rounded by hosts of savages, and we expected that we should become a prey to their rage or cupidity, to know that there were praying souls at home; to know that that there many, many who were praying continually, and praying fervently with inwrought prayer, in the chambers, in the closets, and at the family altar bearing us in mind. Oh, my friends, pray for us! You do not know, I am sure you do not know, how high an estimate we put on the effectual prayer, of friends at home. While you support our hands Israel must prevail.

I will go again to mines deeper than ever I have gone. Promise to pray for me, and gems will be brought up again. I will promise to go to scenes still darker; I will go to individuals in circumstances perhaps still more forbidding and disgusting; only promise to pray for me, and convince me that it is the path of duty, and I shall feel happy whatever be the sacrifice. Oh what are sacrifices? I often think that in this country there are many that make a mistake in talking about sacrifices. Is it a sacrifice just because we must wipe away the tear of sympathy when we part with a beloved father and mother, as I have just done? Is it a sacrifice because we leave our native land? What do we more than others? Men of rank, men of property, men of talent, and men with sweet, endearing, strong connexions, will leave their home, their wives, and their dear children, and cross the ocean, and land on pestiferous shores, and pass through pestilential climes-for what? To save souls? No. To exalt the Redeemer's throne? No. But to gather sordid dust; to gather a laurel that must wither away. In our objects, and in our labours, and in your labours, all that occupies our minds is stamped with immortality.

Is it a sacrifice do you think, because I go out to Africa? There is one sacrifice, I admit-there is one in the lot of the missionary; and that is when he leaves his home, when he leaves the churches at home, when he leaves the brethren at home with whom he has held sweet counsel, he leaves the communion of saints, and he is something like a piece of firewood that is taken from others; he cannot burn alone without more than human power. He needs more support, more influence from above, or otherwise he withers, he dies. But is it a sacrifice to go to Africa to suffer a little hunger and a little thirst? Is it a sacrifice, do you think, to be compelled to suffer, and to walk over a glowing sandy desert? Is it a sacrifice just because we have not those comfortable abodes which you have in this country? You may call them sacrifices, but what are these when we look at the Lord of glory becoming a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs? I admit I have suffered in Africa; I have hungered in Africa; I have experienced extreme thirst in Africa; I have been in perils in the desert among savage beasts; in perils among men more savage than beasts. But what are all these sacrifices put together, when we look at Him who holds the reins of universal empire in his hands, and yet he had not where to lay his head? O my friends I will tell you what I have felt again and again in Africa. I have felt, it is true, something like the sterile deserts around, without a blade of grass, without one single leaf of green. But I have there retired within myself; often have I retired within myself in solitary places, or in a solitary room, and I have tried to gaze on the Lamb of God-the bleeding Lamb. I have tried to look upon those hands and those feet streaming with blood. on that thorny crown that encircled the sacred head of the tried to hear his voice; I have read in the words of eternal truth what he said, and I believed that he was the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world. Í believed that what he said was true when, as he left the sacred mount of Olives to ascend to his mediatorial throne, he said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," and declared, "Lo I am with you." I believed that he was with us. Though all was dark, I believed that he was with us. Though all was perplexity, I believed that he was with us. Though our circum. stances sometimes amounted to despair, and it was hoping against hope, yet, in seasons like these, 1 have gazed on the Son of God; I have brought him as it were within my mind, and I have looked upon him, and been humbled in the dust, to think that I ever, ever felt one moment's reluctance to engage in any sacrifice, in any trial.

I have tried to look
Son of God. I have

And what is the result? When great things are to be achieved, great sacrifices must be made. But put all our labours and all our sacrifices together, about which some people talk a great deal, and what are they? They are less than

motes and atoms in the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, the Sun of Glory? And after we have done all that we have done, put all our labours together, whatever these may be, and even if we are called to a martyr's death, to sink under the reeking spear of the savage, or become a meal to the monarch of the desert-the lion; if we have been found in the path of duty we can only say at last, that we are unprofitable servants, we have only done that which was our duty to do." Oh, I cannot look back on our sacrifices, and what may be said to be some little sufferings in Africa, without feeling the heart rise in gratitude to God, for having called us to that honour, for having called us and made us worthy to do something for that great Redeemer, in whose service millions upon millions of angels are ready to be engaged every

moment.

"I should like to endeavour to illustrate the text with facts. Where was there a more hopeless mission than the mission to Africa-the mission to Namaqualand? Here it was that Africaner resided, the man who bid defiance to the colonial power. Pointing to a stone, a granite rock, a chief once said to me in graphic_language, “There Africaner shook his spear, and dared the power of the colonial government." A large sum of money was offered to the man who would bring him in dead or alive. He was a murderer; he was a scourge of the human species; he was the Napoleon of the desert; he was proclaimed an outlaw, and whoever found him might kill him if he pleased. But Africaner was safe in his own prowess: for the terror of his name gave security to those around him, and when the inhabitants of the desert heard of his approach they fell or fled in consternation. Yet I saw that Africaner become, under the Gospel, one of the humblest, one of the most devout, the most zealous, affectionate, and sympathizing of all the converts I ever witnessed in Africa, and I thank God I have seen many converts in that country.

Take one specimen of the influence of the Gospel in the mind of that savage, which astonished another savage who was looking on at the time. Here was your missionary that you sent out, and here was a savage standing beside him. We were both looking at a scene which doubtless angels were beholding with joy. The scene was this;-I had left the station in the care of Africaner's family, and especially in that of a brother, who is at this day a native teacher. I had taken a circuitous course from the west to the north, and was coming home, after an absence of some fourteen days, from the east. I had travelled that day over a glowing plain. I heard some people complain of the warmth of the late summer, but it was only agreeable to me. In some parts of Africa the rain does not fall for eight or nine months, and that almost under a vertical sun, with a light sandy soil, and often great portions of the country covered over with small quartz and white particles, which exhibit such a glare that it is impossible to keep the eyes open from morning till evening. I had travelled during the fore part of the day over a glowing desert. I then passed over a ridge of rugged hills, and went down a ravine. Just as I emerged out of the ravine, I saw before me two considerable villages, and glad was I to see the habitations of men: for I was perishing with thirst. I immediately made for the place, and when I had passed between a few huts on each side in the entrance, I heard the din of war; I heard an accumulation of savage voices; but I cared for nothing. I should have advanced had I seen the spears or the arrows flying for it was water I wanted. Oh thirst! there is no language to describe thirst. I know what hunger is, but no language can describe thirst. You have no idea what people will drink in African deserts. I never saw water in any of the streets of London that I would not drink in Africa. I have drank water there that I dare not describe to you. I entered the village, and after I had gone a few yards, there sat a man bending his bow and tightening the string, and apparently preparing his quiver, and looking at his poisoned arrows. I showed him by signs that I was suffering thirst, but he took no notice. I saw a little farther on a woman sitting weeping and wiping away the tears from the babe on her knees. She appeared to suffer great agony of mind, I beckoned to her; she saw what was the matter, entered her hut, and brought me a bowl of water which I drank. Having moistened the roof of my mouth and got my speech again, I asked her what was the matter. "It is war, war, war," replied the woman. "War?" I said, "Who are you going to fight with?" "The two villages have quarrelled and are going to fight." I went forward and saw that every preparation was making. Some were sharpening their spears,

others were looking over their arrows and quivers, and others were looking if their bows were tight, as if they were just going to fight there and then. Oh, what a Babel; what confusion; what threatening! the one threatening that he would kill a dozen; another threatening that he would cut the enemy to pieces; another that he would make his spear go in every direction. They took no notice of me; I was a stranger; I passed through them to go to the other village. There was a plain extending some hundreds of yards before me; and there stood Africaner, with seven or eight of the principal men of the two villages, and there he had been standing for two hours. He had heard the preceding evening that these people were going to fight; he rose before the midnight hour, and had travelled incessantly for thirty miles, and had reached the village. He came just when they were on the very point of taking out their weapons, and begged the chiefs of the villages to assemble. There he stood, the messenger of peace; the man of war stood in the character of a suppliant begging and entreating them to be reconciled to each other. I saw his form, I heard his voice, and there was Africaner pointing out to them the horrors of war. He was appealing to wives, to weeping children, and to his own experience. He asked them, "What have I now of all the battles I have fought, of all the cattle I have taken, of all the blood I have shed? what have I now but remorse and shame?" He pleaded, nor did he plead in vain: for I saw them rise, and every man gathered up his spears, his quiver and his arrows, and hung them up in his house. Thus were they reconciled to each other. A chief stood beside me, who had come a short distance to visit the station, but who was still a savage. He gazed upon the scene. Had you seen how his eyes dilated, how his mouth dilated, when he was hearing the man of war preaching peace to them, you would never have forgotten it. When he saw the result of Africaner's example and language, he touched me on the shoulder and said, 'There is a man, a man from whom I have fled with greater terror than from the eyes of a lion. I remember the time when I have, with my people, taken our wives and children at the midnight hour, and fled because we heard that Africaner was somewhere near. We fled to the mountain brow or to the wood, and there lived among roaring lions, and exposed to hungry hyenas, and our sheep and goats to Jackals; but we felt comparatively safe and easy there, because we had escaped that lion-like man.' That was the testimony of a

heathen."

From these quotations our readers may judge of the character of the work. We have no hesitation in saying, that our readers who purchase it, will not after reading regret either the expence of purchase or the labour of reading. It is a work which must charm all who possess any measure of christian sympathy. It is embellished with a portrait of Mr. Moffat, and is a most valuable addition to our missionary literature.

EMINENT HOLINESS ESSENTIAL TO AN EFFICIENT MINISTRY. By the REV. OCTAVIUS WINSLOW. Royal 18mo. 88 pp. HOULSTON AND STONEMAN. THIS is a work which we can most heartily recommend to the attentive perusal of all our brethren in the ministry. Considering the awful responsibility devolving upon ministers, and the peculiarities of the temptations and dangers to which they are exposed, they have special need to exercise a godly jealousy over themselves. This is eloquently stated in the following remarks:

66

Although the evidences of a deteriorating piety here, may not be so marked in their form, or conspicuous to the eye, they are not the less decided in their character, or painful in their consequences. Externally, there may be nothing tending to awaken suspicion that the life of God in our soul is passing through a process of decline. The appropriate functions of our office shall be going forward with the utmost regularity and zeal,-the study shall witness to the

wearisome hours of hard reading and severe thought-the pulpit shall be regularly and ably filled, the ordinances shall be duly and seriously administered, -the pastoral duties systematically and affectionately discharged; and yet a faithful, honest, and close examination of our souls would probably detect an alarming distance from God in the habitual frame of our mind,-but little real, close communion with him in secret prayer,-coldness, deadness, gathering and congealing round the spirit,-a waning love for, and delight in, our work,-a decreasing sense of individual and ministerial responsibility, and a lessening apprehension of the nearness and solemnity of eternity. To so great a degree may the anointing oil have evaporated from our minds,- -so formal, cold, and mechanical may be the spirit with which the duties of our office are discharged,-we shall be found to go forward in a work that might "fill an angel's hand, and that filled a Saviour's heart," with but the slow and dying vibrations of the pendulum, when the power which first set it in motion has ceased to exist. And oh! my brethren, with no power to move but that which is artificial,-with no love to our work but that which is professional, with no interest in its discharge but that which is selfish, -and with no desire of success but that which spreads far our own petty fame, -to what low, contemptible drudgery is our high office reduced! No galley slave more pitiable than we!

*

The falls of so many ministers are awful and affecting warnings to those who think they stand. The bleak shores of eternity are strewed with the fragments of many a beautiful wreck-men who once stood high in the church, too high for their own safety, but who made shipwreck of their profession and their faith, and now serve as beacons of warning to those who follow. What see I yonder? A spectacle over which demons have exulted, the church has mourned, and, if it be possible, angels have wept. I knew him well. He was my compeer

in age, my associate in study, the companion of my walks, the confidant of my bosom. His fine mind was redolent of thought, his bright eye gleamed with genius, his tall and manly form was fascinating to a degree in its address. Few men ever entered the Christian ministry with higher prospects, or awoke in the breasts of tutors, of friends, and of the church, richer, fonder hopes. He bid fair, as his sun arose to its zenith, to be a bright and a shining light. Distinguished posts of labour were proffered him, and crowds, eager to receive his instructions, clustered around his pulpit, drawn together by the tender, subduing eloquence of his lips. But he fell! and fell deeply, awfully. The church entrusted to him the keeping of the vineyards, but his own vineyard he kept not. Labouring for the salvation of others, he laboured not for his own. He grew prayerless, unwatchful, self-confident, worldly, and presumptuous, and by slow but certain and fatal degrees, he descended from his lofty eminence; his sun went down while it was yet day, and around him is now gathered in thick and solemn folds, the dark pall of guilt, of infamy, and of shame. "All ye that are about him bemoan him; and all ye that know his name, say, How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!" Jer. xlviii. 17.

It will be unnecessary for us to say more than that, the preceding quotations exhibit the style and spirit of this excellent little volume. It is worthy of repeated perusals.

WAR AND PEACE: the Evils of the first, and a Plan for Preserving the last. By WILLIAM JAY. 8vo. 48 pp. T. WARD and Co.

THE author is the Honourable Judge Jay, of West Chester, near the city of New York, and son of the late Hon. John Jay, L. L. D., President of the American Bible Society. The work is reprinted by the London Peace Society.

War is an evil of the most terrific magnitude. If the subjects of, those who are called, Christian sovereigns were sufficiently alive to the sin and horrid consequences of war, they would never raise their voice in favor of a proclamation of war, except it were a war for repelling an invader from their own shores and homes. On the contrary, the voice of public opinion would ever

condemn war, and if sovereigns and ministers of state choose to quarrel, they would be left to fight their own battles, and thus endure, in their own persons, the sufferings resulting from their pride, injustice, and ambition. Or they would be compelled to adopt some such method of adjusting their differences, as the work before us recommends. On the sinfulness of war

the following remarks are made :—

The

"What a fearful responsibility is involved in a declaration of war! Scriptures abound with strong expressions of the Divine abhorrence of murder; and with what indignation must a Being of infinite benevolence view that enormous mass of murder perpetrated in war! Shall the blood of Abel crying from the ground bring down vengeance upon his murderer, and shall not the blood of thousands and tens of thousands, shed to gratify the ambition and avarice of monarchs, or senates be avenged by the sovereign Ruler of nations?

That wars were frequently waged from the same lust of plunder that actuates the highwayman, is abundantly testified by the whole course of history; and it is unnecessary to prove what no one will deny, that very many wars have been obviously unjust, and therefore highly criminal. Our object, however, is to show that every war, without exception, involves guilt, and must be offensive to the Deity. To effect this object, it is not requisite to prove that all war is forbidden by Scripture, or that no aggression, however unprovoked, and however dangerous, can justify a forcible resistance. Nor do we mean to deny the right of selfdefence, nor even the lawfulness of subduing by force of arms, when necessary, pirates and banditti; and still further are we from questioning the right indispensable to the very existence of civil government of enforcing obedience to the laws. When we say that every war without exception involves guilt, we mean to apply the remark to war as it actually exists between nations with all its usages and attending circumstances. It may be possible for the imagination to conceive of a defensive war commenced in the spirit, and waged in accordance with the strictest principles of Christianity; but we deny that profane history has recorded any example of such a war.

When we recollect the vast amount of human misery necessarily occasioned by war, few will be disposed to question that a resort to arms must always be criminal when not unavoidable. Were rulers and their subjects mindful of the tremendous responsibility incurred by the authors of a war, with what deep and trembling solicitude would the question of peace and war be discussed-what numerous expedients and sacrifices would be proposed to avert the necessity of mutual slaughter, and with what hesitation and grief would hostilities be at last commenced? But alas! when has a patient and conscientious inquiry into the justice and necessity of a war preceded its declaration? Instead of a calm investigation, and equitable aud conciliatory propositions, we have lofty demands, fierce denunciations, proud references to our own strength, and inflammatory appeals to the passions of the populace. Pride, revenge, the acquisition of territory, or some supposed political advantage, are in general the true and only causes of an offensive war, while those set forth in the declaration usually aggravate its guilt by the addition of falsehood. Nor let it be supposed that the sin of war rests only on the party by whom it was commenced. War is at the present day almost invariably preceded by negociation; and in the communications of the respective parties, we seldom discover that scrupulous regard to justice and moderation which a desire to avoid hostilities would prompt. Few indeed of the pretexts assigned for a war would even, in the opinion of those by whom they are advanced, justify taking the life of a single individual by the civil magistrate; and yet little or no compunction is felt in commencing a contest which must inevitably prove fatal to multitudes of unoffending persons. The guilt of the crime seems lost in its very magnitude, and he who would shrink from taking one life will often labour to bring about a war in which he knows human blood will flow in torrents."

Judge Jay is also an advocate for the abolition of slavery. On the conduct of America, relative to the slave trade, he has the following observations :— "In 1814, the United States bound themselves by treaty with Great Britain,