is commendable; in the former case supposed," by giving her in marriage he does well," now by "not giving her away he does better."

Such appear to be the two most just and natural interpretations of this passage; which of them is to be preferred much depends on the decision as to the reading, "marrying or giving in marriage," in the 38th verse. But whichever be thought the genuine reading, and consequently the original intention of the apostle, the cases are so allied, and the reasoning applies so similarly to both, that whether the question be concerning a betrothed party or a betrothing parent, the answer will be as above given. In either case too, where betrothment has taken place between two parties yet heathen, one of whom becomes afterward Christian, then the previous general law of Christian marriage that it should only be "in the Lord," determines what ought to be the course pursued in regard to completing the contract. What was said of the Christian betrothed man acting freely, applies with the same force to a Christian father in regard to the bestowment of a Christian daughter in marriage on a previously affianced heathen, and obliges him to the same cautious patience, united with conscientious firmness. Having thus disposed of the question of betrothment, there yet remains one other on this matter, of very great moment in the present state of India as Missionary ground, namely, whether a Christian man, a convert from Heathenism or Mahomedanism, having many wives, is to put away all except the first; or may lawfully retain them all as having been all legally married alike, while he was yet Heathen or Mahommedan.

1. The first point that here presents itself is the previous lawfulness or unlawfulness of polygamy, on which opinions are various, altogether, I must think, from the effect of early association and natural prejudice, and not from a just view of the case as it actually stands. That polygamy is abstractedly wrong, does not appear in any way of reasoning. It existed before the flood, as in the case of Lamech, who had two wives Adah and Zillah. This instance is sometimes very unreasonably adduced to disfavour the original lawfulness of polygamy, as if because Lamech, the first polygamist on record, is also said to have "slain a young man" in what we should call justifiable homicide, he were thence to be viewed as a warning example of the sin of marrying more than one wife although certainly not only is no censure whatever passed by the sacred historian on this polygamist, nor is even a remark made that might serve to shew, he was a solitary or unusual instance. Besides, his act in slaying a fellow-creature is in no wise, as far as can be made appear, connected with his having had two wives; nor is he charged by Moses with a crime in the one case more than in the other. He is not rebuked either as a polygamist or a homicide; nay, so far from it, he is himself introduced with all the consciousness of innocence, quite unsuspicious that his polygamy rendered him obnoxious to divine displeasure, declaring that he was more unfortunate than offending in the case of the young man whose life he had taken; since it was done in self-defence, while the youth was in the act of "hurting and wounding" him. His wives, we may suppose, anxious and alarmed, would express their fears for Lamech's life from the vengeance of the relations of the deceased; which he quiets by reminding them of God's assurance to Cain his progenitor, that his life should not be taken for the murder even of his brother Abel, that an especial Providence should protect him from harm. On which he reasons, "if Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then surely Lamech seventy and seven fold," i. e. if God, for wise reasons no doubt, did engage specially to interfere with a threat of sevenfold vengeance on the man who should presume to take the life of one clearly a guilty murderer of an innocent brother, assuredly he will protect with a much heavier penalty the life of one who has but in self-defence unwillingly and unavoidably committed a simple manslaughter on an individual who had

wantonly assaulted and wounded him, and who therefore met his just death in a criminal act against the life of his neighbour. After the flood too, to say nothing of all ancient nations, Abraham, his grandson Jacob, Gideon, Elkanah, David, Joash and many others, had more wives than one, some even many, and in no one instance is the fact reproved. Abraham was "the friend of God;" Jacob specially protected and blest by the Almighty; Elkanah a devout man; David a chosen prince and prophet, eminently pious and "the sweet Psalmist of Israel;" for Joash, the high priest Jehoiada himself selected two wives, and that young prince, it is immediately added, "did what was right in the sight of the Lord, all the days of Jehoiada the priest." The Jewish laws of Deuteronomy make express provision for cases of polygamy, and direct the procedure of the husband, to secure justice to his several wives, that one may not be favoured to the injury of another. Of course, I do not contend for the expediency or even the harmlessness of polygamy, but only for its intrinsic lawfulness. It does seem to me utterly unreasonable to brand that as positive sin, which existed unreproved before the flood, and was practised after it by the most eminent and devout servants of God, those most favoured with his special manifestations and grace, proposed to us as models of virtue, and who, as was Abraham, had even been divinely directed in other matters of moment to abstain from the really evil practices allowed in Heathen society: this too being a usage which his own inspired lawgiver Moses, if he did not command or encourage it, yet acknowledged, and regulated; and which continued through all Jewish history to prevail, unrebuked by a single prophet or any one inspired individual. Surely were polygamy intrinsically swrong, it would not have been thus passed over. Nay, our Saviour, although ahe did specially discountenance divorce, and declared that in certain cases it had only been sanctioned by Moses because of the hardness of the people's hearts, i. e. their unmanageable temper and unamenableness to coercive and restraining laws, as well as the cruelty and violence which the attempt to coerce would have occasioned against the wives whom they should be restrained from divorcing them, to whom therefore it was even mercy to allow their husbands to dismiss them,-I say our Saviour himself, while he thus spoke of divorce, never declaimed against polygamy. True, it was less practised in his time among the Jews; but it was still rife among other people. Polygamy is, notwithstanding, decidedly unfavourable to domestic peace, to the virtuous education of children, and most of all to the mental culture of the minds of women, and unfit for an advanced state of civilization and refinement; and especially unsuitable to an institution like Christianity of a highly elevated and spiritual character, a religion intended to call men away from passion to reason, from sensual indulgence to heavenly devotion, and to introduce, foster, and finally establish an ultimate improvement of mankind in all the excellencies of piety, charity and temperance. It is, as we before said, silently discouraged, not openly condemned. It is one of the practical evils of early society in a degenerate world, and which, while not absolutely and intrinsically sinful in itself, nor therefore positively unlawful to be practised, is yet by all history proved to be most injurious in its effects upon private peace and public virtue; incompatible with general education, the mental improvement of women, and the progress of universal happiness. In the whole New Testament, there is not one single syllable of declamation against it; but there is one provision which clearly shews the spirit and intent of Christianity--one by which the Bishop or Priest is required to be "the husband of one wife." It was clearly becoming and necessary, that he who was to be set apart for holy and spiritual offices, to be employed in teaching a most pure and spiritual religion, and to exhibit in his personal character and conduct its proper tendency and character, should not neutralize his instructions, and

weaken the influence of his office by a polygamy in his own person, which would be but too apt to draw him aside from the spirituality, selfdenial, and temperance, of which he was to be the preacher and the pattern; which would demand too large a portion of his attention, anxieties, and cares, by the necessity of regulating, instructing and providing for an extended household; and which by the disagreement, jealousies, bickerings, and breaches of domestic harmony it too commonly introduces, would distract his mind, irritate his passions, and unfit him for his holy calling, by depriving him of the quietude, tranquillity, and leisure so indispensa ble to its discharge. Christianity did not, as its unwise corruptors afterwards attempted in vain to do for it, forbid the lawful and moderated indulgence of the social instinct, and so expose the spiritual office in the church to all the unnatural restraint and dangerous snares of a compulsory celibacy, which afterwards became the fruitful seed of so much vice and scandal in the Romish Church; but neither did it leave the ecclesiastic the unlimited freedom of gratifying caprice or appetite-it permitted him to taste of the cup of domestic pleasure, but not to intoxicate himself with excessive drafts of any earthly delight; holding that happy medium so favourable to the peace, the virtue, and the spirituality of the individual and his flock. The natural effect of the extension of genuine Christianity over not only the priesthood, but over all the laity likewise, is to discourage all intemperance of earthly gratification, and to introduce into every relation of life, all the regulating influences of spiritual refinement of idea, elevation of sentiment, generosity of disposition, and many more. The teacher was quietly exhibited as the first example; and without precipitate attempts to coerce the habits, or giving a hasty shock to the prejudices of mankind, the silent but efficacious power of the Gospel was designed to effect, and has effected, the salutary change in question, in every nation of Christendom. Domestic society, as it has been refined and spiritualized, has become freer and more happy, sweeter and more safereligion ensures the stability of its enjoyments, by rendering them more temperate, more holy, better regulated, and more confidential.

2. The previous lawfulness of polygamy, abstractedly considered, and the course actually adopted by the Almighty for its ultimate subversion, suggest a second remark, that when a heathen man has been legally married, i. e. according to the laws of his own country and religion, to more than one wife, whether any distinction of grade or class of wife, concubine, &c. be observed or not, it does not appear that any thing in the character of polygamy itself, or in the institution of Christianity, demands the putting away of any one or more of such women. They are his wives, he has promis ed them duty of marriage, support, and protection; he has no right to diminish aught of their just claims. The merciful provision of the law of Moses for kindred cases comes in support of my position. Ex. xxi. 10, commands,even of a purchased slave, whom her master has betrothed to himself, that "If he take unto himself another, i. e. an additional, wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish." And to apply the case to India: what may be the precise law of the case, I am not sufficiently informed upon; but assuredly there would be great cruelty and hardship in a man who becomes a Christian, having several wives, dismissing all but one; who, even admitting that they may be legally put away, are by the usages of the country precluded from marrying another; and who even if the husband continue to support them, (the difficulty of doing which will certainly be much increased when the household is divided,) are publicly disgraced, and exposed in deplorable moral ignorance, weakness, and strength of passion to very strong temptations to pursue ill courses. Again, if there are children, whose shall they be? the mother's or the father's? From one parent or the other, are they certainly in this

case to be separated; of whose control, instruction and affectionate intercourse shall they be deprived? Shall they be held legitimate or otherwise? If there be several wives, which shall be retained? The first, it may be replied; but by what law is she more a wife than the second or the third? To these difficulties add the strong temptation held out to an insincere profession of Christianity (as in the case of divorce in general), for the mere purpose of getting rid of a wife or wives no longer beloved, or whom the husband is weary of supporting; and it seems to me that a formidable mass of difficulty is raised against the position combated, quite sufficient to prove it absolutely untenable. Under the plea of a previous unlawfulness, supported by no just reasoning, inculcated by no inspired scripture, rather opposed to the allowed and unrebuked practice of patriarchs and pious men under the theocracy of the Almighty Lawgiver himself, nowhere forbidden in the New Testament, only incidentally discountenanced in the persons of those to be set apart to holy offices, (whose calling and duties are sufficient reasons for the prohibition of polygamy in their cases, quite independently of any notion of unlawfulness or general inexpediency),under such a plea are helpless women, legally united to men sacredly engaged to love, support, and protect them, to be rejected from home, from the honours and comforts of wifedom and maternity, exposed to fearful temptations, cruel privation, and self-denial, ignominy and solitariness, suffering a disruption of all the sweet ties of domestic intercourse and affection; the education of children is to be neglected, their filial attachments blighted, and a reward held out to the purest acts of injustice, of selfish cruelty, and impious hypocrisy on the part of husbands and fathers. Let no Christian after he has been admitted into the Christian Church, add unto his wives, or support the practice of polygamy, however usual in his nation and country; but let him not discolour the mild, merciful, and generous features of Christianity, to the view of his countrymen, by the hideous deforming of such accumulated injustice and unkindness. Let him live, being already a polygamist, as the ancient patriarchs did, in holy and faithful fulfilment of all the duties of marriage, alike with all his wives, legally such; but let him not for a moment allow himself to entertain the monstrous and unnatural purpose of injuring those he loved and swore to love for ever, who have lain in his bosom, become the mothers of his children, the partners of his joys and sorrows, by putting them away from him for no original or after-fault of theirs, upon his becoming a Christian. If indeed they should desert him, he is absolved by the same rules that apply to the case of a single heathen wife or husband voluntarily departing from a partner when become a Christian; for then the act is theirs, not his "a brother or sister is not under bondage in such a case." But short of this, no legitimate ground appears to be left for supporting the position I have thus endeavoured to prove unscriptural and untenable. The importance of the question must be my excuse for so lengthened a consideration of what must be expected in many instances to come before the Christian Missionary, if not already yet certainly ere long; and it is of moment, to have the difficulty previously discussed, and the solution of it already furnished. How far the foregoing remarks may go to afford it, the readers of the OBSERVER must now decide.

HAVARENSIS.

VIII.-Ordination to the work of Evangelists of two Native Preachers; in the General Baptist chapel, Cuttack.

The names of the two brethren who were ordained are Gangádhar and Rámchandra. The former, before his conversion, was a high caste brahman, much respected and very influential among his neighbours and acquaintance, and consequently in no want of the necessaries of this life. After several years of anxious inquiry and close examination he renounced his ancestorial religion, and all the honours and profits of his brahmanical character on the 23rd of May 1828, by being publicly baptized in the Mahánadí. He is the first Uriyá that broke the chain of caste, and embraced the gospel, under the ministry of the Orissa missionaries. Almost immediately after his conversion he was called to preach to his degraded and idolatrous Countrymen the glorious gospel of the grace of God, which he had found so efficacious in removing condemnation from his own mind, and of imparting peace to his own conscience. As a Christian, he is characterized by frankness and warmth of affection, and as a preacher he is earnest and powerful in his address.

Rámchandra is of a respectable Mahráta family, and in the scale of caste superior. The distress of mind, which preceded his public profession of the Saviour, was very great. To forsake the religion of his ancestors, and become an object of contempt and reproach among his acquaintance, was to him a great sacrifice. Often did he pack up his family idols in a bag, and suspend them from the roof of his house-and as often did. he take them down again, restore them to their honours, bowing himself down before them as the gods of his father's house. He used to think :-"These are the gods of my forefathers, the gods they worshipped and sacrificed to in the times of their prosperity; the gods to whom on my account they offered their prayers, their Vows, and their oblations; and what am I more than my ancestors, that I should cast them away?" In the endurance of this mental conflict he used to shut himself up in his private room for days together, and would not permit even his wife or children to interrupt him. Light had broken in upon his understanding, and in vain he attempted to allay his doubts as to the truth of his old religion. In his retirement he carefully read over and compared the New Testament and the Bhágabat, and examined the moral tendency of each: it will easily be conceived what the result was; his reverence for idols and idolatry turned into contempt, and his regard for the scriptures increased into assurance. He saw he possessed a book which

Erun, who was baptized by Mr. Bampton at Barhampur on the 25th of December 1827, is a Telingá.