him into the persuasion, that they indicate the translation of a soul from the powers of darkness into "the kingdom of God's dear Son;" and, if we have among us clergymen who abandon themselves to such a system of delusions, we can only say, that, as far as they influence the opinions of their brethren, we are fast returning to the abominations of the Papal idolatry; and that, though we may write and read a perpetual succession of attacks on the Church of Rome, the friends of that hierarchy might not unreasonably calculate upon our ultimate adhesion to the ancient faith; and complacently remind themselves of an ecclesiastic in the seventeenth century, of whom it was said, that he was always talking against Popery, but always acting for it.

If, in his views of the sacramental relation, Dr. Warton was, we will not say infatuated, but certainly mistaken, what plea will his sur viving friends advance in justification of the succeeding statement? "If we pray for the dead, sir, will God hear us?'

Certainly,' I answered, there is no sin in praying for the dead; but at the same time it cannot be of any use to the dead themselves. As the tree falls, so it lies. Whatever was our state with respect to God at the moment of our departure hence, the same will it be at the dreadful day of jndgment. Nothing subsequently done can make a change in that state. But the prayer, which is not granted, being offered up with a sincere and contrite spirit, may return with a blessing into your own bosom.'"-Warton, p. 214.

Now here is a direct confession, that prayer for the dead is useless; and yet, in its re-action, beneficial to the supplicant! If this be capable of a satisfactory explanation, the sceptical reader must be referred to more expert casuists than ourselves. We have none to offer; and can merely express our surprise that such visionary sentiments should be deliberately ushered into the world by a Protestant divine, amidst the lights of the nineteenth century; and when our divines, both lay and clerical, are busy in denouncing the

doctrine of purgatory, and all its collateral heresies.

As an illustration of Dr. Warton's discursive powers, in the character of a defender of Revelation, we present one of his replies to the sophistry of an infidel :

"The Gospel, you object, has not been preached to all mankind-But could it have been preached to all mankind at once?' He allowed, that it required time and opportunity to do it, if it were to be done by men. "God,' I said, certainly seems to have left it to be done by men, and without any supernatural aid. If men therefore are. negligent, or lukewarm about it, he will charge it to their account. However, it is manifest that Christianity has a tendency to increase, which is not the case with any other religion. In your various travels, have you ever visited any country, however remote or uncivilized, in which there were not missionaries established to introduce the Gospel? He confessed that he had not, so far as his inquiries extended. The Gospel, therefore,' I thus went on, is not stationary, and men are trying to spread it; whether rapidly or slowly, it matters not for the argument. I believe from the prophecies, that hereafter it will be offered and made known to the whole

world; and if some thousands of years were to elapse before that event took place, such a period, however large in our estimation, might be nothing in comparison with the duration of time. A thousand years in the sight of God are but as one day. In the meanwhile, all the nations to which the Gospel is not preached, are in no worse situation, than all the world before the first preaching of it; and many at this present moment seem quite unfit for it!! and must first be disposed for the reception of it, through the good providence of God, by their intercourse with Christian nations, and by the introduction of arts and civility amongst them! Your objection, therefore, has no weight in it whatever.'"-Warton, pp. 22, 23.

Is this an answer which justifies the emphatic "therefore" which closes it? We think not. In the first place, the Gospel could have been preached to all mankind at onceotherwise the resources of Omnipotence are limited; and Dr.Warton had much better have confessed, that the fact of the far greater part of mankind continuing, after the lapse of eighteen hundred years, in the depths of heathenism, is to be left among the mysteries impenetrable by human sagacity. There has been quite time enough, even for the tardy

ner, then, did the aborigines of India learn by "our arts and civility" the value of Christianity, before they embraced it! But, in reality, when the missionaries were permitted at length to repair to the spot, after a struggle in their favour in the legislative assemblies of a Christian empire, then, and not before, practically arose upon the mass of our fellow-subjects the light of Revelation. Swartz might have been their morning star; but there were those of his own day, and professedly of his own religion, who laboured to quench its early, yet steady lustre. The Peruvian is but too naturally described as telling the Spanish friar, that he would never wish to be in heaven, if Christians were allowed to go there; and every reader will recollect the lines of a favourite poet, describing the aspiration of an exile of Africa for

Some safer world, in depths of woods embraced,

Some happier island, in the watery waste; Where slaves, once more, their native land behold,

Nor fiends torment, nor Christians thirst for

gold!

Cowper's fine reflections on the discovery of the South-Sea islands, and on the character and treatment of Omia, will also naturally recur to the reader; as will also the same writer's indignant eloquence respecting the conquests of Mexico and Peru, and his exquisite tribute to the memory of Captain Cook.

Ev'n the favoured isles So lately found, although the constant sun Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile, Can boast but little virtue.....

These therefore I can pity, placed remote,
In boundless oceans never to be pass'd
By navigators uninformed as they-
But far beyond the rest, and with most

cause,

Thee, gentle savage, whom no love of thee Or thine, but curiosity perhaps,

Or else vain-glory, prompted us to draw Forth from thy native bowers, to shew thee here

With what superior skill we can abuse The gifts of Providence, and squander life. When Cook-lamented, and with tears as just

As ever mingled with heroic dust

Steered Britain's oak into a world unknown,

And in his country's glory sought his own, Wherever he found man, to nature true, The rights of man were sacred in his view: He soothed with gifts, and greeted with a smile,

The simple native of the new-found isle: He spurned the wretch, that slighted or

withstood

The tender argument of kindred blood, Nor would endure, that any should controul His free-born brethren of the southern pole.

Our limits forbid more extended citation from the pocm; and the above is mutilated, and rudely detached from its context. Let the reader turn to the original, and compare what Cowper wrote in 1782, with the discoveries and events of the

five-and-forty years since elapsed. The result will be extremely striking, contradictory, and, in one point, most auspiciously-the poet's speculation with regard to the re-visitation of the islands; and confirming what he says in the succeeding paragraphs of his Charity, on the desolation and misery of Spain. The friends of Negro emancipation may be here reminded, that when the missionaries-the men who have demoralized and uncivilized the favoured isles! - attempted, some years since, to introduce the manufacture of sugar into Tahiti, where the cane grows luxuriantly, the chiefs of that island were warned by a passing navigator never to allow the proposed measure; "For," said he, "if you once do that, the English will, to a certainty, enslave you and all your people, as they have done those in the West Indies!" At the time, the warning was taken; but we believe, that sugar and cotton mills have been established since; and we will not despair of sweetening coffee, grown likewise on the same plantations, with sugar from the country of Omia!

But, to return to the allusion to Captain Cook; much as we revere the name of this great man as a navigator and philanthropist, we connect with it painful recollections, not

so much affecting himself individually, as the companions of his adventures among the luxurious isles of the Pacific. Without, how ever, farther implicating our countrymen, it cannot be easily denied, that, with regard to Polynesia in general, its natives' intercourse with the believers of Christendom produced only a superaddition to vice and disease already existing; and this up to the very period when missionaries began to steer to their shores, with a view to introduce Christianity, with its attendant train of arts and civilization among them.

The same story may be told of Southern Africa. What did the Caffres and Bushmen gain from the Dutch boors in the interior, and from the head-quarters at the Cape, except insult, slavery, and new modes of sensuality; till the day when they were blessed with the instruction of the Moravian missionaries, and other heralds of the Cross? What did the Reformed Church of Holland do for the Javanese, in the circumjacent regions of Batavia? What again began, among the tribes of North America, the work of extermination? and with whom did they exchange the skins of beavers and deer for rum and gunpowder, for the arts of intoxication, and commercial fraud? Such inquiries are their own swers. We might indeed traverse, and circumnavigate the globe, in the successful pursuit of similar questions, and similar replies; and prove, especially in respect to the African population, that the commerce and enterprise of the enlightened European have discovered themselves in every kind of success, except in the civilization and spiritual welfare of the regions which he has visited. Western Africa, as it is well known, presents the phenomenon of a country which is barbarized on the coasts, and advances in civilization as we penetrate into the interior; its maritime districts having been alone cursed

an

by the intercourse of Christian nations! Yet, within these few months, the very missionaries who have introduced "arts and civility," and the doctrines of the Cross, into the insular groups of the Pacific, have been charged with demoralizing their converts, and turning their fruitful lands into a wilderness; an accusation as just as Celsus might have urged against the primitive Christians, had he upbraided St. Paul with being accessary to the guilt of the incestuous Corinthian. Dr. Warton therefore would have acted wisely, had he unreservedly owned to the infidel, that the Gospel is a religion professed by a majority of insincere followers; and irresponsible for the conduct of any of its so-called adherents. When Hindoos, and Polynesians, and other Pagans visit our own country, they find its moral soil exhibiting a rank vegetation of vice. They meet with Warings, Stamfords, Sambrooks, and all other children of perdition. In Dr. Warton's own, parish, its pastor made such painful discoveries as the following.

"To some the very name of Jesus Christ was utterly unknown; of salvation itself they knew nothing; they did not This seems incredible. I will relate a comprehend the meaning of the term. fact, the truth of which I can vouch.

"A lady of rank and wealth being just settled in the parish, and anxious to do into a cottage, and entered into conversasome good amongst the poor people, went tion with the woman who lived in it. After talking much about her temporal matters she came at length to spiritual; and having discovered that this woman never thought of public worship at all, she asked her what hope she had of salvation. But getting no satisfactory answer to this question, she next asked her, who was the person whom God had sent into the world to save it. • Eve, I believe,' said the women. The lady lifted up her hands in astonishment, and being quite at a loss how to instruct people in religion with whom she had no ideas in common, and no ground to stand upon, she relinquished the task to me; and directed her benevolence into other channels.

bours I have met with the same degree of "In the course of my ministerial laignorance, in persons of a very advanced