While the rest of the world admired the Greeks and Romans, they wisely assumed the heroes of sacred story as models for their imitation! Poor Las Casas! His weak and effeminate heart bled at the scene of misery! He wanted zeal to join in the pious work, and even wished to leave the Indians in possession of certain imaginary blessings which he pretended to call "the rights of humanity!" But the holy ardour of his associates frustrated his impious attempts; he could do no more than write, yet his writings, so far from producing the effect he intended, only served to increase our admiration of those great characters he meant to stigmatize. If the comparison might be allowed, we may affirm that the Spaniards were inferior to the Jews in this only circumstance, that they had a Las Casas among them. The Jews were obdurate to a man, and hardened with holy cruelty. We hear of no tergiversation when Jericho was to be destroyed; "Man and woman, young and old, ox, sheep, and ass, were put to the edge of the sword."* What a philosophical command over the tender passions must Joshua have acquired, to have enabled him to smite with the sword,** and utterly destroy the inhabitants of Ai, Libnah, Lachish, Hebron, Debir, &c. &c. &c. especially*** as the hardness of their heart was no fault of theirs, but proceeded from the Lord! How truly great, how far above the common weakness of humanity, appears the man after God's own heart, at the taking of the city of Rabbah!**** "He brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln!" O ye greatly inexorable heroes! ye Jews! ye Spaniards! ye firm and zealous of antient and modern times, if any such exist! pity the wretch who admires your virtues, but whose pen trembles, and whose eye overflows at the recital of your deeds! And thou, O mighty and benevolent Power, forgive the heart that, shocked at the tortures inflicted on thy creatures, is unwilling to acknowledge thee as the author of them! * Johua vi. 21. ** Joshua x. 10. *** Joshua xi. 20. **** 2 Sam. xii. 29, 31. 19. The most rational men reject the science of magic or witchcraft, as a silly imposition on the credulity of mankind; but we believers, who have nothing to do with reason, but are guided by the indefinable faculty called _faith_, are perfectly ready to admit it, and deplore the infidelity of that parliament, which repealed the acts by which so many of that profession lost their lives.