The first position is, of course, a matter of statistics, which we shall argue exclusively upon that ground. There are, indeed, certain topics connected with it, bearing less or more upon questions of public faith and general expediency, which we cannot entirely throw aside; but we shall attempt, if possible, to avoid all declamation, and to give a plain and distinct statement of the facts, as they have reached us through various channels. The second position involves questions of a more serious nature. We have, hitherto, believed that if any Briton were deliberately asked the question, what principle or what act of universal philanthropy and benevolence he was most proud of as displaying the Christian character of his country, he would, without hesitation, refer to the struggles and sacrifices which have been made for the abolition of slavery throughout the world, and more especially to the stringent and costly measures adopted by Great Britain for putting down the infamous and most inhuman traffic in human flesh and blood. We say that, hitherto, such has been our belief, and most devoutly do we wish that we had no cause whatever to alter it. But we cannot look at the complexion of the late measures, and at their notorious results, without being convinced that the race for power, and the thirst after mammon, which are daily becoming more and more undisguised in the political movements and revolutionary legislation of this country, are weaning us from our finer and our humaner instincts, destroying our once generous sympathies, and rendering us wilfully blind to our duties to God and man, whenever a temporary interest appears thrown into the opposite scale. Of these two positions let us now address ourselves to the first, not because it is in any degree the more important, but because, very unfairly, it has been made the excuse and the palliation for the other. The two positions, indeed, are so interwoven, as to be in some respects entirely inseparable.