The Cabinet. MAMMON.-Look, again, at another sin-our humiliating worship of wealth. Before the idol of mammon we bend with a ceaseless, degrading adoration. I know that this has been a sin in all ages, but does it not peculiarly mark this period? Even our language proclaims it. When we ask the worth of an individual, we have no reference to his moral or intellectual acquirements, but to the amount of riches he may possess. The impression seems to be growing stronger, that the acquisition of wealth is the most important business of life, and that he is best fitted for intercourse with the world, who possesses the most sagacity in heaping it up. The consequence is, that the standard of morality has been gradually sinking to a lower ebb. In the excitement produced through our land by the acquisition of sudden fortunes, strict and stern integrity has been too often forgotten. How frequently, for instance, do we see individuals rolling in wealth, and "faring sumptuously every day," when their unpaid creditors, whose claims the law has cancelled, are perchance suffering privation! How often do men mount up to fortune by means which should draw upon them the withering scorn of all who value integrity and right! But yet it is a melancholy fact, that there is a tone of feeling prevailing through society, which induces it to call such things by soft and lenient names, and even to look with favour upon the skilful perpetrator of an equivocal act. Wealth spreads a charm about him, which covers the multitude of his sins. He is regarded with complacency, on account of the power which the possession of fortune has placed in his hands; and all enquiries are prudently forborne as to the manner of its acquisition. His very success seems to sanctify the efforts he used, and to cast into oblivion all his former departures from the path of honour and justice. And how often do those who preserve their integrity towards men, in this respect, fail in their duty towards God! Look at such an one, and where can you see any thing in his character, which is not "of the earth, earthy?" Through the day he labours with absorbing earnestness in the work which he has marked out. At night, as he sinks in weariness to slumber, his latest waking thoughts are planning out the business of the morrow; and, even in his midnight dreams, visions of countless wealth flit before his eyes, and he awakes to mourn that it was not a reality. Thus one day after another of his life passes away, forgetful of his God-forgetful of every thing, but his desire to be rich. His dealings are all with the mortals around him. He thinks not of those glorious intelligences, who dwell in that distant land reserved for the righteous-who are the ministers of their Master's will to the beings of earth, and who may be around his path, watching over his steps, and lamenting his strange infatuation. He is so deeply engaged in settling the books which record the debts of his fellow men, that he never remembers how much he owes to his Lord. He never, in all his calculations, looks forward to that volume which shall be opened at the judgment seat of Christ, when the whole human race shall assemble for moral retribution, and their accounts be balanced for eternity. He is too much occupied with the "cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches," to think of any thing more elevated. His mind is ever in a state of feverish anxiety, looking with solicitude for what the next change of fortune may bring him, and always reaching forward to something just beyond his reach. But is this the kind of service which God requires of his reasonable creatures? No: his Master is writing an account against him, which he will one day find it difficult to discharge. And yet this is a portrait which thousands in our land might claim; for in this we behold one striking form of our national sin. It is time then, we think, that the pulpit should speak out-that the ministers of Christ should raise their voices to rebuke this prevailing idolatry of wealth, which they see ushering in so long a train of evils. They should inculcate upon their hearers, the lesson of moderation which the gospel teaches to those, whose "life is even as a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." They should proclaim to those who are grovelling in the dust, that there is something more valuable than money, and the search of which is more dignified for an immortal spirit. They should point to the snares which gather around the steps of him who surrenders himself up to the inordinate love of gold, and who is thus illustrating, by his own example, the truth of that declaration— "he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent."-Rev. I. Kip, Albany. Poetry. MISSIONS. (For the Church of England Magazine.) "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined."-ISAIAH ix. 2. I. A LIGHT is shining far and wide, Above those lands of gloom and dread Where darkness, hand in hand with pride, Through ages past hath triumphed ; A light is dawning on their fateA star to bless the desolate! II. And we can spread that cheering ray To gild each sin-benighted land. A light for every heathen shore For every coast by guilt defiled- And savage Indian forest child. Light for the Moslem's purple skies, We'll send the vivifying beam : And where the Persian to the sun In deepest superstition bows, Our gospel messengers shall run, And turn him from his Gheber vows; While sons of Afric's burning clime Shall hail the gladdening light divine! VI. Where Hindoos o'er the victims slain Crowd round their monster-idol's car, Of gospel peace, for pagan war; NEW ZEALAND SLAVERY.-Slaves and slavery have existed in New Zealand from the earliest remi niscences of the people, and consist principally of persons captured and taken in war or predatory excursions; children, born from parents in slavery; and remnants of shattered tribes, who find a precarious existence by dwelling in the forests near the deserted scenes of their happier days, and seek repose in becoming servants to a powerful neighbour, whose protection they solicit, in return for which their services are devoted to a new master. A slave, or taurekárekú, has not the miserable being the British public are inclined to think is inseparable from the Africans bearing that term in our colonies. To the northward of the river Thames, the slave is treated in the same manner as the inferior freedmen of the villages; and, with the exception of drawing water, hewing wood, flax-dressing, and cooking, the freedmen and personages of the highest rank assist in every other occupation, whether it be cutting or drawing out timber from the forest for exportation, or domestic sawing, preparing land, planting, paddling, fishing-net and sail making, house, platform, fort, or canoe building. Slaves are permitted to take part in a war; and, though undertaken against the tribes they have been originally severed from, yet no fear of desertion, or jealousy at the possibility of their joining with the enemy they are related to, would appear to disturb the equanimity of their masters. Slaves are often mutually exchanged, and as often sold; but instances are not wanting where humanity induces the master to emancipate his slave from thraldom, and raise him to his friendship and even relationship by marriage. The price of a slave is as fluctuating as an overstock or scarcity, extreme youth or senility, love or avarice, times ancient or modern, can effect. No outward mark distinguishes the slave from the freedmen or even chief in New Zealand. They often sleep within the same hut, eat from the same basket, and enter alike in the pleasures of the dance, chorus, &c.; yet the actual life of the slave is in continual jeopardy, as an offence, even a supposititious one-or a fit of vexation, in which the slave has had no share -or a wrong act, committed by a distant party that has connexion with the master, but not the slave-in any of these occurrences, the poor wretch is often killed by the savage master. One celebrated chief, in order to indulge his brutal fancy and appetites, was in the habit of trying every new musket he obtained on one of his slaves, not forgetting to add a ball-cartridge within the barrel. The usual method of killing a slave in time of peace is, for the cowardly masters to slip behind their backs while engaged in any work, and with a tomohawk despatch them at once; or, lying in wait, and just projecting the barrel of a piece between the rushes of a house or bush, while the unconscious victim may be sitting outside, scraping flax or potatoes, with his back towards the instrument of destruction. The cruelty of the women towards their slaves is often appalling; and when they become objects of jealousy, on any attention being paid to a female slave by the husband, revenge of a most cruel nature is performed, which admits not of description. Slaves are invariably eaten, unless they may have died from disease; on which they are hastily thrown into a hole, or lightly covered with earth; in which case, the dogs discover the graves, and feed on the offensive body. Such as have died from putrid diseases are carried out to sea, or the river, and flung in, after the precaution has been taken of making fast a bag of stones to sink it. Debarred from the sight of their relatives, they become reckless of moral feeling, and, to the commercial trader, have been the causes of serious quarrels with their masters. They are kept in no discipline, and foster within them the worst traits of the native character. Slaves, who have experienced the bitterness of their condition, and afterwards become masters and influential men in council and battle, are among the worst of tyrants, visiting with additional severity the punishments they may have suffered, when similarly situated, on the persons of their slaves.-Polack's New Zealand. HUMAN INTELLECT.-Theer can be no doubt that there are many premature births in the mental world; and Gray is not far wrong when he thinks that many mute inglorious Miltons may have been buried in village obscurity. Nature, no doubt, in her boundless and untraceable prodigality, allows much of her noblest creation-the inventive and intelligent mind of man-to run to waste. The whole analogy of created things indicates this. The most powerful intellect, just as it arrives at maturity, sinks into the grave; and the baffled hopes of those who have watched the precocious promise of genius and wisdom, are surely not always fond illusions. But it should seem, on the other hand, that, if we may so speak, there is always a vast floating capital of invention and intellect, which only requires to be directed into the proper sions seem always to call forth great minds; and that channels to multiply a hundred fold. Great occagreat mind which is best adapted to the necessities and to the character of the age, springs at once to the first rank. Whenever any important question has arisen, some bold intellect has arisen to grapple with it; and it is this happy coincidence between the character and powers of the commanding mind, and the intellectual or social necessities of the time, which brings to maturity all the noblest and the sempiternal works of human genius. Here and there some solitary individual may be discovered, "Whose soul is like a star, and dwells apart," who is far in advance-an unintelligible mystery to his own times, but whose prophetic oracles are read these exceptions prove, rather than call in question, with wonder and reverence by late posterity. But the general law; and the fact that they were perfectly obscure to their own generation, and are read by later ages, shows that there has been still somenot without difficulty, as is almost always the case, thing wanting to their full and perfect development.— Quarterly Review. London: Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Portman Street, Portman Square; W. EDWARDS, 12 Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country. PRINTED BY JOSEPH ROGERSON, 24, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, LONDON, THE SOCIAL FEELINGS ENLISTED AND HALLOWED BY CHRISTIANITY. No. I. THE religion of Christ in a remarkable manner adopts for its own, and consecrates to its own purposes, all that is amiable in human nature. Whatsoever things are honest, pure, and lovely, and of good report, the Christian above every other man is to think on these things. We are reminded in holy scripture, by an analogy singularly vivid and striking, of the duties which we, as Christians, owe to one another. The analogy is drawn from the parts of a human body (Rom. xii. 4, 5). In other words, Christians, as such, are made for one another. The heathen might imagine that he was born for himself; but he who reads the bible finds that he was created for his brother-for his brother's welfare in body and in soul. He has as little of an independent existence as the hand or the mouth. The mouth cannot feed itself it must be fed by the hand; the hand cannot help itself; if hurt, it cannot dress its own wound, but must be helped and tended by the other hand. And just so is it the general ordinance of God, that his creatures should derive all that they enjoy from him indeed, but through one another. It is proposed to display and illustrate the principle here laid down, that we are made for one another-and members one of another, in two points of view of nature, and in the kingdom of grace:-in the large family of mankind, and in God's chosen family, the Christian church;-in other words, we are members one of another, as we are men; and eminently as we are Christians. VOL. X.-NO. CCLXXXIV. PRICE 1d. On the one hand, as men, we are members one of another. There is no such thing as independence. Every one of us has a thousand constituent parts of his nature which have no use, no play for themselves, but in the active work of social life. And it hath pleased God so to make us, and so to make society, that every one of us, in seeking his own good, in following out the proper tendencies of his own nature, shall infallibly be serving his fellow-creatures also, and contributing to their own happiness. Not to dwell upon the lower ground of interest which leads each member of a society to recommend himself to his neighbours, by being useful to them, let us turn rather to another more interesting aspect; and let us notice how the feelings of every one of us lead him, in an infinite variety of ways, to help his brethren, the other children of God's care. How does the Almighty protect the infants which he creates into the world? By engaging in their behalf a mother's tenderness. how, in that dangerous age when manhood is just beginning-how does he protect from danger, from the seductions of vice? He has a representative, a deputy in the world; he employs a father's eye to eye to watch over the young ones of his flock. Thus are we committed one to another, and members one of another. And this is the way in which the good care of our Almighty Father protects us from harm, namely, by interesting us one for another. If the hand is wounded, it does not suffer alone; a thrill is felt through the limb, and up to the brain; the system, as it were, rises [London: Joseph Rogerson, 24, Norfolk-street, Strand.] A A And in indignation, and rushes to help the suffering member. Just so does man feel for man. other creatures of God which sow not, neither gather into barns. And, if in any one year the husbandman be restive under his condition, and check his hand, saying that he will sow only enough for himself, infallibly he suffers for his presumption-he gets a scanty crop. Thus wonderfully is it ordained that willing or unwilling, he must sow for others--he must pay his tithe to the Giver of all, who sends his own receivers of the tithe, in the form of the raven and the worm. Once attempt to draw back from the place which he has assigned to you, as the dispenser of his gifts, and you at once impair your own happiness. Let us be sure then (to apply this analogy)-let us be sure that we are best providing for our own solid happiness, by working out most diligently the beneficent purposes of our common Father, yet walking diligently in that path of social goodness, in those labours of love, which he in a thousand ways points out as the road which he has intended us to walk in. MY SCOTTISH TOUR. POSITION OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. You can scarcely fix your eye on any person whom you could injure, without offending and giving pain to some one else; nor is here any one, perhaps, whom you could serve or gratify, without at the same time pleasing or conciliating some one else. Benefit a son, and what a feeling of thankfulness do you raise in the parent; honour one that is a parent, and how the eye of the children will follow and bless you. You cannot touch one corner, and that alone. All who are about you are separate members indeed, but still members one of another. If you would see the analogy start forth even into brighter colours, consider further, in which sense the members are more deeply interested one in another the members of the human body, or the members of the social body, the human family? Ask a parent whether he would rather his limb were rotten, or his child a castaway-an aching arm, or a vicious son? Which of the two will he say has the closer claim of membership, the child or the limb? Truly, then, since these sacred bonds wind themselves through the whole of society, we are members one of another; and the cords which bind us one to another lie deeper-are more mysterious than the nerves and the tendons which join limb to limb, and make sensation shoot through the bodily frame. Observe, too, how the happiness of each man is concerned in the full development and operation of his social nature. If the hand withhold its service-if it refuse to feed the mouth, the hand itself presently and infallibly suffers; in a few hours it is languid and weakand in a few more hours it decays and dies. Just so the man who withdraws from his due place and due work in the system, soon finds that he has closed up against himself the avenues of enjoyment; he finds that the ebb and flow, the natural motion of his tide of feelings, was essential to a pure and healthy condition; that, if he stagnates, it is not for quiet and repose, but for deadness and corruption; that the waters which would not move in natural freedom, will quicken with putrid exhalation and offensive forms of life. The divine goodness then has so made us, that, while fairly and reasonably providing for our own happiness, we do unconsciously provide for our neighbour's also. This is the way in which the Almighty provides for his large family. The husbandman, while he sows for himself, sows also for the raven and the sparrow-for the worm, and for the fly. God hath so ordained the world, that the sower in prudence will always go out to sow; and ihus there will always be a supply for those Yorkshire. IT must be obvious from my former papers, descriptive of some incidents in my Scottish tour, that, although a warmly attached member of my own church, and firmly believing her polity, doctrines, and discipline to be in more strict accordance with the revealed word of God than that of any church in the world, I have borne testimony to the many excellencies of the established church of Scotland, and to the piety and worthiness of many of her ministers. I have most gratefully to acknowledge much kindness received by me at their hands, and witnessed with delight and gratitude the fruits of their spiritual exertions; and I cannot better express my own feelings, than in the language of one duly qualified to speak of her merits, from long residence as a minister of the episcopal church in the northern metropolis, and who, speaking of the feelings of that church with respect to the presbyterian, says-" While she is sincere in believing that her own constitution approaches nearer to the purity of primitive times, she yet acknowledges, with gratitude and veneration, that the established church of Scotland has well performed its duty that it has reared and fostered a thinking, a sober, and a religious people—that its roots are interwoven, and deservedly interwoven, with their habits and short of its own internal corruption (happily, as little with their hearts; and she is well aware that nothing likely to ensue, as it would deeply to be deplored) ever can or ought to shake the stability of a church, the labours and fidelity of whose ministers Providence guage of genuine Christian charity; and I believe a has so long conspicuously blessed." Such is the lanreciprocal feeling is entertained by the wisest and best men of that church towards our episcopal establishment. I have been told by a person who witnessed the circumstance, that he was in an episcopal chapel in Edinburgh, where the then moderator of See "The Duties and Dangers of the Christian Ministry:" a sermon, preached in Charlotte chapel, Edinburgh. By rev. Robert Morehead, A.M., junior minister of the episcopal chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh, 1816, subsequently rector of Easington, But the assembly attended the service, and afterwards witnesses) to the character, or talent, or acquirements of the individual, but simply to his not being of their party. Patronage is the grand subject at present under dispute-or what is termed the non-intrusion question-i. e., whether a minister can be presented to a living, contrary to the will of the majority of his parishioners. It was this very question which led to the powerful secession from the church, nearly a century ago; and it is this very question which is now rending this church. In our church, the right of patronage is a settled question; it is secured by the law of the land. Provided an individual shews his letters of orders, brings with him a certificate of soundness of doctrine and purity of life from three beneficed clergymen, satisfactory to the bishop of the diocese in which he is about to be instituted, and takes the required oaths—then, as a matter of course, the institution takes place, followed by the induction, and the presentee, by the patron exercising his undoubted right, is admitted to the incumbency; and this, I believe, is much the same line of policy which the moderate party in the church wish to follow up in Scotland. The other party, on the contrary, wish the parishioners to possess a veto on such an appointment; and to this effect a law was passed by the assembly. Not that they at all lean to the voluntary system; quite the contrary. They fully perceive its innumerable evils. They are staunch supporters of establishments; but they regard patronage as the rank and foul weed which pollutes the spiritual soil. During the last few years, much altercation has taken place on the subject. The civil and the ecclesiastical courts have been at variance-a state of things which must give rise to anarchy and confusion; and until the matter is settled there can be no tranquillity in the church. If not settled, that church is in imminent danger; it must cease to have connection with the state. The decisions of the one have been in direct opposition to The presbyterian church of Scotland has long been the decisions of the other. A spirit of agitation has divided into two parties-the moderate and the high; been kept up-speeches have been made, calculated to the ministrations of the former being esteemed less spi-inflame the minds of the people-the pulpit has been ritual than those of the latter. They are marshalled changed for the platform-meetings on the one side under different leaders, of unquestionable talent and and on the other have been held. Men of peace, and piety, some clerical, and others lay; for it must be re- men of prayer, anxious to do their Master's work-to collected that lay-eldership, however unscriptural we preach Christ, the "power of God, and the wisdom of may regard it-and I confess I never yet heard a God"-have had their minds disturbed, and their sound argument in its favour-is not only admitted, spirits grieved in witnessing such strifes and disbut forms a constituent part of that church. Can- sensions; for "the divisions of Reuben have had dour will admit that the sanctity of this office has not great searchings of heart." Verily, if Jerusalem is as a been universally had in view-that there has been a city that is at unity in itself, there is mighty little laxity with respect to admission thereto, calculated to trace of it in the Scottish established church at the lower that office-and that the eldership has been present time. I advocate neither side of the question. sought often with a view to qualification for admis- I would not espouse or condemn either party. I sion to a seat in the supreme ecclesiastical court-grieve, in taking up a Scottish paper, to find it the attainment of worldly preferment. Certain it is, crammed with cases, and decisions, and suspensions, the persons professing to be members of the church of and appeals. It makes me cling, however, with inEngland, and who have subscribed the articles of that creased affection to that pure and apostolical branch church, have sat as elders in the general assembly. of Christ's church, of which God in his gracious proAlthough this inconsistency must be apparent, the vidence has made me a minister. subject I believe has been lately very properly adverted to. For a long period the moderate party had the majority, and had it all their own way; consequently their opponents were obliged to submit to their decisions. They were more connected with the government of the day. From them the moderator was almost invariably selected; and it was thought the distribution of government patronage was in a great measure in the hands of its leaders. But a new aspect of affairs now presents itself. The ins have become the outs, and vice versâ; and the last election of a moderator of the general assembly was a great cause of triumph to the high party, whose objection to the rival candidate did not arise (themselves being I refer especially to some very violent specches delivered at a meeting held at Edinburgh, about the close of 1838; and, also, to a most uncalled for and virulent attack made very lately on the episcopal church, by a presbyterian minister in Paisley, which has called forth more than one unanswerable reply. A striking case in point, to shew the mischief of these dissensions, has just come under my notice. It refers to a settlement in the presbytery of Strathbogie. "The moderator's appearance in the pulpit was the signal for an uproar, as indecorous as ever disgraced the walls of a church. Cries of insult were mingled with noises of all descriptions- fill the pulpit''keep him out'-' put him down'-'stand firm''he'll never be our minister.' This scene lasted for nearly a couple of hours, during which the presbytery sat in their place, waiting to see if the disorder would be quieted. During this period, snow-balls, pieces of wood torn from the seats, copper coins, bread, &c. were thrown by people in the gallery at the minis No man can be a more decided anti-voluntary than myself. I consider the system fundamentally bad; yet, I must confess, that the inconsistency of the non-intrusion party has been placed in the clearest light by the seccders. |