as if it had been before
agreed upon, to deliver a discourse the next day, which was Sunday, on the
subject of the Slave-trade. I was always aware that it was my duty to do
all that I could with propriety to serve the cause I had undertaken, and
yet I found myself embarrassed at their request. Foreseeing, as I have
before related, that this cause might demand my attention to it for the
greatest part of my life, I had given up all thoughts of my profession. I
had hitherto but seldom exercised it, and then only to oblige some friend.
I doubted too, at the first view of the thing, whether the pulpit ought to
be made an engine for political purposes, though I could not but consider
the Slave-trade as a mass of crimes, and therefore the effort to get rid of
it as a Christian duty. I had an idea too, that sacred matters should not
be entered upon without due consideration, nor prosecuted in a hasty, but
in a decorous and solemn manner. I saw besides, that as it was then two
o'clock in the afternoon, and this sermon was to be forthcoming the next
day, there was not sufficient time to compose it properly. All these
difficulties I suggested to my new friends without any reserve. But nothing
that I could urge would satisfy them. They would not hear of a refusal, and
I was obliged to give my consent, though I was not reconciled to the
measure.

When I went into the church it was so full that I could scarcely get to my
place; for notice had been publicly given, though I knew nothing of it,
that such a discourse would be delivered. I was surprised also to find a
great crowd of black people standing round the pulpit. There might be forty
or fifty of them. The text that I took, as the best to be found in such a
hurry, was the following: "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know
the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

I took an opportunity of showing from these words, that Moses, in
endeavouring to promote among the Children of Israel a tender disposition
towards those unfortunate strangers who had come under their dominion,
reminded them of their own state when strangers in Egypt, as one of the
most forcible arguments which could be used on such an occasion. For they
could not have forgotten that the Egyptians "had made them serve with
rigour; that they had made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar,
and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; and that all the
service, wh