According to principles established in the fourth and fifth lectures, the Africans of this country, in common with minors, imbeciles, and uncivilized persons, have a right to be governed and protected, and to such means of physical comfort and moral improvement as are necessary and compatible with their providential condition. That which it is their right to have as slaves, it is the duty of masters to secure to them. Superior positions devolve higher and more important duties. The master who ignores these claims, and affects to be offended with any who may assert them on behalf of the slave, will do well to consider that the “cries of those who have reaped down their fields,” that is, the claims of those who have labored for them, and have no earthly friend to vindicate their rights, are heard by Him who has said, “Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord.” But Christian masters, or even men of religious sentiments, who always respect the claims of the poor, find pleasure in attending to the wants of the helpless, and to none more than those of their own slaves. Humanity, the claims of religion, and the pecuniary interest of the master, all unite to enforce the claims of the slave. The physical and the moral man are so nicely blended, and the duties we owe the one run so naturally into those we owe the other, that it is difficult to make a well-defined classification, especially in the case of either slaves or children. The following will be found sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes: I. The duties of masters to their slaves, considered as “their money:” such as relate to judicious labor, and reasonable time for rest, habitations, clothing, food, arrangements for sickness, their own time, and stewards or overseers. II. The duties of masters to slaves, considered as social beings: such as relate to moral treatment, punishments, matrimonial alliances, family connections, and duties relating to women, children, and the aged. III. The duties of masters to slaves, considered as religious beings: such as relate to the domestic and public instruction of their slaves in the principles and duties of religion. I. THE DUTIES OF MASTERS TO THEIR SLAVES, CONSIDERED AS “THEIR MONEY:” “_for he is his money_,” Ex. xxi. 21.