happiness between man and wife, devours population by preventing marriages, and perpetuates continual quarrels and bloodshed throughout the churches all over the globe, setteth on fire the course of nature, "or the wheel of life."

"St. James does not intend to express the whole circle of human affairs, so much affected by the tongue of man, but rather the penal wheel of the Greeks, and not unknown to the Jews, on which they were accustomed to extend criminals, to induce them to confess, or to punish them for crimes; under which wheels, fire was often placed, to add to their torments. They cast him on the wheel over which they extended him; they put coals under it, and strongly agitated the wheel." Just so do malignant slanderers distend us: they circulate a mischievous tale in solemn conclave or malicious madness, among the murderous crowd in civil and religious society; then stretch the man or woman's character, soul, body, and estate thereupon, to induce them, by pumping, by cunning, villainous questions, to confess false judgment, still continuing to torture them under the murdering excuses of known, suspected, or unknown criminality; they put the hot burning coals of hell fire slanders under, upon, and all around them, they agitate the wheel of public and private opinion in and out of the churches, writing libellous, cunning, murderous letters against them, privately shooting at them, publicly laughing, mocking, and persecuting them, in all pumping, punning, groaning, and grinning circles, by nods, grins, winks, foreboding shrugs, baboon grimmaces, and white eyed laws, of solemn, hypocritical astonishment; by malicious, partial church censures, for the glory of God they say, grievous, vexatious, and

groundless state privations, accusations, prosecutions, condemnations, and malicious punishments; thus bringing the whole circle of the wheels of the devil's steam engine, slander, against one, against each, against all, every man's tongue being a sword, a fire, a world of iniquity, cuts, wounds, slays, burns, scorches, pains, and consumes name, fame, property, life, and salvation! Yet still we leave it to a jury to punish them, without a fixed, defined, penal statute! "They brought him to the wheel, on which having distended his limbs and broken his joints, they scorched him with fire, placed underneath, and with sharp spits, (saith history) heated in the fire, they pierced his sides and burned his bowels."

Thus, and thus publicly and privately do slanderers immolate or murder the unsuspecting and unprepared victims of their envy and malice; they stretch their reputations to dislocation, as those distended the limbs of the tortured sufferer; they feast their fiery eyes and malefic ears upon their cries and obloquys; they eat up their sins; they are food for their insatiate ambition and revenge : as those rejoiced at the snaps of the broken limbs and joints of the writhing, raving, hopeless victim, so these cry out ' ha, ha, so would we have it,' when the object of their malevolence is privately and publicly disgraced and ruined! As those scorched the sufferer with the fire placed underneath the wheel, so also do slanderers with the pokers, shovels and tongs, of letters, winks, balls, words, set on fire of hell by recapitulations of the past, and new creations and additions of accumulated calumny, stir up the fire of hell to scorch and burn up injured innocence! As with sharp spits, heated in the fire, they pierced the sides and burned the

Having stripped

bowels, so also do hot burning, hell fire slanderers heat their spit fire tongues in the devil's furnaces and forges of defamation, by the coals of hatred, and the breath or bellows of slander, and pierce the sides, breast, and souls of the slandered by their seven times heated and hissing tongues and pens! "The fire and the wheel (saith A. Clarke) are mentioned by Achilles Tatius. me of my garments, I was carried aloft-some bringing scourges, others the fire and the wheel. Now, as the Greek word often signifies life, then the wheel of life is to increase a man's torments; and to be set on fire of hell, implies having these miseries rendered more active by diabolical agency, or, in other words, bad men instigated by the devil, through lies and calumnies, make life burdensome to the objects of their malicious tongues.' Yes, as those tyrants stripped, and fired the wheel, raising the poor man aloft, so also do whisperers, backbiters, and haters of God strip you of reputation, health, appetite, friends, senses, life, and salvation, and expose us naked, upon high places of obloquy, to the increase of torments insupportable, inexpressible, and eternal! They enviously and maliciously strip us of civil and religious society, of honor, confidence, and genius, of conjugal happiness, of the favor of parents, brethren, children, servants, masters, and benefactors; they bereave us of a home, exposing our naked or hidden foibles to a host of maligners, and prevent the population of our country by breaking up millions of marriages; the stranger is tortured upon this universal wheel, so is the poor oppressed slave, until the hideous, bloody voice of Ramah becomes insupportable; the whole course of the blood and spirits, the concrete of violent passions, and the

whole malevolence of the universe, since Cain envied Abel, is, and has been, set on fire of hell— and shall we not rise up in universal opposition thereunto, by statutary enactments, defined, limited, stern, firm, and persevering restrictions in the churches, before all character, order, happiness, union, interest, and salvation is broken and consumed?

HE belch'd his bilious slanders up,
And bawl'd aloud of faith and hope;
And yet the slowjaw'd, huffish mope,
Let fly upon St. Peter's Pope.
Away he went, both head and tail,
A butting ram, with peacock's tail,
With strut and butt, to rail and sail
All through the stormy, surging gale.

They beat the revellie, tattoo,
And told on Jack, and Bett, and Lew;
Then gave a wild grimmalkin mew,
When off the wool and scarf skin flew ;
They point the loving, narrow way,
Yet sink the feeble in a day;

They bay, and pray, and fray, and slay,
And blight your fame to dire dismay.

A group of hearts, as hard as steel,
Play'd up a peddling, gadding reel;
And danc'd a wheel within a wheel,
Well pleasing to old Sam Ordeal;
They hump the shoulders, back, and face,
While each pursues the highest place;
Like Samson's foxes in the chace,
They scorch their brethren with disgrace.

Like eagles on their prey they flew,
When patronage their bills renew;

As large blue flies the mutton blew,
The many sunk beneath the few.
The wisdom coming from above,
They neither fear, nor hope, nor love;
Driving, as formerly, they drove,
While for the upper place they strove.

They whisper, write, and pump, and plod,
And peep, and wink, and frown, and nod,
And mutilate the word of God,

While smooth or soft, they ride rough shod:
Pursuing hard for holy gold,

They bow to mammon in the fold;
O let it not in Gath be told,
They lord and rail, revile and scold.

A wheel within the wheeling games,
Envelopes all the fold in flames;
They're set on fire of hell, saith James,
They publish crimes, and dates, and names;
Rivers of water drown our eyes,*

While earthquakes burst out inward sighs,
For despots treasure in the skies,

Their neighbor's sobs, and groans, and cries.

To slander through revenge, is equally as damning as though we had done it of mere malignity. "Be patient towards all men; see that none render evil unto any man," 1 Thess. v. 14, 15, is the apostolic precept. Hear also the Jewish lawgiver— "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge." Lev. xix. 18. Mark also the dissuasion of Solomon-"Say not thou I will recompense evil.” Prov. xx. 22. "Recompense to no man evil for

*Psalm cxix. 156.