there is a want of Christian courage among us; and that those especially who disapprove of such proceedings as Mr. Wolfe's, are too apt to yield their independence and their conscience to the zeal or the scruples of some of their associates. A man may be a most valuable missionary, who has strong peculiarities; but then let it be fairly explained that it is not for his peculiarities, but in spite of them, that he is supported by the funds of a charitable society, for the momentous work of preaching Christ to the heathen. St. Paul, in addressing the missionary Timothy, reckons among the gifts of God, not only "power" and "love," and the absence of "fear;" but "the spirit of a sound mind;" and I know not why this last quality should be dispensed with any more than the others. A COMMITTEE-MAN. AMERICAN FASTS AND FESTIVALS. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. I WAS much struck with the circumstance alluded to in your article on the State Prayers, in your last Number, that for so many years we have had no special service of prayer or thanksgiving, no fast or festival, no, not so much as a solitary collect. It is true, we have not had battles won or lost, royal births, deaths, or marriages; but are these the only occasions for national gratitude or supplication? We account our American brethren heathens in their national capacity; they at least only barely recognize the general truth of Christianity; yet special days of prayer and thanksgiving are appointed in the more religious states, and occasions are never found wanting for these devout observances. Just when your paper on State Prayers reached me, I had been perusing the proclamation of the Governor of the State of New York, appointing the 3d of last December as a day of public prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God for unmerited and unwonted fa-vours." "He has been graciously pleased," remarks the Governor, "to vouchsafe to us, during the past year, a continuance of peace with other nations, tranquillity at home, health, and abundant harvests. For these, and for his innumerable favours to us, as a people and as a nation, and that he may continue to us his mercy and protection, it is our bounden duty, with grateful hearts, solemnly and publicly to render our united and fervent thanks to our Divine Creator, Guide, and Protector." Now, if occasions of prayer and praise are thus presented in New York, has Great Britain nothing to entreat or to be thankful for? I might mention several important junctures during even the present reign. Were none of them worthy of notice? Would it have been less important to have had a day of fasting and prayer to avert the natural displeasure of God at the time of the tremendous concussions three years ago, than to thank him for the battle of Salamanca, or some other occasion calculated only to excite one of those " flat prayers" which his late majesty so strongly reprobated. Would not the meeting of parliament, at the present time, under all the circumstances of the country, have been a fit occasion for a day of special supplication and prayer? Good men may differ as to the causes or the extent of national distress; but all must acknowledge from whence alone help can come. 66 A CHRISTIAN POLITICIAN. I lament to find that this absence of all Christian reference has been again carried by his majesty's_ministers into the king's speech. Contrast this speech with the remarks in President Jackson's; and which nation will appear to the world in these important state documents, as verging nearest to practical Atheism? POETRY FROM THE ANNUALS. FRIENDSHIP'S OFFERING. We shall give our readers a few specimens of the poetry of two or three of the annuals for 1830; beginning with Mr. Pringle's Friendship's Offering, one of the earliest and best of them. LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. By T. Pringle. THIS fair volume to our eye Human life may typify. View the new-born infant's face Ere yet mind hath stamped its trace, Lady, even so thy book By degrees shall change its look, Farther still, in graver mood, Trace we the similitude. Life, with all its freaks and follies, While time, who turns the leaves so fast GOD AND HEAVEN. The mortal mould in darkness wrapped; The tears are shed that mourned the dead, And hope's sweet dreamings shaded: And the thoughts of joy that were planted deep, QUEEN CATHERINE'S SORROW. By M. H. 'TWAS eve; and throughout London town Rang shout and revel loud; And in every street and square was met And all along the open streets Were flowers and garlands strown; With pennons fluttering free; And next the king, all blithe of heart, And a merry masking train. And the crowd, as he went gaily on, Mean time, with melancholy brow, Within her chamber sate. One that the queen had known and loved, 'Twas a simple air the maiden sang, And thus she spake, "Thy strains are sweet, That can my peace restore! In pleasant light on me. Three years went on; with heavy snows King Henry, in a stately room Who had ridden in desperate speed, And he gave a letter to the king, Which he craved him to read. The king took the letter in his hand, And with haste the seal he brokeAt the first glance his cheek grew white, Yet not a word he spoke. He read the letter, line by line, And heaved a heavy sigh; Then spake he with a changed voice, As she hath pardoning been! The faithfullest wife man ever had A CRY FROM SOUTH AFRICA. By James Montgomery. "The voice of one crying in the wilderness."MARK i. 3. [The following lines were written in aid of an appeal to British benevolence to build a place of worship there for the Slaves, of whom there are about forty thousand in the colony.] AFRIC, from her remotest strand, Stretches the other o'er the main ; Then, kneeling midst ten thousand slaves, Of power to reach to either pole, And pierce, like conscience, through the soul— A night of more mysterious gloom Of every being born a slave! Oh! that the grave itself might close The slave's unutterable woes! But what beyond that gulph may be, What portion in eternity, For those who live to curse their breath, And die without a hope in death, I know not-and I dare not think; Yet while I shudder o'er the brink Where wrath lies chained and judgments sleep, THE BECHUANA BOY. By 1. Pringle. [The chief incidents of this little Tale were related to the author by an African boy, whom he first met with near the borders of the Great Karroo, or Arid Desert. The expression of the orphan stranger, when asked about his kindred, was literally "I am all alone in the world." The system of outrage and oppression, of which this story exhibits a specimen, has been ably developed by the Rev. Dr. Philip, in his "Researches in South Africa."] I SAT at noontide in my tent, And looked across the Desert dun, And modestly before me stood, That fawn of gentle brood; Then, meekly gazing in my face, Said in the language of his race, With smiling look yet pensive tone"Stranger-I'm in the world alone!" "Poor boy," I said, “ thy kindred's home, Beyond far Stormberg's ridges blue, Why hast thou left so young-to roam This desolate Karroo?" The smile forsook him while I spoke; He told this strange sad history. "I have no kindred!" said the boy; "The Bergenaars-by night they came, And raised their murder shout of joy, While o'er our huts the flame To feast the foul-beaked birds of prey; The widowed mothers and their brood: "Three days we tracked that dreary wild, Midst that dry and dismal land, In turbid streams was sweeping fast, Loud snorting as we passed; "All shivering from the foaming flood, We stood upon the stranger's ground, " My mother's scream so long and slurill, A tiger's heart came to me then,^ The White man-stealers fleetly go, O'er mountains capped with snow,- Harsh blows and burning shame. "Yet this hard fate I might have borne, And taught in time my soul to bend, Ilad my sad yearning breast forlorn But found a single friend: The boor's rough brood I could have loved- "While, friendless thus, my master's flocks It chanced this fawn leapt from the rocks, 1 rescued it, though wounded sore, My task the proud boor's flocks to tend; To love, or call my friend; "High swelled my heart!-But when the star And there, from human kind exiled, The tidings that thy tents were here, Thy presence-roid of fear ; Such was Marossi's touching tale. Our breasts they were not made of stoneIlis words, his winning looks prevailWe took him for "our own;" And one, with woman's gentle art, Unlock'd the fountains of his heart, And love gushed forth, till he became Her child-in every thing but uame. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. By Sermons preached in India. the late Right Reverend REGINALD HEBER, D.D. Lord Bishop of Calcutta. 1 vol. 8vo. London: 1829. THIS volume of sermons, preached in India by the lamented and eminent Bishop Heber, commences with the valedictory address of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge to his lordship, delivered by the present bishop of Lincoln, together with his lordship's reply; and concludes with an address on Confirmation, delivered at Trinchinopoly, April 3, 1826. The volume is edited by Mrs. Heber, who feelingly observes, in the short preface which introduces the work, that "the address on Confirmation will be read with melancholy interest, from the circumstance of its delivery having been the concluding act of her husband's public life. In less than two hours after he had thus earnestly exhorted his congregation, he was summoned to meet his Saviour." The event was indeed truly awful, and renders every part of that address deeply interesting; but the conclusion of it is so much in unison with the feelings with which a pious minister would wish to meet death, and so peculiarly appropriate to the near, though unforeseen, termination of the bishop's earthly labours, that we shall make no apology for introducing it here. After speaking of the consistent Christian," at length laying down his tranquil head in death, in the sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life, beloved and regretted by those who have witnessed his demeanour on earth, and welcomed by those angels who shall convey his soul to the land of rest and thankfulness," he adds "And now farewell! depart in the faith and favour of the Lord; and if what you have learned and heard this day has been so far blessed as to produce a serious and lasting effect on you, let me entreat you to remember sometimes in your prayers those ministers of Christ who now have laboured for your instruction; that we who have preached to you may not ourselves be cast away, but that it may be given to us also the words of the Gospel which we have to walk in this life present according to received of our Lord, and to rejoice hereafter with you the children of our care, in that land where the weary shall find repose, and the wicked cease from troubling; where we shall behold God as he is, and be ourselves made like unto God in innocence, and happiness, and immortality!" p. 310. The sermons are introduced by "a Charge delivered to the clergy of the diocese of India." It had been previously published at Calcutta, and Obs. 1825, p. 195): but it well dehas been noticed in our pages (Christ. serves a wider circulation. The subjects on which it treats, though apparently local, have an intimate connexion with our church at home, and missionary establishments; and no clergyman ought to go out to India, either as a chaplain at the presidencies, or an evangelist to the natives, without being apprized of the facts, and imbued with the principles, which it contains. The bishop laments the great inefficiency of the church establishment in India to meet the wants of the three presidencies. He says "It is in the hope of so far exciting (by an unvarnished statement of our wants) the zeal of our brethren at home, as not to render vain the Christian care of our rulers, that I am induced to mention (what, to those who hear me, is unhappily in numerical strength, of the clergy on the but too familiar) the very great deficiency, Indian establishment. Of twenty-eight chaplains assigned by the Honourable Company to the presidency of Fort William, fifteen only are now on their posts, and effective...... The consequence has been, that, even in Calcutta and its vicinity, some churches must have been shut up but for the occasional help of clergymen not in the Company's service; that at Cawnpoor, a single labourer is sinking under the duty of a military cantonment about five miles in length, containing two places of worship, two burial grounds, two |