and, directing us to what is right by pointing out what is wrong, he corrects the sallies of our passions while he meliorates the heart. On these accounts the faithful historian may be considered as a public benefactor, by imparting moral lessons to mankind. For these reasons he stands highly in the public estimation, and holds the foremost place in the republic of letters. It is to his faithful page that scientific men resort; it is he that decides debates in the literary world; who fixes the boundaries of remote antiquity, and from whose decisions there can be no appeal.

It is through his faithful page that we have any acquaintance with ancient times, or with those branches of science which have enriched the world. It is only through this medium that we know how, the world was originally peopled, that we know our own origin, and can trace our end. Through this we can account for the diversity of language, and trace the myriads of human beings that now swarm the world, up to one common parent; and learn that God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth. But for the page of history our sciences would still be in a state of embryo, to-morrow would be ignorant of the transactions of to-day, and one generation could hold no communication with another.

But for the unerring page of sacred History, we should have known nothing of the conduct of God towards the human race; all his dispensations would have been alike concealed; and, where we now behold redemption, and the amazing displays of infinite love, we should have seen nothing but a dreary blank, and must have contemplated futurity with horror. The origin of justice and of law would have been alike unknown; and our moral and intellectual condition would have been somewhat similar to that of the swarthy inhabitants of those islands which we are about to explore. To the sacred records we are indebted for the intelligence which we possess, for that light which we have to guide us in our inquiries into futurity, and through which we are enabled to discriminate between those actions which lead to rewards or punishments beyond the grave. It is sacred history that gives rationality to our faith, and energy to our hopes; that, under divine grace, teaches us how to pass through time with tranquillity, and to expect felicity in a future state.

History, in general, may be considered as a science without which all others would be almost useless; and without much impropriety we may denominate it the memory of the world. There is hardly a circumstance to which it will not apply; nor is there a science which it does not more or less include. The natural, the civil, and the religious world, it encircles in one enlarged embrace; and it is attentive to the vices as well as the virtues of mankind. The foibles and excellencies of human nature are delineated on

its records; and those characters which have been rendered conspicuous in either view, descend to posterity accompanied with infamy or renown.

But while the genius and pen of the historian have been so laboriously employed in filling whole volumes with relations of conquests and depredations; of battles, sieges, victories, and defeats, in which every page appears stained with blood; while he details with minute exactness the horrors of sanguinary revolutions, which involve the desolation of kingdoms and the murder of millions of the human race; it cannot be reflected on without regret, that so little has been written upon that most important of all concerns, the introduction, progress, and final establishment of the Christian religion among multitudes of those almost innumerable hosts of savages who inhabit the remoter regions of the globe. And yet it is to the gospel, that Great Britain, in all probability, stands indebted for the preservation of many of her richest colonial possessions even to the present day; that her swarthy subjects have not revolted like those of a neighbouring island; and committed those depredations on the white inhabitants, which humanity even shudders to name.

But whatever advantages may have resulted from the establishment of Christianity in foreign regions, it seems in general to have had little or no share in those historical departments of literature which have analyzed our insular possessions in the torrid zone. A solitary hint, a vagrant passage, or a detached paragraph, contains all that some voluminous works supply, relative to the progress of the gospel, though considerable portions are appropriated to points of no comparative moment; points which can hardly awaken curiosity, and in which interest seems to have little

or no concern.

Commercial and political histories are in general what they profess. The writers of such volumes, however much they may develop the sources of human action, and unravel the latent windings of the human heart, calculate no higher than secondary causes. They make certain modes of policy the parents of commerce, and terminate their inquiries in a single branch. They estimate the advantages which result from commerce by the aggrandizements which ensue, and make the influx of wealth the boundary of their design.

The primary source of colonial advantages is frequently overlooked by colonial writers, and is lost in an effect, or a combination of effects, which result from it. Political manœuvres frequently monopolize that honour which belongs to the gospel, and their records ascribe to the ingenuity of man deliverances and preservations which belong solely to the providence of God. The interests which are rooted so deeply in the human breast,

are on such occasions the strongest incentives to action; and they influence the judgments of those who obey their dictates almost beyond the power of calculation. The ascendency of these interests suffers nothing to move beyond the boundaries of its sordid confines; and prompts its votaries to stigmatize with epithets of opprobrium those who presume to act with nobler aims.

When enterprises under the influence of ambition are directed towards fame, rather than the interests of the human race, they are not unlikely to arrogate those honours which are the produce of another soil: but let it be remembered, that it was Columbus who discovered America, though he was supplanted by power, and sent to Europe in chains.

Commercial advantages are, without all doubt, intimately connected with the policy of nations; but the internal action of that policy supposes the previous civilization of the subject. It is only civilization that can render policy beneficial, or give permanency to that intercourse with nations which interest wishes to keep alive. It is this which can alone fix the boundaries of right, give justice to coercion, and unite effective energy with law. Civilization must therefore be prior to all permanent advantages which can result from those compacts which policy establishes, and consequently in the scale of honour it holds a higher rank.

But while we admit civilization to hold this exalted rank in the rising scale of eminence, it would be unjust to bury in oblivion the active cause from whence it springs. The tribute of applause is without doubt due to every excellency: to withhold it is ungenerous; but to apply it erroneously is unjust.

The influx of wealth from distant regions may be justly ascribed to commerce; the establishment of commerce, to the excellencies of policy, in its direction of that civilization which must be admitted to have a previous existence; while the excellencies of policy can only arise from the superior state of refinement, which marks those European nations in which civilization softens into all the graces of polished life.

But when, from mere civilization, we turn our thoughts to that cause which chiefly contributes to its existence, we shall find it Occupying the highest station, and therefore entitled to those superlative honours which can be considered as subordinate to nothing short of God. The benefits which result from our intercourse with distant parts depend upon the civilized state of the inhabitants; and our advantages are permanent or uncertain in proportion as barbarism is removed, and the cultivation of the human mind appears. It is therefore to this cause that we stand indebted for the various advantages which we receive, and which flow to us through the different mediums of civilization, of policy, and of commerce; and this cause is-the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is to the establishment of the gospel that civilization in these latter ages is primarily indebted for its origin and support; it is this which becomes the cement of society; it is this which has given the decided preference to Christian nations, and rendered them so conspicuous for those sciences which are the ornaments of human nature, the boast of Europe, and the astonishment of the world. It is the establishment of the gospel which has opened the door to inquiry, and which promotes investigation; which leads investigation to discovery, and causes discovery to terminate in advantage; which enlarges the horizon of the human intellect, and calls into exertion all the latent powers of the soul.

But for the establishment of that gospel which infidels despise-which is a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness unto the Greeks, but which is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe and obey its precepts-civilization would have been unknown in its present extent. And but for civilization, even the wisdom of policy would be deprived of the power of action; and, under these views, both commerce and the wealth which flows from it would be alike unknown. It is therefore to the establishment of the gospel, in subordination to God, that we must look for those temporal blessings which we enjoy. It is this which can alone produce a radical reformation in human nature, and establish that reformation on a permanent foundation. It is this that rescues man from a state of barbarism, and, in proportion as it influences the human heart, promotes harmony and peace, and ensures a perpetuity of those intercourses which it so extensively opens.

The wars and devastations which at this moment disgrace Europe, and desolate some of the most fertile regions of the globe, will not militate against the positions which I have advanced. It is not the spirit of Christianity which leads to those calamities which we deplore, but an evident departure from it. The mild and peaceable spirit of the gospel produces a different mode of conduct, and totally condemns those wars and fightings which are promoted by the angry passions of the interested and ambitious, and points out to us, in the most unequivocal language, the genuine source from whence such actions proceed. The wars and fightings which are among us, St. James tells us (chap. iv. 1.) "come even of those lusts which war in our members," and are therefore generated in those angry passions which Christianity came to extract from the human soul.

It is that root of bitterness which is lodged so deeply in human nature, and which has not submitted to the efficacy of divine grace, which leads to those sanguinary excesses that have stained the ocean and drenched the plains with human blood. The ene

mies of Christianity have therefore but little occasion to impute to her doctrines those contentions for empire which disgrace mankind, or to charge her with those actions which all her principles disown. It is a departure from her sober dictates that leads to criminal exploits, and promotes that discord which degrades humanity, which sanctions those deeds which her sincerest friends deplore, and produces that rapine and plunder which she shudders to behold.

The nominal professors of her holy doctrines have, in a variety of instances, acted in an unworthy manner, and implicated her, by their conduct, in that disgrace which they have procured for themselves. They have introduced her sacred name to sanctify the greatest enormities, and taken refuge under her banner, while they have stabbed her to the heart. Under the auspices of Christianity they have perpetrated the greatest villanies that perhaps may have ever disgraced human nature, and made a superstitious attachment to its cause the pretext of swelling the black catalogue of human woes. They have substituted coercion for the influence of persuasion, and made even instruments of cruelty to supplant the book of God. Urged on by superstition, they have inverted the order of the gospel, and perverted its design. They have even made religion a plea for murders of the most unnatural kind, and multiplied these perpetrations beyond all example, and, but for the precision of the attestation, beyond the reach of our belief.

In the history of those islands to which these papers will introduce us, we shall behold such instances of human depravity as will hardly admit of any parallel, and which for the honour of human nature we could wish to see falsified in fact: but the evidences are too strong for incredulity to grapple with, though they substantiate actions which are almost too shocking to admit belief. The evidences, and the facts which they record, serve however to demonstrate the authenticity of those sacred records to which we dare appeal, and which are the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes.

But while these base professors of Christianity, and real votaries of superstition, thus apparently disgrace the religion which they profess, and expose to calumny that cause which they externally espouse, it is but just that the gospel should be permitted to vindicate itself. Its language will explicitly disown such base professors, and such base profession as these professors make. It will fix the principles of human actions on their proper basis, and develop those causes which call them into being. The iniquities which we contemplate, will prove the depravity of the human heart, and bear testimony to that declaration which says, that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."