5.-THOUGHTS ON THE FAMINE NOW RAGING IN THE DOAB AND N. W. PROVINCES FOUnded on Deuteronomy, ChaP. XV. VERSE 11.

"For the poor shall never cease out of the land."

The laws given by Moses are intermixed with prophecies which denounce the displeasure of the Almighty upon the disobedient, and promise blessings to those that obey them. Interspersed with these are reasons why certain commands were enjoined. As a reason for the cultivation of benevolence the divine law-giver asserts that the poor shall never cease out of the land. This declaration is remarkable, because referring to a land of which Moses said "the Lord thy God careth for it; the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year." If in such a land there should be an inequality between the people, so that the poor should never cease out of it, we may infer that this would be the case to a still greater extent in lands and countries less favoured than Judea. That this has been the case generally throughout the world, history places beyond a doubt; that it is the case now, the distresses in the north-western provinces too painfully illustrate;—and we may perhaps not err in supposing that future ages, not even excepting that of the millenium, will witness inequalities in the condition and circumstances of men; that some will be exalted, others be brought low: some rise into opulence and others sink into poverty:-and that the time will never arrive in which the poor shall cease out of the land.

Though it is perfectly just to ascribe sufferings and calamities to the effects of sin, we may not with equal propriety attribute the difference between the rich and the poor, to the same source; because happiness is not always produced by riches nor suffering by poverty; for a man's life (that is his happiness) consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. The terms rich and poor, high and low, master and servant, king and subject might, for aught we know to the contrary, have comported with a state of innocence; for different degrees exist in heaven, where certainly there is no sin. We read of principalities and powers, cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels. If there be a doubt whether principalities be superior to powers, there cannot we suppose be any doubt that angels are inferior to archangels. This inequality will also exist among the risen saints," when they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as stars in the firmament of heaven: for one star differeth from another star in glory: so also shall it be in the resurrection of the just.

The glory of Abraham may exceed that of the twelve Patriarchs, the condition of Moses excel that of the elders on whom he placed his hands, and the crown of the Apostle Paul be brighter than of the other Apostles, and theirs more splendid than those of believers in general: but this difference between the risen saints as well as that among the elect angels, cannot be ascribed to sin: neither ought the inequalities among men to be attributed to the same cause, but assigned to the true one, viz. the sove. reignty of God-"Even so Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.” Although diligence and industry carry with them their own reward, and though it be said that idleness shall be clothed with rags, yet the Sovereign Disposer of events causes riches sometimes to flow into the bosom of him who has never laboured for them, and poverty to attend the man who toils incessantly. Were the circumstances of all men balanced to-day in equilibrio, tomorrow the equilibrium would be distributed without either injustice or violence, but of necessity. To suppose a continuance of an equality in the affairs of men, under the present arrangement of divine providence would involve an equality in skill, wisdom, prudence and industry; in muscular strength, stature, courage, and fortitude,-that the wants of

every parent must be equal; his family neither smaller nor larger, older nor younger than that of his neighbour; that there must be equality in appetite, consumption, qualification and enjoyment; that his fields, plantation or estate must be equally fruitful with those around him; that countries must be equally fertile, and climates equally salubrious; an equality in every accidental circumstance that can befal man in this changing world ad infinitum: which supposition would be absurd.

The system of creation is one of dependance, all mutually depending on each other and the whole upon God. While the planets depend on the sun for their light, he by their gravity is balanced in his orbit. Thus among men, while the throne is the source of honor and distinctions, itself is supported by the allegiance of the people; and descending from the greater to the less, it will be apparent that the child must depend on its parent, the lame on those who have feet, the weak upon the strong, the blind on those who have sight, and the poor upon the rich. The ancients ascribed imperfections and malformations of the body to sin either of the child in a former birth or of the parents. The Hindus not only do so, but attribute accidents, poverty and distress to the same source. That this is erroneous appears from John ix. 2. "Jesus answered (in the case of the blind man) neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." Therefore the different grades among men, the sufferings of one and the calamities of another, how modified or augmented soever by sin, are not always.produced by it. May we not suppose that they are ordained to display the mercy of God in raising up deliverance for them? and if so, the poor shall never cease out of the land."

The argument that if sin be not the cause of poverty, blindness and wretchedness, God is unrighteous, is founded in error; namely, in the hypothesis that God as a Sovereign has not a right to do as he will with his own. No one enters this world as the creditor of the Almighty, but as a pensioner on His bounty who divideth to every one severally as he pleaseth. This is illustrated in Matt. xx. 1-15 where they who had laboured but. one hour, received equally with those who had toiled all the day. In this instance however those who had toiled all the day were entitled to their wages; but in that which we are considering all that men receive is of pure benevolence. So that where there is no claim, if one man do not receive the same as another, he suffers no injustice and we do injustice to God, when in common parlance, we speak of his having denied sight to the blind, or riches to the poor; the latter have no title to wealth, the former no claim to sight. When a subject has been knighted others do not say we have been denied the honors of knighthood, neither does the knight say, I have been denied the honors of a duke; for where there is no claim there can be no injustice, and God is not unjust who has dispensed his bounty as he pleaseth. His reasons for so doing are founded in infinite rectitude, wisdom and benevolence: what then are those reasons? Shall we err in supposing that, as God is the source of all excellence and felicity, so creation rose into existence to imbibe his goodness and as a mirror to reflect his image? then in proportion as his creatures are assimilated to that. image will they be excellent and happy. Amidst the attributes of Deity, if one more than another displays his glory, that one is benevolence, for God is love; but as the light of the sun, if poured out into the infinity of space without a world to illuminate, would have been created in vain; so without beings to feel and taste his goodness, Jehovah would have possessed the attribute of benevolence in vain. Therefore, to partake of divine goodness and to enjoy divine favour, by the word of God, the heavens and the earth were created: and had not sin marred the work of God men like

angels would have resembled their maker in rectitude, wisdom and bene. volence, with immortality stamped up on their nature.

That which we now call benevolence in man is but the wreck of that noble principle with which he was first endowed. To restore this glorious part of his image, Jehovah put forth a more striking display of his goodness than at creation, by sending his Son into the world. Made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under law, the word became flesh and dwelt among us; and we beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. He came to redeem us from the curse of the law and place us under the law of love. Upon love to God and love to man hang all the law and the prophets; and hence love is the fulfilling of the law. But God has not created us with a principle of benevolence and sent his Son to restore that principle, without providing objects on which it can be displayed. What then are those objects? Towards God our love can be displayed only as gratitude; and angels being superior to us require not our assistance: the benevolence of man is therefore designed to act on his fellow-man; but were there no inequality among men each one would be independant of his neighbour; it follows therefore that "the poor shall never cease out of the land," and that as the earth was formed to receive the light of heaven, so the poor have been created to participate in the bounty of the rich.

The principle of benevolence is not destined to wane with the life of man, but, being a part of his immortal mind, to increase in vigour through deathless ages. Some habits and dispositions are requisite only to prepare us for a future state, not to accompany us thither; for example, faith will not be required in heaven, and hope will cease at death, the latter exchanged for enjoyment, the former transformed into sight; but benevolence, that is charity, shall never cease; it is a part of the new man, renewed after the image of Christ Jesus, without which a man cannot be a Christian on earth, cannot enter heaven as a saint: its absence would transform the harmony of heaven into chaos, its glory into shame, its purity into crime; and if men would enter heaven they must exercise benevolence on earth. It is therefore clear that the poor can never cease out of the land.

There are some seasons more than others in which God calls upon us, in language that none can mistake, for the exercise of benevolence: the present is one of those seasons, in which famine spreads her desolations through the N. W. Provinces. We, at this distance from the scenes of suffering, neither hear the moans of the dying infant, nor the wailing of the skeleton once called its mother when, as she feels the fountain of nutrition drying up within her, she would substitute her life's blood for its support, except, as borne upon the scorching blast from the west, they occasionally break feebly and faintly upon our ears. We see not the ravings of the naked hungry father as he returns from a fruitless search of employment or food, driven to madness when his children raise their sunken eyes and emaciated countenances in piteous expectation and cry bread, bread, except as dimly reflected through the medium of the press-dimly, we say for all images how highly soever wrought, must fail in giving a just representa tion of such sufferings, not those of a family merely nor of a community but of whole provinces, where the heaven over their head is brass, and the earth under them is iron, where the rain of their land is powder and dust, and where they grope at noon day with madness, blindness and astonishment of heart, and where consumption and fever and drought and blasting and mildew pursue the inhabitants; but though we neither see the latter, nor hear the former, are we ignorant that these things are so? Do we not know that the frantic father is driven to sell his children? That the

famished mother and her babe are found twined in each other's embrace and both together locked in the arms of death? Do we not know that many collect the dung of cattle, and eat the few undigested grains which they may thus obtain; that they eat and are not satisfied? Do we not know that respectable natives have been seen gnawing bones the abomination of Hindus, striving with the very vulture and the crow for carrion? and that they eat and are not satisfied-Where is the heart that does not kindle into love at such things? Where the breast that does not melt with pity? Where the hand that is not stretched out to afford assistance that hand is a malformation of nature. It should have been the paw of a tiger; that heart is not human, it is that of a hyena; that breast has not the milk of human kindness—it belongs to a savage!

We call on all that is humane in man, all that is divine in the Christian, to open every fountain of benevolence, that their streams however wide apart from each other and how small soever may flow till rill meeting rill they swell into rivulets, and rivulets mingle with rivulets and become streams, and streams united roll a tide of benevolence into the N. W. Provinces adequate to the demands of the famished inhabitants.

Let us remember that we are called to this duty not only to alleviate present suffering, but to prevent additional and impending calamities. Whole provinces will not tamely lie down like a flock of sheep and die. Theft and gang-robbery will ensue. The hand now stretched out to receive an alms, will ere long be raised to take that by violence which it could not obtain from sympathy; and should this be the case, Government must add the victims of slaughter to those of famine. So that but one alternative is before us-stretch out our hands we must, either to allay their hunger or to bathe our swords in their blood?

They are not sinners above others, that they thus suffer. They are not aliens from the human race! "Skins may differ, but affection dwells in black and white the same." They are not foreigners-they have ploughed our fields, they have tended our flocks, they have fought our battles, they have filled our exchequer. They are not neighbours, but a part of our selves; for a nation is but one large family, the father of which is the head of the Government. Their calamities ought therefore to be regarded as our own, and our treasures and our sympathies be as theirs.

If the positions we laid down at the commencement be just, this famine may be permitted, among other reasons, to exercise our benevolence. Shall we by parsimony frustrate the designs of God?

By making us like Himself benevolent, He assimilates our minds to His glorious image; shall we, for the mammon of this world, refuse to become Like Him? He prepares us for a residence among angels ; shall we neglect the opportunity? Again, it may be permitted to excite the gratitude of those who are in distress and draw down on our heads their prayers? Shall we, by covetousness, change that gratitude into hatred, and turn their prayers into curses? To bind them to the British sceptre-shall we alienate their affections from our Government? To break the chain of caste, that now opposes the spread of the Gospel,-shall we rivet that chain more firmly, by telling them that Christianity, like their own incarnations, is destitute of sympathy? God forbid !

M. H. B.

VII-Exportation of Natives.

(For the Calcutta Christian Observer.)

It was our intention to have entered at length into the merits of this question in the present number: circumstances have however prevented the fulfilment of our intention. We are the more disposed to wait awhile ere we enter fully into the subject that we may lay before our readers the actual state of things derived from a correspondence already set on foot with individuals in the scene of action. But though it is our intention to delay more extended observations on the subject, we will not defer bestowing praise where it is due on those officially connected with the traffic. We have been informed, and record the rumour with the highest satisfaction, that our chief ruler wished to prevent the exportation of coolies to the West Indies, but that permission bearing the sign manual of Lord Glenelg arrived at the very moment the correspondence was on the tapis. Surely Lord Glenelg has been hoodwinked on this subject; surely he was found napping when he signed such a document he will ere long be undeceived. The warmest thanks of the friends of the natives are however not the less due to Lord Auckland for his humane interposition. The humane and spirited efforts of Captain Birch (to promote the comfort of the emigrants) to whose care their shipment has been confided deserves the best thanks of the public. It affords us the most unqualified pleasure to know that such feelings exist in high quarters, and that such persons have the conduct of affairs, as far as Bengal is concerned. We have seen one or two of the coolies who have returned invalided and questioned them as to their treatment, &c. They said that they had plenty of food, two suits of clothing in twelve months if they worked well, and that their neral treatment was tolerably good. They laboured from sunrise to sunset; Sunday was their own if they worked well during the week. They had never seen a Bengali flogged, but they had seen negroes flogged: they got 5 Rupees per month, one of which went to the Sirdar:-they did not know any one who had saved money. One of them received 24 Rupees in advance when shipped, 13 of which were taken by the Sirdar, and he got only 11. They never heard of any insurrection or disturbance in the Island; they were not permitted to go from one estate to another; sick men could come back if there was room in the vessel. There was no wish to keep them if they could not work; they thought it would not be possible for a healthy man to return if he wished; they did not like the voyage. Out of the party to which they belonged consisting of 65, 3 died on the passage and 5 on the Island within 10 months: many others

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