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the present instance, mark

enduring. Let us, then, concisely, in empire. This depression-this almost stagnation-in various branches of trade, has been acknowledged, and felt to be a very serious calamity.

The trials under which the community have been, and still are, labouring; and let it be specially observed, that, not merely has one part of the community been called to suffer, but every part; not merely specific classes, but every class. A dark and an appalling cloud has been overshadowing the entire land, and we have been compelled to say, "This is the finger of God!" and to cry, "O Lord, rebuke us not in thy wrath, neither chasten us in thy hot displea

sure!"

There has been, and still is, great depression in various branches of trade.

All that we have read, and all that we have observed, during the last nine or twelve months, especially, has amply confirmed this statement. Large houses in our manufacturing districts have been suffering most extensively; and on them, not only tens, but hundreds of thousands of hands, have been dependant. In many quarters trade has been almost paralysed. All branches, except those furnishing provisions to the people, have been, for some period, comparatively inactive. Rents, taxes, and other burdens, have been equally heavy, indeed, heavier; still there has been little or nothing doing, and we cannot wonder; for the poor have had no money to spend, unless for the staple and necessary articles of life. We were conversing, very recently, with a commercial gentleman, of considerable intelligence and observation, who travels nearly throughout the kingdom, and he remarked, that he has scarcely witnessed anything equal to it. The depression was general, and most painful. Persons in business everywhere were involved in gloom. Scarcely any orders were given, and never was there a time when it was found more difficult, in certain departments of trade, to get pecuniary transactions promptly and honourably settled. This observation, we are persuaded, will be fully sustained by tens of thousands of upright, persevering, and excellent persons, engaged in business throughout the

There has been, too, and still is, intense anxiety among all classes, in consequence of the high price of all kinds of provisions.

This has been felt most sensibly by all, and most grievously by some. It has occasioned intense and universal alarm, and among the poor it has created quite a panic. Almost every article of importance on which we rely, rose in price, speedily, and, in many respects, fearfully. Even rice, and oatmeal, and peas, which thousands of families would have been glad to have secured, regularly increased in expense almost at once. As for flour, the augmentation of price was most alarming, and nearly every week it has been heightened. Bread, families must obtain; but they have found, by its increased price and consumption, that their expense, in this article alone, has been nearly doubled, and, we fear, that even now, the maximum price has not been attained. We cannot wonder, then, at the anxiety which has been felt, and at the general alarm which has been occasioned.

There has been, and still is, realised, in consequence of the circumstance just mentioned, the extreme difficulty of the humbler class, in procuring the common necessaries of life at all. This has been palpable to every intelligent and dispassionate observer. The writer has been familiar with many cases of poverty, during the autumn and winter; and his range of observation among the worthy poor has not been narrow; and he can honestly aver, he has scarcely ever seen anything like it—such extreme difficulty in getting enough bread, on which to maintain existence. He has met with numbers of deserving creatures who, after all their continuous labour, can earn only six, seven, or eight shillings weekly; but how can a poor man, with a large family, and the mere pittance of seven or eight shillings a week coming in, gain

more than bread, and can he gain enough of that? It is impossible! With five or six children, what are two loaves daily? But these, according to present prices, amount to one shilling and sixpence daily — and, multiplied by seven, will be ten shillings and sixpence! What is there, then, in the wages of this poor and deserving man, for rent, fire, candles, tea, sugar, meat, clothing, the education of his children! Nothing-absolutely nothing. British philanthropists! British Christians! Is not this heartrending? Does it not make your souls bleed? Do you not ask, How have multitudes of the poor been living during the last winter? It has scarcely been existence at all. Life, to hundreds of thousands of the poor, has been lately a heavy hurthen.

There has been, moreover, the almost universal failure of the potato crop throughout the world. This was scarcely credited at first, but facts compelled belief. Alarm was awakened-that alarm | increased, till consternation and dismay filled the land, and, in many parts, where the people mainly depended on the potato, there was nothing but wailing, horror, and despair. Every means was employed, in order that the blight might be checked, that the calamity might be "diminished, but it was perfectly unavailing. It had gone forth from the Lord, and that on which multitudes principally relied, was smitten, and smitten by him. "The meat was cut off before our eyes." "The seed was rotten under their clods," and it was God who "laid our vine waste, who barked our fig tree;" so that "the garners have been laid desolate, and the barns are broken down." Let us, then, "humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God," and, instead of complaining, offer the prayer, "When thy judgments are abroad in the earth, may its inhabitants learn righteousness."

| districts and wide-ranging counties; involving in the deepest poverty, and in almost unendurable misery, not merely thousands, but millions of our fellowcreatures-our brethren and sisters;— mowing them down in multitudes with the scythe of destruction, and diffusing inexpressible alarm and horror through the British empire, and the whole of Europe.

What can surpass the power and thrilling effect of the subjoined heart-rending statements respecting Ireland? They are pictures of misery from life indeed. One of the excellent and Christian visitors residing at Waterford observes, the most extreme cases of distress are those which are silently endured, and then gives this illustration: "I pushed in the door of a room I was passing by, and there I saw a man lying on a little straw on the damp floor. At his feet lay a child. On the other side of the room lay another child, on a little straw apart by itself. By a small fire sat another child, quite naked. On the father, in the bed, lay a fourth child, in a state of mortification; and on the floor sat a woman, seemingly in good health, from whom I learned the tale of misery. The whole family had been in the Fever Hospital. The mother died there. As soon as the others got to the crisis of the disease, they were sent away, to make room for others."

An intelligent and able minister, at Cork, tells us, that it is impossible to describe to English minds the actual condition of the miserable and dying people throughout that district. "Thousands," he remarks, "perish around me. Many thousands are beyond the reach of effectual aid, and must inevitably perish. Thousands more are hastening. An intelligent Roman Catholic clergyman has calculated the deaths to be at the rate of twenty thousand a month!!"

Is not this horrible to contemplate? The Rev. A. King powerfully observes, "The sight, the shocking sight, of cold,

There has been, also, the most appalling destitution and misery prevailing in the sister-country and the Highlands. It has been, we say, appalling—most ap-naked, squalid, filthy, diseased, dying, palling destitution, because it has been so

dead, fellow-creatures, strikes an inde

extensive; reaching and pervading entire scribable horror through the heart of a

living man. All this I have seen and felt, in almost innumerable instances, during the past few days. In about three hundred cabins, within less than thirty miles of the city of Cork, so cold, filthy, untenantable, that an Englishman would not-I would not-keeps wine in them; I found human beings huddled together, diseased, dead, and dying, in such a state as I had never conceived in my imaginings of possible destitution. These miserable dens contained more than seven inmates each, more than one-third of whom were ill of fever and dysentery, and all of whom were starving. In some of these abodes of horror, not twenty feet square, I found as many as seven, and even ten, miserable wrecks of the human form, in the midst of stench, contagion, and death; without fire, without furniture, without food, and with scarcely rags to cover them. Some absolutely naked, some laid down in filthy wisps of straw, called beds, to die; some moaning for food or drink; some unable to use either when supplied; some expiring, at the moment of my visit.

"In a miserable hut, on the side of the bleak mountain road, absolutely without furniture, I found a poor man, lying on the floor in fever; his wife sitting by the hearth, like a corpse, unable to rise and open the cabin-door; a child, about eight years, as miserable-looking as the mother; and, most horrible of all, partly concealed beneath some straw on the floor, the corpses of two young children, one of whom had been nine days, and the other thirteen days dead!! And such was this sad case, that the police officer could not promise to inter the bodies of these children until the following Sunday! Are not these trials? Are not these agonising calamities? But these are some of the present appalling woes of Ireland. O Ireland! unhappy Ireland! when will thy wound be closed?-when will thy heart's blood be stanched?-when will

thy cure be effected? While we write, after all that has been done, and done so nobly, there is nothing but one loud and deep cry of mourning, lamentation, and woe.' The Society of Friends most generously contributed forty thousand pounds to alleviate the sufferings of Ireland; and yet, among its starving millions, that magnificent sum was only like a drop falling into the ocean. British Christians, of all denominations, have, in this good cause, united both hands and hearts; still all appears only to have been a trifle for Ireland-so fearful has been the amount of human misery there. The Government, in the most magnanimous manner, came forward to Ireland's help, and Ireland's rescue; but even their aid is insufficient. May God pity Ireland! May God alleviate the woes of Ireland! May our heavenly Father soon come to her deliverance! Still, Ireland must learn many valuable lessons, from past and present calamities. The ignorance and superstition of multitudes of the lower class there must be checked. Improvident marriages must be guarded against. Periodical, instead of continuous labour, must be discountenanced. The soil must be well cultured; and wheat, instead of potatoes, must be depended on. An efficient poor-law must be introduced. There must be a better and happier understanding between landlord and tenant, and the curse of absenteeism must be removed. Then we should anticipate a brighter day for ill-fated Ireland: and, especially, when we found that the simple, benevolent, expansive, and ennobling institutions of Protestantism were generally received and observed, instead of the superstitious, meretricious, unscriptural, and pernicious rites of popery being regarded.

Come, happy day, we long to see
Your hour of light and liberty.""

T. W.

GREAT EVENTS FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS.
of small things," ZECHARIAH.

"Who hath despised the day THE "Biographical Sketch" of the late Thomas Clarkson contains the following interesting announcement :-' Early in 1785, his attention was called to the subject of negro-slavery. The occasion that gave rise to it was incidental. Dr. Peckhard, then vice-chancellor of the university, had investigated the subject of negro slavery; and under the conviction that the slave-trade was a most iniquitous traffic, he had announced, as a subject for a prize Latin dissertation, to the senior Bachelors of Arts, "Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare?" Is it right to make slaves of others against their will? The chancellor might probably have hoped, that thus to bring the subject before the public would be followed by some good result; but he could hardly have imagined that it would issue in the organization of a plan for the total abolition of slavery itself. Events the most trifling, and sometimes the most inauspicious, are occasionally pregnant with the mightiest results. On the apparently incidental, the Divinely-controlled turn of a thought, Providence sometimes sugpends the destiny of millions."

Clarkson having, in the preceding year, gained the first prize for the Latin dissertation, entered, with all the ardour of rival scholarship, on the subject; determined, if possible, to sustain his reputation. To obtain all the information he could upon slavery, he repaired to London, and having purchased Benezot's Historical Account of Guinea, with other books on the question, he returned to Cambridge, and commenced his task, in which he felt increasingly interested. "It is impossible," he says, in his History of Slavery, "to imagine the severe anguish which the composition of this essay cost me. All the pleasure I had promised myself from the contest was exchanged for pain, by the astounding facts" (of oppression the most villanous and cruel) "that were now continually before me. My great desire now was to produce a

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work that should call forth a vigorous public effort, to redress the wrongs of injured Africa." He completed his essay, and was again honoured with the first prize. After patient, vigorous, and persevering exertions, in which he experienced opposition of the most formidable character; after attaching to the cause many of the worthies of the land, amongst the friends of freedom and religion; after encountering difficulties which he had never anticipated, he had the triumph of beholding the successful issue of his labours in the passing of the bill for the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, on 1st Aug., 1834. To Clarkson, to Wilberforce, and others, the thanks of the negro are due, but the praise must be ascribed to God. The following are Clarkson's own reflections: "That I was the first to take up the abolition of colonial slavery, or the individual who originated it, is indeed true; but I take no merit to myself on that account, being assured that those feelings which pointed out to me the path I was to pursue must have sprung from a holy source; and that I was able to labour for forty-eight years in this noble cause is equally true; but every one must be sensible that no individual could, by himself, have completed so vast a work. What could I have done without Mr. Wilberforce, as a parliamentary leader? and what could both of us have done without the aid of the ever-to-be-honoured committee? And what could these have done without the co-operation of the British nation? And what would these have done, had they not been lovers of liberty and Christians? The victory is, in fact, if we wish to know who gained it-the triumph of Christianity over barbarism."

The sacred Scriptures are full of the sentiment, that great events proceed from small beginnings. Look at the introduction of sin, that dire evil, produced by eating the forbidden fruit, an act, in itself, apparently trifling, but in its consequences dreadful and ruinous. Look at the exalta

tion of Joseph, and the consequent pre- | sation-have, in more than one instance,

servation of Jacob's family. Its remote cause was a dream; and it is remarkable that, as a dream was the occasion of his abasement, a dream was the precursor of his elevation, Gen. xxxvii. 5; xli. 9. Look at Jericho; its walls levelled, and the city taken; not by battering rams and warlike artillery, but by rams' horns and the sound of trumpets, Joshua vi. 20. Look at Goliath the Philistine, overcome by the stripling David, by a sling and a stone, 1 Sam. xvii. 50. How strikingly do these facts illustrate the declaration, "Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord," Zech. iv. 6, 7.

The progress of the gospel affords another confirmation. To effect this, Jehovah did not select princes, nor potentates, nor philosophers, but poor illiterate fishermen, "Without literature, without arms, without power, without intrigue, without human help, without philosophy, without eloquence. Contemptible, persecuted people, in a word, earthen vessels," says Mons. Claude, "triumphed over the whole world with the sound of their voice. Idols fell, temples were demolished, oracles struck dumb, the reign of Satan abolished, the strongest inclinations of nature diverted from their course, ancient habits changed, old superstitions annihilated, all the devil's charms wherewith he had stupified mankind dissolved; multitudes flocked to adore Jesus Christ-the great and the small, the learned and the ignorant, kings and subjects, whole provinces presented themselves at the foot of the cross, and every thought was captivated to the obedience of Christ. It is not enough to say, 'This is the finger of God;' we must rather exclaim, This is the outstretched arm of the Lord!'"

And it is still manifest in the conver sion of sinners, which is frequently effected by the most humble means. The plain announcement of salvation by Christ, by an untaught villager; the distribution of a religious tract; a Bible placed in the chest of a sailor; amere word dropped in conver

been the means of a sinner's salvation, that the excelleney of the power may be of God, and not of man.

We may refer to nature, and point to the humble acorn, the parent of the spreading oak; and to the small spring, which creates the majestic river; the spark which generates the flame; the grain which originates the mustard-tree, whose branches afford a lodging for the fowls of the air; and the scholar, whose knowledge of the alphabet conducts to high attainment in language and science. Who would conjecture that the authors of the Synopsis Criticorum and the Com. mentaries on the Scriptures were once infants, who could scarcely articulate the letters of the alphabet? Such were Pool and Henry, cum multis aliis.

And so in the progress of Divine grace in the hearts of the converted, an impression at first, perhaps, faint and weak, grows to a firm and settled conviction of the necessity and blessedness of religion. Prejudices are relinquished, sins are forsaken, the cause of religion is espoused, holiness of heart and life are cultivated, old things are passed away, all things are become new.

Many of the benevolent societies owe their origin to circumstances apparently insignificant. A paper in the Evangelical Magazine for September, 1794, on the subject of missions, excited the attention of many serious Christians, and led to the formation of the London Missionary Society, September 21, 1795. The writer of this, at the distance of nearly fifty-two years, recalls to his memory, with feelings of delight, the holy enthusiasm which pervaded the minds of those who listened to the sermons preached on the occasion by the Revs. Dr. Hawies, G. Burder, S. Greathead, J. Hey, R. Hill, and Dr. Bogue. These first advocates have been gathered to their fathers, but their successors (and their number is great) still "Walk by the same rule, and mind the same thing."

The same remark applies to the Religious Tract, and British and Foreign

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