r worship, orders that the very first thing done by the
church should be, that of making supplication, prayers, and
intercessions, and giving God thanks for all men that were placed in
authority, by the State, for the administration of civil government. He
assigns the reason for this injunction, "that we may lead a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."

My correspondent complains, that abolitionists at the North are not safe
when they come among us. They are much safer than the saints of Ephesus
would have been in the Apostolic day, if Paul would have allowed the
seditious doctrine to be propagated which our Northern brethren think it
such a merit to preach, when it subjects them to no risk. How can they
expect, in the nature of things, to lead a quiet and peaceable life when
they come among us? They are _organized_ to overthrow our
sovereignty--to put our lives in peril, and to trample upon Bible
principles, by which the rights of property are to be settled.

Questions and strifes of words characterized the disputes of the
abolitionists at Ephesus about slavery. It is amusing and painful to see
the questions and strifes of words in the piece of my correspondent.
Many of these questions are about our property right in slaves. The
_substance of them_ is this: that the present title is not good, because
the original title grew out of violence and injustice. But, reader, our
original title was obtained in the same way which God in his law
authorized his people to obtain theirs. They obtained their slaves by
purchase of those who made them captives in the hazards of war, or by
conquest with their own sword. My correspondent speaks at one time as if
ours were stolen in the first instance; but, as if forgetting that, in
another place he says, that so great is the hazard attending the wars of
Africa, that one life is lost for every two that are taken captive and
sold into slavery. If this is stealing, it has at least the merit of
being more manly than some that is practiced among us.

A case seems to have been preserved by the Holy Ghost, as if to rebuke
this abolition doctrine about property rights. It is the case of the
King of Ammon, a heathen, on the one side, and Jephtha, who "obtained a
good report by faith," on the other. It is consoling to us that we
occupy the ground Jephtha did--and we may well suspect the correctness
of the other side, because it is the ground occupied by Ammon. The case
is this: