What shall be the bearing of the late revival upon slavery? It is a signal fact that each great awakening in this country, including that of 1797, has been marked by the arousing of God’s people to the sin of oppression. We have already spoken of the influence of the outpouring of God’s Spirit in 1830-33, as giving rise to the great modern movement in opposition to slavery. Simultaneously with this, a strong dislike of it on moral grounds was seizing many minds at the South. Various demonstrations of this were made by religious bodies; and in some of the slave States emancipation was seriously meditated and openly proposed. The writer of this tract, a native of the South and a member of a slaveholding family, religiously trained to regard slavery as scriptural, and expecting to be, after the manner of his father, a church member and a slaveholder for life, was hopefully numbered among the subjects of the revival of 1830. He consecrated himself to the work of the ministry. The spirit of prayer was given him, with yearnings to be holy and to be useful. His eyes were then opened to the moral condition of the slaves. He saw those of his own household, though his father was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church, living without God, without religious instruction, without moral restraint; he saw the young slaves, the fruit of promiscuous concubinage, the playmates of his childhood, and scarcely of a darker hue, (though happily claiming no blood relationship, as those of some Southern families do,) growing up in ignorance and vice. Deeply moved, he cried unto the Lord that he would save their souls. He daily prayed for those miserable creatures; he nightly bathed his pillow with tears of pity and distress. But he found no relief; he saw no ray of hope. He dreamed not then that slavery itself was wrong, and that its abolition was the only remedy for the ills of the oppressed. He knew not that many others were moved as he was, and that it was the Lord who was thus stirring the first impulses of a mighty movement for the redemption of the enslaved. Just then, a tract, or pamphlet, sent by some unknown hand from the East, was taken from the post-office. It was on the safety of immediate emancipation. The very subject riveted attention by its novelty and boldness. The tract was read in secret, and read again, and soberly pondered. Light broke in; new thoughts, new feelings, new hopes were inspired. In less than one year, (1833,) the writer was a member of Lane Theological Seminary, and an avowed convert to the new doctrine.