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to discourage, and not a little to afflict, the sincere lover of freedom and of the human race; but in continental lands, there is everywhere, every thing to awaken his pity, to exasperate his spirit, and to arouse his utmost indignation. Amid all this, however, there is also something to comfort and to cheer him. He remembers the contest of many ages to rescue civil liberty from the iron grasp of executive power, and he traces its growth from century to century, amidst sacrifice and suffering, proscription, and martyrdom ! He looks around, and beholds on every side the happy fruits of the mighty conflict; he sees the steady progress of the great principle, and its advocates increasing every hour He witnesses the press putting forth its power, and, beyond all precedent, almost beyond credibility, multiplying the means of mental illumination. With faith in the maxim that "knowledge is power," he exults in its spread through England and other countries. He sees it contracting the expanse of the great Atlantic into half its dimensions, and bringing America and Europe within a few days' sail of each other. He sees with calm joy that the whole world is becoming a field for the operation of intellect. Genius, wisdom, experience, religion, humanity, liberty, begin to speak in many tongues and in many lands, and mankind begin to listen to their voice. Mind communes with mind in both hemispheres, and at either pole. Every wind of heaven is wafting truth over the

dwelling-place of man; it rolls on every billow;

it

has living temples on every shore; it is gaining trophies in every clime. The Christian patriot and philanthropist knows that he shall die before the hour of final victory and universal deliverance; but he knows, too, he will lay down his head in the certain hope, that whatever land may yield him a grave, that land will, in the end, become the inheritance of freemen, the abode of peace, truth, and righteousness!

But, Sir, my chief anxiety is about distant climes. I shall speak no more of Europe. I now speak of lands under a darkness still thicker, and galled by chains still heavier than those which bind the millions of Europe. Sir, I speak of Africa! What is to be done for her? Philosophy, philanthropy, diplomacy, have given her up. Her sorrows multiply. At this day, when our fathers expected that her slavery would have been abolished, the infernal traffic is more than doubled! While I address you, ships are being built, fetters are being forged, and arrangements are being made, to extend the traffic! In Africa itself, while I write, villages are burning, blood is flowing, and prisoners are being dragged and driven across the desert to be sold to the white fiends, the merchants of murder, who, like vultures, hover on the shore, hungering for their prey ! How is the monster demon to be destroyed? By the missionary! How is the work of mutual slaughter and merchandise in man to be put an end to? By the missionary! By whom is Africa to be covered with the blessings of civilization? By the missionary! By whom are the sable millions of that great continent to be lifted up to the fellowship of the free states of Europe? By the missionary ! Let the gospel of Christ have free course, and be glorified through all its borders, and then old things will pass away, all things become new. In that hour her degraded sons will rise from the earth, feel that they are men and not beasts, and worship their great Creator! Behold the change! Agriculture clothes her wide-spreading wastes with a measureless abundance of rich and varied produce. Commerce creates towns, cities, manufactories, and harbours,— -navigates her rivers—circumnavigates her shores, and pushes her fortunes on every sea. Peace waves her banner over land and over ocean; plenty pours out her horn of wine and oil; the pirate, the man-stealer, the murderer, disappear; the slave ship, the ark of sorrow

and death, with all its horrors, is seen no more!

Edu

cation rears her schools; Science, her halls; Religion, her temples;

"And sovereign LAW-the world's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits Empress-crowning good-repressing ill;
Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend Discretion, like a vapour sinks,

And e'en the all-dazzling crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks."

These, Sir, as you well know, are blessings that invariably follow in the train of the gospel missionary. They will not, they cannot precede him; they never did, they never will lag far behind. How high his honour! How glorious his character! How godlike

his enterprise !

Then, Sir, there are the isles of the Southern Pacific, with all their idols; there is Asia, too, with all its blinded hundreds of millions: and there are other portions of our globe equally wicked-equally wretched; all are benighted, all are sitting in the region of the shadow of death, except the handful who have heard the missionary, and received his word. How are these enormous masses of mankind to be reached, and raised, and renovated? How are they

to be made the servants of God, and subjects of the kingdom of Christ? You answer, By the labours of the missionary! Yes, Sir, and by none other. The missionaries of the cross are the sole instruments ordained of God to work deliverance in the earth. Oh! happy men, whom the Redeemer of the world deigns to employ in this sublime vocation. Oh! happy parents, who have sons and daughters embarked in this harvest of mercy, worthy to be reaped by angelic hands. Oh! happy churches, who are called to separate their members to be instruments in the hand of the eternal Spirit

for recovering the souls of a lost world. Oh! happy England, who, with her children, has been chosen to lead in the business of a world's salvation. Oh! happy

May

they who possess the means, and have the disposition, liberally to employ them for the spread of the gospel, and the establishment of the kingdom of God. you, Sir, long live to behold the work advancing! May your profound and powerful productions, long, and still more largely, contribute to further its progress! May your high endowments, and your studious retirement, be consecrated, with all acceptance, to the work of arousing a slumbering Church to her duty-of rebuking the levity of lettered men—and of counteracting their hurtful representations relative to the boundless utility and the solemn obligation of Christian missions; as well as to that of illustrating the incomparable felicity, and the matchless dignity of being permitted to engage in so glorious an enterprise!

LETTER XII.

THE MILITARY AND MISSIONARY CHARACTERS ILLUSTRATED, COMPARED, AND CONTRASTED.

To the Right Hon. Thomas Babington Macaulay.

SIR, few men of your years have been honoured to render services so varied and so important to humanity, liberty, and letters, as yourself. Your distinguished merits in these respects are gratefully appreciated, not only by the educated men of England, but also by those of all countries, wherever our language is spoken. Although you are qualified to attain the first distinction in Courts of Law, in Politics, and in Jurisprudence, it is clear that the strife of tongues, and the coarse tumults of popular assemblies, are not congenial with your disposition. You prefer the solemn society of the mighty dead to the vulgar bustle of the noisy living. Your delights are those of meditation.

Your chosen retreat is the library; literature is your most cherished pursuit. So far, therefore, as you are personally concerned, you doubtless rejoice in your late liberation from the toils of government, since you can now indulge more freely in your philosophical and literary predilections. It is, however, to be hoped that you will carry with you a deep conviction of the great responsibility which attaches to the possession of powers, reputation, and influence like yours. You belong to the class of men who are "born for the universe," and whose high prerogative it

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