The obituary of the week includes the name of the
venerable WILBERFORCE, who died in his seventy-fourth year. It has been remarked before, that philanthropists have been generally long- lived. Benevolence is the true elixir vita.. WILBERFORCE lived long enough, since he saw before lie died the prospect of emancipa- tion to the Negro slave, in whose cause the strongest feelings of his heart and the best energies of his mind were inlisted. His death at this juncture is a remarkable coincidence. It would seem as if, feel- ing the end accomplished for which he lived, he had quietly resigned his breath, and laid down to rest from his labours. The names of WILBERFORCE and CLARKSON will go down to posterity with that of HOWARD. It is not those who with reluctant hand unfetter the limbs of the Negro, link by link, that have given the slave his freedom; but those men who applied the levers of reason and elo- quence to the inert mass of human sympathy, and compelled the act so tardily performed. When the dungeon-wall is undermined, the bars and bolts are of little avail.
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