concern, we have such a right, for so far it pertains to us as it does to them. But let it be so; let it be as they desire; let slavery be a local institution; let it be like other domestic arrangements; let it be wholly detached from all connection with the General Government; let all laws in relation to it outside of the respective States where it exists cease, and cease forever. Beyond that right which all men have to spread abroad light and truth; to diffuse their sentiments as they may; to publish books, to preach the Gospel, to persuade men to do what is right, and to avoid what is wrong, let there be no asserted right of interference, let there be no interference. Let it be placed on the same footing in this respect, as other matters that relate to the interests of the people of the land. It is rare that any of our interests, of persons, property, liberty,. reputation, come in direct contact with the General Government. The ordinary course of affairs in which all are interested, is through the State considered in this respect as sovereign. "It is to the State Government that a man looks to protect his property, and secure his personal safety. It is the State Government which makes the laws that affect all his daily transactions, and it is the tribunals of the State Government which decide all the ordinary questions arising between man and man," Thus let slavery be. This is no unholy compromise of truth; it is no compromise at all, farther than when we seek to spread truth and learning, liberty and religion, in Turkey, or India, or Burmah, or China, or Italy by the Gospel, we go under an implied pledge not to attempt a direct interference with the laws-the local laws of these lands.

One other principle, as following from these views, remains. to be stated. It is, that the entire subject of restoring fugitive. slaves should be a matter of negotiation and arrangement between the States themselves. If as States independent in such matters, as in other local matters, they can enter into such negotiations and arrangements, well; if not, let not the power of the General Government be prostituted and profaned in the work of arresting men who pant for freedom; let not its judges "pollute the purity of the ermine" by remanding freemen to bondage; let not the army of the nation be employed to force their return at the point of the bayonet. Let no conscientious and peaceful citizen be required to engage, under severe pains and penalties, in reducing men and women to slavery. Let not the Government of the United States continue to place itself in this false position before the world, the only free govern ment on earth, and yet the only government in all the nations. that binds itself to do such a deed,

As the South claim that this is an institution of their own with which we have no right to intermeddle, let it be so. Let us not volunteer to interfere. If they can make an arrangement with Border States, equally independent in such subjects,

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good, well; if not, let that States acquiesce in this; if est for themselves, let them do eir own responsibility, and let ed from the statute-book of the

too long in this service; but neither Thanksgiving-service in such cirseldom, if ever, in my life, spoken r distrust, in regard to the sentiments. y duty to advance. That these sentidas practically wise by any considerable

I have addressed, or adopted by the Saguine in believing. That they are more no evil, than wise in proposing a remedy, e as readily disposed to grant, as any would aese things which I will now suggest in a few How if the nation should ever admit the proprinciples; and the prospect, however dim it hat they will occur, should be a cause of thanksa proportion as the eye of faith or patriotism can dence that they will occur.

on would be one; there would be one flag, one syssono religion; we should be one people. ccasion for war, so far as it has sprung

from slavery, o has been no other occasion for war in this nation, case, and we might hope would cease forever.

Ce conscience of the North would be relieved, as having no pheity with slavery, and as being henceforward in no way on ablo for it :-conscience, the most troublesome thing in arion to manage, the most difficult to be subdued.

The rights of the South would be secured-secured in what they regard as their rights; secured in that of which they are deprived a just and equal representation inCongress; secured

to any invasion from the North on their institutions; secured what they choose to regard as valuable domestic arrangemonta; socured in regard to any direct interference with the arrangements which they think proper to cherish.

As a nation we should so stand before the world as to comand the respect and the confidence of mankind. No longer could it be charged upon us that the National Government is the bulwark of slavery; that its legislation is adverse to freedom; that the power of the nation is pledged to perpetuate the system; that it is represented in the national councils; that the Government shocks the moral sentiments of mankind by its onactments, and turns away the sympathies of the friends of liborty, every where.

Flavory, too, would come to an end. Surrounded on every ado by Froo States, its value would diminish every where, and

the slave himself, with no disposition, as he has none, to leave he land of his birth, would become more valuable sooner or

by doing the work of a freeman, and by receiving the Censation of freedom. It may as well be known now as ever, it is now known that slavery can not long subsist in this country when the protection of the National Government is withdrawn from it, and that the hope of its ceasing is in the prospect that this national protection be withdrawn.

This will be a free land, rich, vast, prosperous, happy; a land where some one shall yet declare, in the language of Lord Mansfield, that "the air of America is too pure for a slave to breathe;" a land where every man that treads the soil shall be free.

I have one word more. The best intellect of the nation is yet to be called forth to settle the great principles involved in the present bloody strife. The highest talent of the nation has not been developed as yet in this war; the highest talent of a nation is never developed in war. There slumber yet in this land, some where, great mental powers yet undeveloped; statesmanlike abilities not yet unfolded; principles of lofty patriotism yet to be manifested aside from war; powers of farreaching diplomacy, which will grasp these great questions, and the issue, in an honorable and perpetual peace, in new arrangements adapted to our country in these times, will place such names ever onward by the side of those of Franklin, and Madison, and Jay, and Hamilton, and Washington.

REV. ÅLBERT BARNES.

EMBELLISHING this number of THE NATIONAL PREACHER Will be found an accurate likeness and finelly engraved portrait of the Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, who for more than thirty-two years has been the laborious pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in that city. As a man, as a Christian minister, as a preacher of the Gospel, as a voluminous writer and expounder of the text of the sacred Scriptures, and extensively known as such all over this country and in foreign lands, a good portrait of him will be highly valued by his very numerous friends. Haying known him for many years, we have sought to put on record, in permanent form, an accurate por-trait of his face and form. Most of the portraits which we have seen have failed to express the exact lineaments of his features. This engraving has been made with great care from a photograph taken a few months since, and admitted to be

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in the village of Rome, Oneida aber first, 1798. His father was ceained in his father's family until of age, employed with his father, he laid the basis of a solid educatiou a to general reading and study, and the

At the age of twenty-two years, he on College, and in November, 1820, entered studies at Princeton, New Jersey, where, course, he remained one year more as a

e was licensed to preach the Gospel, and on 1. the following February he was ordained and of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown,

entered upon the work of the ministry as a aring zeal and fidelity, and continued his sucat Morristown during five years, when, much to o, the people of his charge, he received a call to besador of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelch ho accepted, and entered upon the duties of hls of most responsible labors June 25th, 1830 where he anol over since. The ecclesiastical history of Mr.

in some respects at least, one of the most interesting Imatructive in modern times. But amid most abundant among the people of his charge, and untiring diligence pations of the Scriptures, he has been a burning and a

tight in the churches of the land. By a systematic dispation of his time, and with clock-like promptitude in the

ment of his varied duties and studies, Mr. Barnes has complished an amount of intellectual labor such as few men, it any in this age, have achieved. His life, from his first enTrans on the pastorate at Morristown, has been one of great tivity and laborious toil. The labor which he has performed

large part of it in the early morn while other men were alp would seem to be enough to crush any constitution but s of iron. We believe the three large volumes of his commentary on the Prophet Isaiah, published in 1838, were chiefly written in the early morning, while many were asleep. The same general course of the early morning study was pursued in alter years, which has resulted in the long series of volumes of commentaries on the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which have had for many years an increasing and still wider Circulation every year as the time moves on. Besides these, M. Barnes has published many volumes of essays, reviews, ser

a, addresses, etc., of a practical or dogmatic character,

His Village Sermons, selected and published for practical use, are among the most interesting and instructive of any in the language.

These incessant and arduous labors a few years since seriously impaired his eye-sight, which led him to visit Europe to obtain the best medical advice in that country. Happily his eye-sight has been so far improved that his labors have been continued till now.

His commentaries alone, in some eighteen or twenty volumes, are a monument of untiring industry. They have been extensively republished in England, and to some extent in other languages. They have been used in families, in Sabbath-schools, and Bible-classes, and entered into a wider circulation perhaps than any series of the kind in this age. More than half a mil lion of these volumes had been printed and sold some years since. The number now can hardly be less than three-quarters of a million. To have provided such an amount of sacred reading for such an age as this, is to have exerted an influence on the human mind and destiny rarely paralleled. As a preacher. Mr. Barnes belongs to the first rank of American divines. But he is too well and widely known to need a more extended sketch of his life and labors, which are embodied in his numerous works, and his eminent history as a pastor and preacher,

"Offer to God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows to the Most High; and call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver . . ."-PSALM, 50; 14.

AMID the clash of arms and the roar of cannon, we are called upon to give devout thanksgiving to God. There are bleeding hearts-there are sad homes around us-and for many the tones of praise and gladness must have a sound discordant to their feelings; and yet, even for them, there is occasion for thanksgiving. Our blessings wear, perhaps, a brighter hue when seen on the dark background of public calamity and civil war. The contrast of the peaceful earth, and the clear, quiet

* Preached on Thanksgiving-Day, November 27, 1862, in the church of the author.