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LETTER VIII.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD BROUGHAM.

ON THE RESULTS OF MISSIONS IN REGARD TO SLAVERY AND EDUCATION.

It is impossible, my Lord, to write on the subjects of War and Missions, with their respective attendants, Slavery and Education, without being reminded of your lordship's humane and patriotic exertions. African slavery cannot survive the extinction of war; education cannot be diffused through all nations, apart from Christianity. The question, therefore, of this world's complete civilization, and all that it implies, is chiefly a question of missions. This is the consideration which I am deeply anxious to press upon the attention of your lordship, because it is one of the very few subjects with which your lordship seems but slightly acquainted. In this assumption I have reason to think I do not wrong you, for I speak after careful inquiry. To me, in common with tens of thousands, your lordship's life and public character supply a subject of extraordinary interest: I have been at pains, accordingly, to investigate the history of your opinions, and to trace your bright career

during the last thirty years. I have endeavoured to form a correct estimate of your views respecting all those great questions which have agitated the minds of men during the eventful period of your public life; and I now proceed to state the result.

The analysis of the intellectual powers with which you are so amply endowed, has been frequently attempted the peculiar style of your eloquence, too, has been a favourite theme of criticism; while men of various judgments have passed sentence on your public character and conduct. Of these lucubrations, some, as far as they have gone, have been just and good; others erroneous and malicious; and all meagre and defective. The delineation of a single region, however accurate, is not to be substituted for that of a great continent. The mental, moral, and political portraiture of such men as your lordship, is not so easily taken as certain artists appear to imagine. These, moreover, are small matters, my Lord: you have been raised up for a great work among mankind; and justly to estimate the workman and the work, it is necessary to take your whole life, and to examine the lengthened series of great actions by which it has been illustrated. It is further necessary to compare your actions and character with those of your contemporaries and of your predecessors, of all countries and of all times; and, finally, in order to a just judgment, you must be tested by the word of eternal truth. To perform this undertaking aright, my Lord, will be the business of Christian and philosophic biography. I can barely hint at these points; and, in so doing, I hope there is little fear that I shall offend your delicacy; for, adopting the language of Elihu, "Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person,

neither let me give flattering titles unto man; for I know not to give flattering titles; in so doing my Maker would soon take me away." But I cannot discharge my conscience, without stating facts and opinions tending to your lordship's credit, because a grateful reference to what you have done, is essential as a foundation for the expression of regrets that you have not done more. I shall, however, have occasion to show that, how exalted soever may be your place among men, a far higher elevation invites you still to ascend.

I hope your lordship will give me your candid attention, for my sole motive in addessing this letter to you, is, your own honour, and the good of the whole family of man. The period of life, and the stage of experience which you have reached, are favourable. The lengthening shadows proclaim that your lordship's sun is descending. It is now more than three-score years since you entered this mortal sphere: not only, therefore, has the delusive romance of youth passed away, but the bewildering fires of ambition, which burn most fiercely in middle life, have surely subsided. You now understand, somewhat correctly, the true condition of man. You have drunk to its dregs the cup of earthly greatness, and this world has nothing more to offer you. As a politician and a moralist, as a man of letters and of science, as a lawyer and an orator, you have been acknowledged, by the suffrages of millions, to be the first man of your age. You have sat in each house of legislation, without an equal in either, the chief ornament and attraction of both. Your fame has filled the civilized world. Is this then enough, my Lord? Is the heart at ease and satisfied? I venture to presume it answers, No!

Well, but there is still more in reserve.

Your lordship's speeches and writings will go down to the latest ages, and live as long as the language whose rich resources they exemplify and exhaust. History, too, uninfluenced by party and envy, will do your lordship justice. Posterity will, indeed, assign you a far higher place on "Fame's dread mountain," than even that which has been accorded by the bulk of your contemporaries. In speaking thus, I make no reference to your rank, my Lord; no man ever owed less to rank than your lordship; you descended when you entered the Upper House. You elevated the peerage, not the peerage you. The historian will chiefly delight in the patriotic commoner. Even now the lord is lost in the man. Your simple name, in after times, will blaze in glory as the sun, while your coronet will be a tiny speck on its disc, scarcely visible. No living statesman has so much to hope, and so little to fear, from future generations, as your lordship. The great points of your political creed will, assuredly, be at length embraced by all nations. The progress of reason, the voice of prophecy, the interests of earth, all unite to support your views of war, peace, slavery, education, and the surpassing glories of moral greatness. Every age will bring the mind of England more and more into unison with yours. Like prophecy, your lordship's character will gain with the advance of time. And when the period arrives at which "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him;" when this period arrives, my Lord, the evils which you have denounced and opposed, with so much consistency, energy,

and eloquence, will cease to be; and the good which you have so long and so strenuously laboured to promote, will be more than realized throughout the whole earth; for, be assured, my Lord, your utmost demands and desires are, according to the volume of inspiration, a poor instalment of the felicity which awaits our now distracted and afflicted world.

My Lord, it will be allowed, by multitudes of the best and wisest of mankind, that I have not overdrawn the picture of your lordship's prospects of future renown. Personal and political adversaries are incompetent judges of such a matter; and so, indeed, are personal and political friends. But a great reverse awaits your lordship's position. Men who are now all but unknown, will, in the better days of our world, be inconceivably more illustrious than your lordship. You will then be considered as only a humble personage in comparison with such a man as the missionary martyr, Williams. One chapter of the "Missionary Enterprises," will then bear a higher value than all the writings of your lordship, and of all the orators, statesmen, historians, and philosophers, in our language. Every thing is permanently great, only as it belongs to Christ and his kingdom. Your speeches in behalf of John Smith, will, accordingly, possess an interest with the ages to come, infinitely greater than any other-the most celebrated not excepted--that you ever uttered. Those speeches are identified with the cause of Christ, and they will partake of its immortality. Next to those will be your speeches and letters on education; then those against slavery; and, finally, such as were made in defence of civil and religious liberty. All the others, splendid as they are, will be deemed of inferior worth.

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