pains to complete the compilation, of which probably only his too early Reichardt had reduced the whole to alphabetic order, and had taken great trated, but still by sentences composed only by individual Pandits. Mr. Mr. T. in which portions of the Bengáli vocubulary are similarly illus decease prevented the publication. Bengáli Grammars and initiatory works, which will probably appear next N. B. It is designed to follow up these notices by a similar Index of month. CINSURENSIS. III.-Colonization and Missions—Africa. "Nature imprints upon whate'er we see. Colonization, Missions, Africa,-a tolerably extensive subject surely, whether it be considered in a geographical, scientific, political, commercial, moral or religious point of view. The former topics we leave, to discuss those of morals and religion, as they are those which principally interest us as Christian Observers; not that we are indifferent to the other topics, or think them separate from religion; but because we believe they will be best promoted when religion exerts her benign sway over the whole earth. We will not now wait to discuss whether evangelization should precede or follow civilization; whether religion should introduce the blessings that have sprung from her to the people of Christianized lands, or whether she should follow at the bidding of her own offspring, with a tremulous and distant step. We will not discuss this, but merely remark, en passant, that whenever pure Christianity has found its way amongst a rude and barbarous people, it has invariably conferred on them the blessings of social comfort, commercial enterprize, pure morals, and elevated hopes. The Missions of the Pacific and Carribean seas, and the Missions in Africa, alike testify to the accuracy of this position. On the other hand, wherever mere commercial speculation or political ambition, or where these combined with religion, whether in a Popish or Protestant garb, have operated, what misery, bloodshed, oppression and cruelty, have followed in their train! Let the history of that beautiful country South America-let the tale of the Red Indians of the wilds of North America-let the records of the early history of the Dutch settlements, and especially that of the Cape, and indeed of every colony of every nation-let the whole unite to testify what misery and injustice have been inflicted on the human race by colonization unaccompanied by vital christianity. Besides, the advocates of the priority of civilization, forget or shun the fact that whatever of civilized habits, whatever of humanity and enterprize, they possess or carry with them, have been derived from a residence amongst Christianized and civilized people; it is the influence which Christianity possesses over the mass of the community in which they dwelt, that has stirred them to enterprize and has made them what they are. Whatever they posses that is humane, and tender, and ennobling, they have drawn from a Christian source, but they will not acknowledge it. The slightest reference to history will demonstrate this. What did the classic Greeks do for the morals or permanent happiness of their colonies? What did the polished heathen of Rome do towards elevating the subjects of their conquests? Did they not find the inhabitants of their colonies barbarous, and leave them comparatively civilized demons? And what have the mere worldly speculators, mere lovers of gain, what have they done for the people amongst whom they dwelt? Have they not introduced the worst vices of a more polished people, and violated even those ties held sacred by their rude neighbours? They have debased, not elevated, the people, their object has not been to continue, but exterminate the aborigines of the soil. Not only has this been their desire, but alas! it has been their but too successful practice; for if we are careful to trace the history of our own colonies, or those of other countries in which power is now firmly seated, we shall see that its foundation is built on the ashes and cemented by the blood of the aborigines; that "Man to suit his manners and his fate, Puts off his generous nature and assumes the brute." We cannot convey our sentiments on this subject in language more appropriate and eloquent than that employed by Lord Glenelg in his memorable despatch on the late Caffre war addressed to Sir Benjamin D'Urban the Governor of the Cape-a despatch to which we shall find it necessary to revert more than once in this discussion, and which we shall do with the most entire satisfaction; for seldom, if ever, has it been our lot to peruse a document, issuing from an official quarter, more replete with humane and enlightened political sentiments, or more pervaded with the true spirit of the Gospel; nor did we ever peruse a public document that so completely enshrouded in dark night the character of that class of little petty tyrants to whom, unfortunately for the honour of Britain, her colonies have been entrusted. We neither envy Sir B. D'Urban his present feelings, nor his future position in the unbiassed page of Cape history. Lord Glenelg in writing on the subject of the aggressions of a civilized, but irreligi ous people, says— "It is a melancholy and humiliating, but an indisputable truth, that the contiguity of the subjects of the nations of Christendom with uncivilized tribes has invariably produced the wretchedness and decay, and not seldom the utter extermination, of the weaker party. This uniform result must be attributed, not to any necessary cause, but to the sinister influence of those evil passions which, in such circumstances, find but too much to provoke and too little to restrain them. Of all the chapters in the history of mankind, this is perhaps the most degrading. Nor is there any one great course of events on which every humane mind dwells with such settled aversion and shame, as on that which records the intercourse between the Christian States of Europe, and the heathen nations of America and Africa. I know not that a greater real calamity could befal Great Britain than that of adding Southern Africa to the list of the regions which have seen their aboriginal inhabitants disappear under the withering influence of European neighbourhood. It is indeed a calamity reducible to no certain standard or positive measurement; but it involves whatever is most to be dreaded, in bringing upon ourselves at once the reproaches of mankind, and the weight of national guilt.' "So reads he nature, whom the lamp of life Such then has been the history of colonization from the days of the Greeks to those of Cortez, and from the time of the subjugation of the new world, to the last grasped portion of that earth which God has given as the birthright of the untutored and free; and such has been, in contrast, the influence of protestant Christian missions to heathen lands. The one has been a curse, the other a blessing; wherever Christianity has preceded commerce and arts, it has opened the way for VII. 2 x them; but where commerce and politics have gained the ascendancy, they have been a more effectual and wicked barrier to the introduction of truth than native heathenism itself! -will The facts confirmatory of this stand out in broad relief; they may be distorted, questioned, scandalized, but they cannot be denied. Before this can be done, the islands of the South Seas must be swallowed up the Missionary settlements of the Cape be swept away by some desolating power, and the freedom of the once oppressed aborigines, together with their patience under accumulating wrongs, be unwritten-the long list of grievances inflicted on the slaves of the West India Islands, and their calm and unmixed joy on the day of their liberation, and their demeanour since that period under an aggravation of their original sufferings, must be forgotten, and the large page of history which records these facts, be torn from the records of the world-this must be done before we, or any of the real friends of the human race, will believe other than that, in the train of religion, peace on earth towards men have invariably followed; while in the train or enterprize unaided by christianity, those evils which afflict and disgrace mankind have as invariably succeeded. We challenge the whole combination of malice, envy, and all uncharitableness, bound up with the bands of infidelity scattered up and down in the earth to prove the contrary to the one or the other. They have tried the experiment, and not only have they failed, but have been most signally defeated and disgraced; yet what they canuot deny, have they endeavoured to distort and disparage, either by representing the agency employed as ignorant, seditious, sectarian, and even worse; or else by falsifying the actual state of things, and calumniating the character of the free, but injured people they have blighted, representing their conduct as teeming with all the vices of their enslaved condition, but in a darker and more turbid state; or having failed in this, they have not hesitated to attempt to mar the moral beauty of those scenes they could neither distort nor destroy. Did not Kotzebue wend his way to the lovely islands of the Pacific, to seek occasion to scandalize a band of men whose self-denial, perseverance and success should have claimed his admiration? Have not Christian! merchants and captains, to serve their selfish purposes, poured intoxicating liquors amongst the reformed inhabitants of those islands? Has not political chicanery used popery as its handmaiden to grasp these fair spots for some government lusting for increased territory? And was not Kotzbue covered with not only religious, but with scientific, shame ? were not wicked merchants defeated by the almost universal virtue and indignation of the people, and the emissaries of the papacy expelled with a calmness and a prudence which might well be imitated by more polished statesmen in dealing with sneaking and insidious foes ?-has not all terminated well for truth and for the vindication of her advocates in that department of Mission labour? But did not the enemies of freedom and of Missions, when they saw the work of emancipation and conversion advancing with an unimpeded step in the West, actually leave the ordinary means of attack, and strike more at the root of the liberty of the subject in the imprisonment, trial and death of the ill-fated missionary Smith, and in burning down the sanctuaries, sacking the houses, trampling under foot the property, insulting the persons, and calumniating the moral characters of more recent labourers, and this in some instances, by legislatorial and magisterial hands? (!!!) But what was the result? The death of Smith was the most deadly blow ever levelled at slavery, and the violence of latter days has accelerated what the planters were so anxious to oppose and retard. Their violence did as much to snap the negro's fetters, as did the energetic efforts of his friends. God made the wrath of man to praise Him, and at length freedom broke upon these poor people. And by whom was this effected? by the legislature, by the planters? No. Hear one of the most eloquent of the advocates of the rights of man-Lord Brougham, in a recent speech on the subject in the house of Lords. He says,"They have them not from the administration of an Established Church -pot that they are withholden from them by it, but another was to be found e to their purpose, and therefore more acceptable to their feelings. They had the meek and humble pastor, who, although perhaps inferior in secular accomplishments, was not the less calculated to guide them in the paths of religion; the Missionaries, not set above them by great learning-not too refined so as to differ from them by any peculiarities-passing their time among them during the week in the same way as they minister to them on the sabbath-they are their friends in common matters as well as their guides in religion; and I cannot pass over this part of the case without offering my humble tribute of very heartfelt admiration of the labour and zeal of those pious and disinterested men-(Hear, hear) and I know if I were to make my appeal to my noble friend behind me (Marquis of Sligo), he would say, as he had promulgated elsewhere, that for the source of religious information among the slaves, it was to the missionary they had to look. (Cheers.) Therefore it was that fourteen years ago I felt all the anxiety Ì have already alluded to, when it was my lot to bring before the Commons of England the persecutious of one of the most devoted, most pious, and most useful of that class of men, who, because of his self-devotion, had been hunted down, and made to die the death for teaching the Gospel of peace to the poor negroes of one of the islands; and then it was that I gloried to recollect, the first of those blows was struck, of which we now have happily lived to witness the day when the final accomplishment shall appear, in which the chains of the Negroes shall, by those blows, be struck off." And what was the result of this liberation? We quote his Lordship again. "The 1st of August came, that day so confidently and joyously anticipated by the poor slaves, and so sorely dreaded by their hard task-masters; and if ever there was a picture interesting to look upon-if ever there was a passage in the history of a people that could redound to their honorif ever there was an answer to the scandalous calumnies which for ages we had heaped upon them, as if in justification of the wrongs which we had done them, that picture and that passage is to be found in the uniform history of that day over the whole of the West Indian Islands. Instead of the fires of rebellion, lit up by the hand of lawless revenge and resistance to oppression-the whole of these islands were illuminated by the light of joy, No civilized nation, contentment, peace, and good-will towards all men. after gaining an unexpected victory, could have shown more forbearance, thau was exhibited by the slaves at the great moral consummation which |