Decalogue shines as clearly as noon-day. Sergius Paulus was directed, as all believers, to the Law and Testimony; and what can be clearer than this, that a man ought no more to be an abettor, than a principal, in sin ? 7. But what shall we make of the "golden rule," says our correspondent? The golden rule is a part, not the whole, of a code of moral law-and of course the whole is to guide us in the part. It is only another form of "Love thy neighbour as thyself"-and this is the subordinate parallel of "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." If then I would testify my love to my neighbour, it must be in a manner consistent with the honour of my God; if I would fulfil the golden rule to my fellow-men, it must be without abetting or enacting idolatry.

We are perfectly astonished at any Christian man asking such a question as the present; for what disciple of Jesus can be ignorant of the fact, that the moral law is the grand interpreter of the golden rule, and of every such general precept? To suggest that the human mind is to be regulator in such a case, is to reduce morality to a chaos. But if the moral law is to be our guide, then what possibility can there be of doubt that we ought not to be parties to idolatrous swearing, more than to idolatrous worship?

8. We have no intention at present of following our correspondent into the region of temples, revenues, and caste. We believe them all to constitute one idolatrous mass, from which Christians ought to abstain a mass which must stand or fall together. We believe, however that, the more faithful we are to the God of Truth, the more will He establish and bless us in India, and that, in spite of all the fears and doubts of a certain cowardly and compromising class, the Lord of Hosts will certainly honour them that honour Him; Who shall dare say that it is impossible to rule India by the law, or govern it by the word of God? What! that in keeping the ten commands, especially the first and third, "No man having the heart of a true Christian can exercise the magisterial office in this Heathen country?" Does this impossibility flow from fulfilling the Bible, or rejecting it in our government? Does it arise from our government being god-ly or god-less? Oh strange land! in which Christian magistrates administer oaths by what they know is an abomination to God, and expect the truth to rest on the basis of falsehood! in which Christian men plead the example of Christ's teaching as an argument for receiving oaths over the accursed symbols of Heathenism in which Christian men exclude the first commandment of the Decalogue from the Judgment-seat, and pay a fellow-man who lives by the breach of it, even by proposing oaths of idolatry in which the followers of Jesus have courage to say, that, whilst, by the help of IDOLS, with their temples and oaths, they can govern India, by the help of GoD alone with His law and with His Gospel, this thing is impossible! Oh faith in God!-the faith of patriarchs! whither art thou fled? Oh faithless race! what will your Lord say at His coming?" It is time that Thou work Lord when men make void Thy law !"

VI.-The State of Religious Feeling in America; being a reply

to an extract in page 369 of the Observer for June.

[The following remarks have been elicited by the sentiments expressed in a letter from a friend in America, which appeared in the Observer for June. It affords us sincere pleasure to find that matters are not quite so gloomy as our American correspondent would have us believe; both our correspondents may be right-the one may be of a sanguine, the other of a morbid temperament, which will in some measure explain the opposite views they appear to entertain of the state of things in the Churches of the United States.-ED.]

An extract from a letter from a friend in America," copied into the Calcutta Christian Observer, no little surprised me. The tenor of it was so different from my own impressions on leaving the United States in October of 1837, and from the general tenor of the information which I have received from the Churches since that time, that I cannot think there is so much ground for discouragement from that source as your friend seems to feel. One of the Secretaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at a public meeting on behalf of the Board "remarked that if we except the year before the last, the receipts from the ordinary resources exceed those of any former year by $59,000*; a fact of great encouragement to the friends of the cause." It appears then that this man who has travelled throughout the whole country on this very business, and who enjoys an opportunity possessed by very few in the country of knowing the real state of the Churches, does not feel that it is so discouraging. To appreciate the testimony of this increased amount of receipts it is to be borne in mind that during that year and the year before there was a state of embarrassment in the financial concerns of the country never before known. Yet in the midst of it all, with the exception of one year, the receipts of this Society had never been so great by more than a lakh and a quarter of rupees embarrassed as they were this fact could be no great discouragement, especially at such a time. Again the corresponding Secretary of the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church says in a letter recently received, "the whole Church will soon be cordially united with us in this great enterprise." This man has also travelled over a great portion of the country for the very purpose of exciting a healthy state of feeling on this subject. So far is he from feeling discouraged that, with the advice of the executive committee, he has written to us authorizing us to double the number of children in our orphan school, and establish five or six more bazar schools. But to give you something satisfactory on the point I have collected a few statistics, comparing the state of the Church in 1834 with that in 1837. The receipts of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for 1834 were $145,544-77; for 1835 $152,386-10 and for 1838 $236,170-98. These statistics are taken from the reports of the Society for those years and show that the receipts reported in 1838 fall short of the amount reported in both 1834 and 1835 only $62,059-89. Again the Society which is now merged in the operations of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was organized in November, 1831, and from that time to July 1834 (2 years and 8 months) all its receipts including payments for the Missionary Chroni cle amounted to $23,503-88; its receipts for 1835 acknowledged in the report of that year amounted to $ 22,641-04, and the same as acknow.

The official report says $ 59,938-83.

ledged in the report in 1838 were 844,115-61. That is nearly as much, in one year of which your friend complains, as in three years and eight months of the time which he praises. All this too during a time of pecuniary embarrassment such as was never before experienced in the country. In reference to the Home Missionary operations we find about the same state of things. The General Assembly's Board of Domestic Missions in May 1834 reported 810,694-05; in 1835 $17,847-63, and in 1838 832,522-49, received during these years respectively, to sustain their domestic operations,—that is, 813,980-81 more in 1838 than in both 1834 and 1835. Of the American Home Missionary Society I am unable to say any thing, not having the necessary statistics at hand. My impression however is that its receipts nearly double those of the Assembly's Board. In what has been said no reference has been made to the Missionary operations of the Episcopal, Baptist, and Methodist Churches, for the simple reason that I am entirely destitute of any means of information respecting their proceedings.

From what has been said I would by no means be understood as maintaining that the Church of Christ in America is not far, very far, behind the spirit of the Gospel. Much less would I be found in their de fence while living thus beneath their privileges and their duties. Nor would I abate ought of the censure of your friend for their worldliness and insensibility to the welfare of our ruined race and their neglect of prayer; but when he draws a comparison between the state of the Church in 1834 and 1838 unfavorable to the latter, I think the facts already stated show that the opinion is advanced without just grounds and without any adequate knowledge of the state of things throughout the country. Permit me however to state another fact which shows that the interest on the subject of Missions is rather on the increase there than on the decrease. It is that Missionary intelligence is much more extensively demanded and circulated throughout the country. Besides that every religious and semi-religious paper is in some measure obliged to afford Missionary intelligence in order to satisfy the demands of their patrons, there are several periodicals exclusively devoted to the dissemination of Missionary information. The Missionary Chronicle was commenced in April, 1833, but until within two years its circulation was very limited indeed. It could number but a few hundred subscribers, whereas the report of 1838 states that nearly 2500 are now circulated. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions circulated of the Missionary Herald in 1834 about 14,000 copies, in 1835 about 18,000, in 1836 nearly 20,000, in 1837 about 21,000, and the report of 1838 states that it was still on the increase. Thus you will perceive that in 1838 the circulation of that one magazine is over one half more than it was in 1834. Here again I am sorry to say I cannot give you any satisfactory information with reference to the proceedings of our brethren of the Evangelical denominations before mentioned. In reference to the proceedings of the Baptist and Episcopal churches I have no doubt you might obtain the information necessary to carry on the contrast from Messrs. Thomas and Sandys or some of the other Missionaries of those Societies.

Having said thus much to correct any erroneous impression which your friend's letter may have made, you will permit me to express my judgment respecting the feelings of encouragement or discouragement which as missionaries we should indulge from such facts. We may well be cheered or depressed in spirit from the one or the other state of things, for that is in accordance with our imperfect human nature. But it is written "Cursed is man that putteth his trust in man, that maketh flesh VIII.

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his arm." The ground of our encouragement is not external appearances. The only encouragement which can sustain a missionary in his work is placed upon that rock against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. Our encouragement in all times of trial and distress is in the power and promises of Jehovah, who hath sworn by himself, because he could swear by no greater, "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord."

VII.-America, Slavery and Emancipation.

One of the greatest anomalies in the world is the present position of America in reference to slavery. She writes on her constitution "Freedom for all;" and as the basis of her Declaration of Independence says,-" All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." She is even looked upon as the asylum for the oppressed, and the land of liberty, while she has adopted as her national emblem the eagle, indicative at once of the vigour and freedom of her constitution. But while this has been her profession, she has held one-sixth of her population in slavery. She has in the very streets of Washington, the seat of the supreme legislature of this land of freedom, allowed men and women to be sold in common with animals. From the capital, through the length and breadth of the land, the cry of the oppressed and the supplication of the slave have arisen to the throne of mercy-nor have they risen in vain. The Lord has had pity on the oppressed children of Africa and has raised them up friends, who, with a firmness and zeal worthy of the cause they have espoused, have pressed, and are now pressing, the subject on the attention of a prejudiced but yielding public. The cause of emancipation advances with a rapid but sure step.

It is but just to the American people, in discussing this subject, to state that they did inherit "the institution" of slavery from the parent country; the first and best of our British emigrants, men who sought an asylum for themselves from civil and religious oppression, cursed the refuge of freedom with the labour of the slave, and broke in upon the melody and vigour of the song of freedom by the clanking of his chain and the cry of his wrongs. The Pilgrim Fathers were the first American slave-holders, and that which the fathers introduced received the sanction and confirmation of the legislative enactments and authority of the supreme government of Britain. The legislature of a free parent country legalized the institution of slavery for a free and rising colony. When the American colonists sprung up as it were in the twinkling of an eye into a free people, it was not to be anticipated that they would be enabled at once to tear up every social and legal relation which had grown with their growth and strengthened with their strength; but it would have been supposed that while they framed a constitution which held out the hope of political and religious equality to all, they might have provided for the gradual

In

emancipation of their slave population. No such clause, however, found a place in the legislative enactments of the new republic. The pen which inscribed Freedom for all," on the basis of the American constitution, should have added in parenthesis-the blacks and their descendants excepted. At the birth of the American nation the rights of the colored and enslaved population were forgotten, and they have, save in some noble instances of exception, been forgotten until within the last few years. Washington and Jefferson, (names worthy of everlasting remembrance) in those moments of serious consideration afforded them by a gracious providence, previously to an exchange of worlds, were struck with the incongruity and incompatibility of the existence of slavery in a land professedly the land of freedom, the terror of tyrants, and pattern to the world of what a nation should be. their wills they bequeathed freedom to their slaves a freedom which the constitution they had been foremost in originating and consolidating was not capable of conferring; and which the senators were unwilling to concede, even to the dying request of the fathers of their own rights. It appears to be an axiom even to the present time, that the United Congress cannot interfere with the laws of the local legislatures; it was and is yet deemed incompatible with the rights of these several legislatures to grant freedom to the slave; and hence the dying wishes of these noble citizens could not be complied with. The boon of freedom granted by them and others to their slaves was either wholly or in part exchequered by the senate of the American people. Years rolled on and slavery seemed to obtain the universal sanction of the nation; scarcely a voice was raised against its unseripturality or injustice, scarcely an effort was made for its annihilation,-the man bold enough to conceive a notion opposed to the general feeling dared not give it a tangible and practical form. He who would that his colored fellow-citizens be free must himself become a slave. That time has past, and we may record it with unqualified pleasure, a better day has dawned on America. Many of her sons have not only felt, but they have spoken and acted out their feelings on this subject, though at the risk of life, reputation, and property. The stream against which they had to contend was as impetuous, desolating, and boisterous, as the cataracts of their own Niagara; but they have stemmed it with success, and as we see in the bow which is formed by the mists of that far-famed fall, an indication of Jehovah's promise that the earth shall no more be deluged, -30 in the efforts of the emancipationists we mark indications of that day when slavery shall no more be a blight or a curse to the land. Many a year has rolled away since a few of the children of the pilgrims, gifted almost with the spirit of prophecy, saw in the increasing importance which was attached to the emancipation of the negro race in Britain, an indication that the day was not far distant when this subject must occupy the attention of their own countrymen, and with a prudence peculiar to the nation, struck out a plan by which they doubtless thought they would avert the storm which threatened their country, and award justice to the colored race. This gave rise to what was designated the Colonization Society. The