marked for quotation, has appeared in the Millennial Harbinger, his monthly journal.

"We regret, for many reasons, the unfortunate events attending his sojourn in Scotland, and ending in his imprisonment in Edinburgh on the charge of libel. With Mr. Campbell's doctrine relating to the inherent nature of slavery, and his policy respecting the treatment of the evil, we do not concur. More than once we have had occasion to interchange opinions on the subject, through our respective journals; but he has always been a fair and manly opponent. He believes slavery, as existing on the statute book, not only an evil, but a grievous wrong; he contends that there are circumstances in which slaveholding may be excusable, if not justifiable; and, as a Christian, he is opposed to making it a term of church communion Occupying this ground, maintaining it by arguments which tend, we believe, to furnish slaveholders generally with a plea for despotism, and at the same time abstaining from participation in any general system of Anti-Slavery effort, his position, in our opinion, is constantly exerting a pro-slavery influence.

"We say, 'in our opinion.' He thinks differently, and never hesitates to state his opinions frankly. Much as we may lament this, deeply as we do regret that the great energies of his mind and the whole force of his position are not thrown in the scale against slavery, assured that it would promote the interests of true religion, the welfare of his country, and honor his name in the judgment of posterity, still we presume not to question his integrity. There is One that judge th, and His judgment is just.

"Mr. Campbell was met, at Edinburgh, by a severe inquisition into his creed on the subject of slavery. It did not satisfy the antislavery public, as might have been expected; and the result was a most disagreeable collision. With the particulars of the controversy we shall not trouble our readers. We do not think the course pursued towards him such as Christianity would justify; nor do we think his defence entirely in accordance with the spirit of the religion whose duties he can so eloquently inculcate. At times he indulged in a tone of sarcasm, which could only be palliated by the bitterness of the provocation, and the suspicion, on his part, (we trust, a groundless one,) that his assailants were making use of the Anti-Slavery sentiment merely to gratify sectarian animosity. The expression in his reply to the challenge of an assailant, on which the libel suit was founded, was, in our estimation, most unfortunate and hasty; but not just ground for an action at law. The legal procedure was harsh, and his imprisonment most discreditable to all concerned in it; and we rejoice that the proper tribunal soon discharged him.

"We cannot sympathize with intolerance. Not one word would we utter, tending to abate the intensity of the Anti-Slavery sentiment in Great Britain-it is an honorable sentiment, springing from the noblest instincts of the human heart. Nor would we have our British friends abstain from the freest expression of their opinions of those influential Americans travelling among them, whose position at home they believe adverse to the interests of humanity. But

let us respect the motives of our opponents; let us not assail their reputation; let us give them all the credit we can in truth; and then, faithfully, but kindly, expose the evil of their position, the fallacy of their reasoning. The mere force of public opinion may overawe the base upholders of a wrong, but it tends only to provoke the spirit of defiance in a bold, well-meaning, self-relying man, who, if in error, is likely to be rooted and grounded in it, by what seems like persecution.

"In justice to Mr. Campbell, we may add, that, having slaves in his possession, he many years ago emancipated them, from conscientious views, as we have always understood him; that he has shown himself a friend to the free colored people in his neighborhood; that his energies and vote were thrown against slavery in the Virginia Legislature, when the question of Abolition was before it in 1832; and we trust that, in the Anti-Slavery movement now about to commence in Western Virginia, where he resides, his influence will be given to the Emancipators."

For these very flattering and kind terms of my friend Dr. Bailey, amidst so much obloquy as I have endured, I cannot but feel grateful; and the more so because I believe them to be sincere and unfeigned; still I must correct some mistakes into which he has fallen, and I think some misconceptious of the affairs alluded to in this notice.

First, then, it was in Glasgow, and not in Edinburgh, that I was imprisoned. Again, it was Dr. John C. Campbell, of this county, who, in the Legislature of Virginia, of 1830, voted in favor of Abclition. Dr. Bailey has some way confounded the part that I acted in the Virginia Convention, called in 1829 and 1830, for remodelling the Constitution of this Commonwealth, with the debates in the House of Delegates, in 1831-32, and also confounds my voting for the "white basis of representation" against the mixed or slave basis, with a vote for the immediate abolition of slavery. These, however, have no moral in them-no argument, pro or con. They are simple mistakes without meaning and without design.

I read, with much satisfaction, certain extracts from the National Era, in the May Harbinger, on the character of a modern Reformer and of a class of Reformers styled “immaculate, infallible, intoler ant, aud implacable." Dr. Bailey draws the character of certain modern reformers with much ability in the collation of New Testament developments which he makes for the purpose. There is an assumed reformer, who, according to Dr. Bailey, would stone one to death for the offence which he himself in another form daily commits; who regards forbearance as utterly repugnant to justice; who represents as a mental evasion the refusal to express an opinion upon any subject touching which he may be interrogated; who co

demns the feeding of babes with milk as a tame policy. Such a one is scandalized at Paul's saving himself at Athens from the condemnation of the Areopagus, by making a text out of an unknown God-inhibiting from the character of a saint every one that walks not with us; and makes those the most dangerous and mischievous of mankind who do good, but not in our way. But to sum up the whole, the Doctor says of this modern reformer, political, moral, or religious: "His whole life is marked by the most monstrous inconsistencies. The claim of infallibility for the Pope arouses his most dreadful ire; but exact conformity to his ideas of right, he demands, under pain of the most withering anathemas. Sectarianism he abominates; but in furiously denouncing every man who will not step within the charmed circle of reform to which he belongs, he exhibits his most revolting features. The truth he adores; but he never hesitates to misrepresent or caricature an adversary. Carnal -weapons he deprecates; but the malignity which in other cases tortures the body, is poured out with corroding rancor on the spirit of an opponent. The sword he lays aside; but, with a 'tongue set on fire by hell,' scathes and devours whatever crosses his path."

Such is a just portraiture of some of my acquaintance, and from these of this class amongst the advocates of abolition I have suffered more than from any other class of reformers. Although, then, - some exceptions taken by the Doctor to my cause during the persecutions of the Scotch Anti-Slavery Society, might savor of the things reprobated by himself, I would not myself at all attribute them to such a spirit, and would not have my readers to impute to him any such aberation from his own very just and correct views above expressed. Still it is my duty to make my real position in this affair as clear and definite as I can find terms to express myself, from the use already made of it by my friends and opponents.

Dr. Bailey expresses dissent from my "doctrine of the inherent nature of slavery." As to my views of the inherent nature of slavery, if I understand the expression, I neither said nor wrote any thing in Great Britain; and, therefore, such views had nothing to do with the Anti-Slavery persecution. On this subject I have neither written nor spoken any thing. There is no "inherent nature" comprehended by me in defining my position on this subject. I simply affirm, that to exclude a man from the church of Christ simply for holding property in man for life, or for a term of years, is without any authority from the Bible;-nay, more; that it is a positive departure from, and violation of, both the letter and spirit of revealed religion and morality, whether it be called Patriarchal, Jewish, or Christian. Aboli