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be one; that the world might believe that the Father had sent him, The union of the whole Church, therefore, will precede the gathering in of the nations to the Son of God. The alienation and estrangement that now exist between members of the same community, will and must be chased away by more of the graces of piety and love. Many denominational peculiarities, that hinder the communion and co-operation of different bodies of Christians, clearer light will discover to be sinful, and warmer love will scatter and remove. Other distinctive features that remain will sink to their proper level, and will no more be permitted to usurp the place and assume the importance belonging only to first principles, and the essentials of our most holy faith. With what a holy and just indignation will the Christians of that period tear down and trample on the many trifling things, of doctrine and of discipline, that have so long stood in the way of our unity, our labours, our successes, and our love. How will they execrate and scatter to the winds the idols of the mind that we have cherished and have desired to leave as a most precious heir-loom to posterity; the things that have estranged and divided us from the most useful and most excellent of the earth; that have led us to withdraw from them, to note them, to fight against them, to unchristianise them; to deny to them the rites of hospitality and the privileges of the Christian Church; to shut them out from the table of the Lord upon earth, and to do our utmost to exclude them from the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven. Christians and Christian churches have not always discovered half the wisdom or half the charity of Balaam the soothsayer, in the anathemas and exclusions that they have imposed upon those who have borne the most delightful evidences of the favour and love of God towards them. He felt what many professing Christians wedded to the Shibboleth of their own party do not feel or fear, "How shall I curse," says he, "whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied?" That was a work too perilous and dreadful for even Balaam to accomplish; but he might have attempted it had he been a Christian! Sectional divisions of the Church of Christ may remain at the latter-day glory, as the tribes of Israel were marshalled under their respective standards and commanders, and occupied separate and distinct portions of the camp and of the holy land. Yet the distinct division of the tribes did not hinder their unrestricted and fraternal communion; neither did it at all interfere with the convention and harmony of their elders in the council; nor did it interrupt the regular assembling of their thousands in the great

congregation on their solemn feast-days; nor did it prevent the mustering of the host for the battle.

Independency, Episcopacy, Methodism, Antipædobaptism, may, perhaps, exist in the latter-day glory; but they will, no doubt, be completely divested of all their offensive peculiarities; nor will they prove walls of separation, nor prevent the entire and affectionate freedom of communion between all denominations of Christians, or the interchange of services and the union of efforts for the welfare of the whole Church of Christ, and the complete triumph of his Gospel over the whole earth. With the blessing of unity, reigning in the latter-day glory, there will be, also,

4. Peace. This great blessing, so frequently mentioned as distinguishing the Messiah's reign, will be enjoyed, in all its fulness, in the Church. The visible Church has been the "arena" of far more frequent, fierce, and fatal conflicts than have ever raged in the battle-field; and a pretended zeal for God and religion has originated the most numerous and bloody wars. Polemical disputations and religious controversy have been most destructive of the purity and power of the Gospel, as the angry combatants have discovered the most alarming destitution of its spirit; but these shall be annihilated by the spirit of holiness and love, shedding down its peaceful influence on the latter days. Angry spirits will be subdued by love; angry pens will be cast into the fire, and angry controversies will cease. If all do not see alike, upon all the minor points of duty or of doctrine, all will see the sin, folly, and injury of fighting over them. The truth will be elicited much more readily by careful investigation, calm inquiry, and modest statements, than by bold and hazardous assertions on the one hand, and positive and haughty denials on the other.

When wars have been made to cease in the Church, its energies will be directed to the establishment of peace in the world. The Prince of Peace will stretch his rod over the nations, and put an end for ever to the plunder of property, the seizing of territories, and the shedding of blood. Ambition and revenge, the two great causes of war, will be destroyed; and wars, with all their consequences, will be banished from the world. He, whose right it is to reign, shall " cause wars to cease unto the ends of the earth," and his obedient and willing subjects "shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." W. T.

(To be continued.)

SLAVERY.

ABOLITION OF COLONIAL APPRENTICE

SHIP.

ON the 13th and 14th of March, two of the grandest meetings were held at Exeter Hall, for the above object, that have ever graced the British metropolis. Lord Brougham had been announced as the chairman, and long before the hour of meeting, thousands in vain sought admission to the spacious hall. An unwonted enthusiasm seemed to animate every countenance, and both speakers and auditors appeared to feel as if they had met to strike off the last fetters of slavery from an oppressed and injured race. If we have doubted before, we doubt no longer now, that the apprenticeship clause of the new act must forthwith be abolished. The argument of Lord Brougham's speech, to say nothing of what fell from the lips of other advocates, was irresistible; and if the anti-slavery friends are true to themselves, in town and country, that is, if they will petition Parliament without a moment's delay, it will be impossible much longer to retard the righteous consummation! Our reasons for expressing this decided opinion are the following:

1. The whole working of the apprenticeship clause shows, that the West Indian interest cannot be intrusted, under any conceivable restrictions, with the happiness of the negro race. Unless liberty—full, unrestricted liberty, be conceded to our coloured fellow-subjects, they will inevitably be oppressed. This is the opinion of every impartial judge. To attempt to make fresh laws, then, for his protection, under the existing system, will be but to disappoint his just hopes, and to exasperate the public mind of the country, already excited to indignation upon this most trying question.

2. The coloured people have proved themselves, in every instance, qualified for full liberty. For what was the apprenticeship clause originally acceded to, but to prepare the way for freedom? The fact has proved, that no such trial of the negro was required, and that therefore unnecessary restriction upon his actual freedom ought to be abandoned.

3. The planters have already been fully compensated for that which has shown itself to be no loss; they cannot, therefore, justly complain of the measure of entire and immediate emancipation. We say to all the friends of humanity and religion, unite your energies, and rescue our beloved country from the shame and disgrace which yet attaches to her.

REPORT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY SELECT
COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL TRIBES.

We trust that the little volume, bearing the above name, will not be passed over as a merely official document of dry statistics, or tedious cross-examination. It is replete with matter of the most interesting character, and appears in its present form, and with the addition of a valuable preface and comments, through the exertions of a society recently formed, but well deserving the warm support and co-operation, not only of the benevole:.t, but also of the Christian public.

No one, whose judgment is not blinded by interest, can have read with any attention the history of our colonial possessions-no one can ponder over the facts adverted to in the report now published, without feeling a blush of shame, as well as a burst of indignation, while he remembers that he is a Briton.

The means pursued for the accomplishment of our purposes have, indeed, varied with times and circumstances, but the system has been every where the same. Fraud, violence, and cruelty, have ever marked our conduct towards the native possessors of the soil we have coveted. The brandy-cask and the musket have gone hand in hand in the work of dispossession and depopulation, and the system has accomplished a twofold evil, brutalising the oppressor, while it destroyed the oppressed.

The histories of Canada, Australia, British Guiana, and South Africa, repeat the same sad tale, a tale which has impressed on our national escutcheon a blot never to be effaced. While we have gloried in the proud recollection that the sun never sets on our dominions-while we have rejoiced in those missionary heralds whom we have sent forth to preach to the heathen the "unsearchable riches of Christ," we have forgotten, or never known, that the British power of which we boasted was being employed in the dark and dreadful work of extermination, and that the exertions of our agents were cramped and weakened by the oppression under which the helpless Aborigines were harassed and destroyed.

"This is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison-houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore."

Too long have the feelings of the British public slumbered on this subject: let the startling facts now brought to light speak with a voice which shall rouse to instant and energetic exertion. The evils to be remedied are great, urgent, and immediate. We hail the tendency shown by the present Administration to a more mild and just

system of colonial policy as a bright omen for the future; but, we repeat, that it is the powerful and combined expression of public feeling alone which can insure, extend, and support a system whose introduction and establishment will meet with strong and interested opposition, both at home and abroad.

We believe that ignorance must, in great measure, account for the apathy which has hitherto existed on the subject. Let not this be again pleaded in excuse. Let this

report be widely circulated, and carefully read; let the proceedings of the society, under whose sanction it now appears, be watched, and its exertions supported; and let every man and every woman awake to a deep conviction of his personal responsibility on this subject, not only as a Briton, but as a Christian.

PRESENT HORRORS AND EXTENT OF THE

AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

Extracted from Pamphlets entitled, "No. I. and II. The Foreign Slave Trade.-A brief account of its State, and the Treaties and Laws relating thereto, continued to the present time.-January, 1838." Hatchard.

HER Majesty's Commissioners at Sierra Leone have estimated the number of slaves carried off from the Western coast of Africa, at 80,000 per annum; the greater part from Whydah, Bonny, Old and New Calabar, and other rivers which flow into the Gulf of Guinea. It has been stated, that in the Bight of Benin alone, from forty to fifty slave vessels, capable of carrying 20,000 negroes, have been lying in and off the different rivers at one time. On the Eastern coast, the principal slave marts are Quilimana and Mozambique. Last autumn, H. M. S. Leveret found lying at the former place, slave vessels capable of carrying away 3000 slaves; and at Mozambique 10,000 slaves were reported to be ready for embarkation, and sixteen slave vessels, of from 300 to 900 tons burthen, were then lying in port, ready to receive them; these enormous exportations going on at one time, say in one quarter of a year, would lead us to conclude we should be taking a low estimate if we were to state the number of negroes carried from the Eastern coast, at half the number taken from the Western, namely at 40,000. Such an estimate would give a total of 120,000 per annum. From this statement, which we believe to be considerably below the number actually shipped off, it would appear, that in the thirty years which have elapsed since England washed her hands of this blood-stained traffic, not less than 3,600,000 human beings have been torn from their native homes, and plunged

VOL. XVI.

into the most hopeless misery. But this is not all;-all African travellers bear testimony to the fact, that for every negro put on ship-board, from five to ten lives are sacrificed; if we take them at six only, in the period we have named, (and we have fixed upon it, because during the greater portion of that time the trade has been an illegal one,) it shows that no less than TWENTYFIVE MILLIONS, TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND

of our fellow-creatures (a number greater than the total population of England and Scotland, and nearly equal to that of the whole United Kingdom) have either perished on the plains of Africa, or on the ocean, or have been carried into interminable bondage; and if Texas should be annexed to America, the number in the next thirty years will be enormously increased, unless a great change be effected.

We will not now speak of the dreadful sufferings inflicted on them during the march to the coast, and we will only glance at those of the middle passage.+ Capt. Hayes, of the Royal Navy, thus describes them :

"The men are chained in pairs, and as a proof that they are intended so to remain to the end of the voyage, their fetters are not locked, but riveted by a blacksmith; and as deaths are frequently occurring, living men are often for a length of time confined to dead bodies. I have now an officer on board the Dryad, who, on examining one of these slave vessels, found not only living men chained to dead bodies, but the latter in a putrid state." The same officer tells us, "that it is no uncommon occurrence for women to be bringing forth children, and men dying by their side."

This is a true picture of what is at this very moment occurring in the holds of the fleets of ships sailing on the Atlantic, under the flags of Spain, of Portugal, and of Brazil, and under the protection of the Banners of America;-but suppose a ship, not protected by the American flag, falls in with a British cruiser, authorised to capture slavers, and there appears a chance of her success, what then is in many cases the fate which awaits the wretched negro? Read the answer!

"Le Jeune Estelle, being chased by a British cruiser, enclosed twelve negroes in casks, and threw them overboard. In 1831, the Black Joke and Fair Rosamond fell in with the Hercules and Regule, two slave vessels, off the Bonny River: on perceiving the cruisers, they attempted to regain the port, and pitched overboard upwards of five hundred human beings chained together, before they were captured ;-from the abundance of sharks in the river, their track was literally a blood-stained one. The slaver not only does this, but glories in it; the See former Pamphlet, p. 26. Idem, pp. 43–50.

Q

first words uttered by the captain of the Maria Isabella, seized by Lieutenant Rose, were, "that if he had seen the man-of-war in chase an hour sooner, he would have thrown every slave in his vessel overboard, as he was fully insured."

INDIA.

AN INDIAN JUGGLER.

ON the 10th of October, 1822, I called at the Russian Bible Society's house to see my friend, Dr. Paterson, but found him so busy that he would scarcely speak to me. He was in his bibliotheca, turning over the leaves of Hindoo copies of the Scriptures. Just by his side, on a table, lay a number of papers written in the Tamul language. I was delighted at the sight of the letters, and said to the doctor, "You are studying my old language, I see.' ." This roused him. "What do you say?" he replied: "do you know this language?" "Yes; it is the language which I studied in India." At this he laid aside his books, and sat down and took out his snuff-box, and said in a low tone, "Now, I'll tell you a secret. There

is a poor fellow taken up in Russian Poland, under suspicion of his being a spy. I suspect that he is an Indian juggler; his papers have been seized, and he is under an arrest, until the matter can be cleared up. These are the papers: they have been sent to Wilna to have them deciphered, but the professors have returned them, not knowing whether it is a language, or merely a deception; so, if you can throw any light upon it, you may get the man set free."

I examined the papers, and sent in the following statement:

"The documents are written in the Tamul language, which language is spoken by millions of people in India. The man is an Indian juggler; his name is Mootaswamee, which is a common name among the Hindoos. His pocket-book contains the names of places which he has visited, with an account of expenses for lighting the rooms, &c. where he has performed his feats. One of his papers is a plan of route; another is a bill of fare, or daily expenses for food; another is a list of money in the hands of bankers in Edinburgh and India."

This had the desired effect; and I had the happiness of knowing that Mootaswamee had his clothes and money restored to him, and the prisoner was set free.

I have often reflected on this circumstance with peculiar delight. It is very probable that I was the only person in the Russian empire who could speak the Tamul language; and but for my knowledge of it, the poor Indian juggler might have been in

prison until this day; and I should be happy if I could make this to act as an incitement to my young friends to seek the acquirement of living languages.

By the knowledge of a living language you possess a key which will unlock a million minds. It was the sentiment of Dr. Bogue, that a Missionary who had learned the language of a heathen people, so as to convey to them a knowledge of Christ, had acquired that which was worth more than one hundred thousand pounds.

An opportunity is given, in the present day, to pious, intelligent, and aspiring youths, to gain more than this hundred thousand pounds, by becoming acquainted with the language of three hundred and fifty millions of people.

The Rev. Mr. Kidd, who for many years was engaged as a Chinese Missionary, is appointed "The Professor of Chinese in University College." Here, parents, behold an opening for the advancement of your sons ! The celebrated Swartz learned the Tamul language while he was at college; and it made him so in love with Tamullers, that he afterwards went to India, where he became so eminent.

Let your sons learn Chinese, and it may, through God's blessing, make them so in love with Chinamen, that, like Swartz, they may hereafter go and preach the Gospel to the sons of the celestial empire. Amen. RICHARD KNILL.

SUPPORT OF IDOLATRY IN BRITISH INDIA.

THE attention of the Christian public has already been called to this subject, and it excited considerable interest; but of late the question has been, in a measure, lost sight of; and an assurance from the Court of Directors of the East India Company that they were giving their serious attention to the best means of removing the evil, has laid our fears to sleep, and induced the friends of true Christian consistency to relax, in a measure, the efforts they deemed necessary to secure the removal of this hinderance to the spread of the Gospel.

In a late number of the "Friend of India" it is stated, that there is every prospect of the temple of Juggernaut at Pooree, the superintendence of which, it appears, was vested in the Rajah of Khoordah, being restored to the representative of that Rajah, as his lawful patrimony, and left entirely to his management and control. We hope most fervently that this measure will soon be carried into effect, and that the East India Company, who have for many years past derived a nett annual revenue of Rs. 61,101 from that temple, as well as Rs. 191,056 from Gyah, and Rs. 75,293 from Allahabad, (altogether an annual profit

of Rs. 327,450, or £32,745 from idolatry!!) will wash their hands of this unhallowed fellowship with idols-this compromise of every moral feeling which is just and honourable in an enlightened legislature. At the same time, it is but too evident that the Indian authorities should be narrowly watched, or there will be a danger of all good being neutralised by the introduction of reserving clauses, or by connivance at some details not strictly opposed to the letter of the despatch of 1833, but which will support the principle we are anxious to see entirely and for ever abolished.

In illustration of this remark, the writer may adduce a fact which has very recently come to his knowledge. A few years ago the government of Fort St. George, with a view to affording facilities for the employment of young men educated in the Military Male Asylum at Madras, (the school in which Dr. Bell first brought his monitorial system into operation,) formed a depôt for receiving them and preparing them to become drummers in the Madras army. They had been brought up as Christians, under the care of one of the Company's chaplains, and orders issued by the commander-in-chief that when they joined any corps they were to be dealt with as Christians; required to attend public worship; not to be called on to attend heathen feasts; but to use their drums only for military purposes. These rules have been in force for some time, but the Supreme Government has lately endeavoured to cancel them, not by any general order to the army, which would have come at once under the public eye, and incurred the censure it deserved, but by letters to the officers in command of corps, directing them to persuade their drummers to show good-will, and attend as others formerly did, at heathen and Mohammedan festivals. This is done by the professedly Christian government of British India, and directly in the teeth of the Court of Directors, who have, by their despatch of 1833, directed that all interference with local superstitions, on the part of public officers, shall entirely cease.

That we may fully and adequately appreciate this measure, let us look at its practical working. Some may say there is in it nothing compulsory-that commanding officers are simply directed to use mild and friendly persuasion; and then to leave it to the Christian drummers to judge and act for themselves; but does not every one know, that the officer in command of a regiment has, unavoidably, a large measure of discretionary power, by means of which he can cause any person, who has at all disregarded his wishes, to feel the painfulness of his displeasure? that there are extra duties which may be imposed on those who

are so stiffnecked as to disregard the expression of the wishes of their superior? and that there are various little favours and advantages which he has it in his power to award to those whose ready obedience to his will prove them to be desirous of securing his favour? And does it need any degree of prescience to foresee on whom, in this case, such favours will be conferred, and on whom such disadvantages and inconveniences will be made to press? Can we, knowing what human nature is, believe that officers in command will be so evenhanded in the exercise of their patronage, and the distribution of their favours, as really to leave their Christian drummers at liberty to act as their conscience may dictate, and that no pain or penalty will be inflicted on those who dare to hesitate? No! it must be very evident that the mode of proceeding here adopted goes on the opposite supposition, and proves the cunning of those who have devised it. They knew well they had good ground for believing that these letters recommending persuasion would, in the great majority of cases, have all the force of a positive and official mandate, and would secure obedience to their wishes under the milder names of good-will and friendly compliance.

Is it not evident, also, that the moral effect on the minds of these young men must be very injurious? We will suppose the drummer, who has just joined his corps, to be summoned by the "orderly" to the house of the commanding officer, whom he finds transacting the public business of the day with his adjutant-he is told, that in a few days, a particular feast is coming on, and that though there is no positive order on the subject, in virtue of which the commanding officer would require him to give attendance, yet that he wishes him to do so, and to show a friendly feeling towards the seapoys who are Hindoos (or Mohammedans, as the case may be) by attending with his drum in honour of their religious observances-what is the impression unavoidably produced on the mind of the young man? Certainly, that his superior entertains a very favourable opinion of the Hindoo religion, and that the ceremonies observed are very proper and laudable, or he would not be even requested to do them honour. He goes in full dress, with his drum on his back, with his comrades of the band, to the spot to which the commanding officer directed him. He there sees the idol brought out and placed upon the car; and while the people shout, and the native guns are fired, and the whole place is filled with exultation at the great event, that the image of brass, or wood, or stone, has vouchsafed to the populace the opportunity of gazing upon its odious form-the Christian drummer

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