This second instance was that famous and much quoted passage of his Plymouth oration in which he denounced the African slave-trade.

Every one remembers the ringing words:-- "I hear the sound of the hammer, I see the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs.

I see the visages of those who, by stealth and at midnight, labor in this work of hell,--foul and dark as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery and torture.

Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New England.

Let it be purified, or let it be set aside from the Christian world; let it be put out of the circle of human sympathies and human regards, and let civilized man henceforth have no communion with it." This is directed against the African slave-trade, the most hideous feature, perhaps, in the system.