the desert echo the accents of Englishmen. Let the virgin soil of fertile regions, which have lain waste since the deluge, be broken up, that they may pour their treasures into the lap of man. Let those regions be replenished with British subjects, alive to wants numerous and various, which only Britain can supply, and British canvass will still continue, with increase, to whiten every sea, and the manufactories of England be kept in busy play, teeming with well paid, intelligent, virtuous, and happy men. It sickens the very soul to see how lightly human life is estimated in England. A man is often little more accounted of than a dog! The feelings of nature, too, are shocked, and the laws of propriety are violated, in relation to the increase of mankind. Children are actually considered a "cumbrance," a great family, a great misfortune. This language is heard only in England. In America the feelings which prompt it have no place. Where such sentiments exist, and children are a hardship, there is something wrong. They ought to be viewed as Scripture represents them, in the light of a blessing. The feeling here condemned is that in which infanticide originates!

Philanthropy weeps at the aspect of English society. She is wearied by the sight of squalid misery, of workhouses, of prisons, of penitentiaries, and other instruments for the prevention or the punishment of crime. To separate will be to purify society. Let the order of nature be restored as fast and as far as practicable. This would render the police of nations a very simple affair, and cheap because simple. It is time to look at this matter in the light of economy. The annual cost to the British isles, of police and crime, is, as near as can be

ascertained, about a million and a half sterling! Whence this dreadful state of society? Is it not, to a large extent, from ignorance, from poverty, and from destitution? Would not the money, thus wasted, if well laid out, go far towards rectifying the fearful disorders of the body politic?

The cause of true civilization,-in other words, the cause of missions, requires more great centres from which it might be successfully diffused throughout surrounding regions and adjacent lands. Feeble tapers,

such as the Christian communities of most of our colonial establishments now are, can emit but little light. On this ground, it is of the first importance that a system of colonization should be carried out with the utmost activity by the friends of religion and humanity. To use a figure familiar to your Grace, the army is much too far from their magazines: the missionary stations are at too great a distance from the British churches to command a sufficient measure of sympathy or of succour. From England to those lands the voyages are so long, and so expensive, as to throw great impediments in the way of the missionaries. Men with families cannot be sent forth; and families, in the event of parental sickness or death, can only return at a heavy, and, therefore, a hurtful cost to the societies. Were the whole body of the supporters of the African missions resident in Africa instead of England, how it would alter the character, and augment the force of these missions! The same remark equally applies to India and other heathen countries.

England could at present spare four or five millions of her people, without in the least degree impeding the operations of either her agriculture or her commerce;

and, consequently, the withdrawment of such a body would serve powerfully to invigorate the whole system of society, while their location on other shores would lay the foundation of new and civilized kingdoms, open for England fresh and valuable markets, and give a rightful importance, as well as impart a substantial felicity, to multitudes of immortal beings who now feel existence to be a burden, and are tempted to curse the day that they were born! On these, and other grounds, my Lord Duke, I consider Christian Protestant missions as the great and paramount work of the present age,-missions first to our colonies, and then into all the world. The establishment of the former in great power, because among great numbers, will most materially facilitate the latter. By multiplying great centres of evangelical operation, at wide distances over the earth, we shall proportionately augment power of action.

My Lord Duke, if such be the missionary enterprise, it surely follows that the missionary character is incomparably the leading character of our times. We have, indeed, at present, no other that can either command attention, or that possesses much importance. The military character, although immemorially and fatally famous, is now, I trust, nearly out of date. The people of England have now paid so much for plumes and epaulets, drums and trumpets, swords and pick-axes, muskets and cannon, and other instruments of human destruction, that, it is probable, they will feel but little disposed to make any farther purchases in that way for seven centuries to come. At the Revolution, in 1688, the National Debt was little more than half a million sterling; and the interest not forty thousand pounds. Then began our madness and our misery. The war of

William, that followed the Revolution, cost thirty-one millions! The war of the Spanish succession cost forty-four millions! The Spanish war and Austrian succession cost forty-seven millions! The seven years' war about Novia Scotia cost one hundred and seven millions! The war with our American colonies cost one hundred and fifty-one millions! The war of the French Revolution cost four hundred and seventy-two millions! The war against Buonaparte cost five hundred and eighty-six millions! To these must be added the still more terrible fact, that such wars cost England, in one way or another, from four to five millions of men. Surely, my Lord Duke, we have here gold and blood enough for at least a thousand generations! Oh! what infatuation! What madness! What culpable waste! What suicidal wickedness! This enormous misgovernment has entailed a curse upon the British empire which will cleave to her through all generations. "In a country like England, there could be no debt, and no burden of taxes, if there was no war.' War, then, horrid war, brought upon us all our burdens and all our woe! Enough of war and warriors! Let peace and love henceforth prevail till the heavens be no more!

The literary character, too, has been exhibited so long, in ways so various, and with a splendour so dazzling, and the results of its toil have so amply supplied the intellectual wants of man, that, with the millions, its necessity, its glory, and its fascination, are nearly gone by. The same remark also applies to the philosophical character. The harvest has obviously been reaped, and little now remains but the gleaning. The romance

* Edinburgh Review, vol. xiv. p. 285.

of voyaging and of travel has also passed away. In this department of scientific and philanthropic inquiry, there is little more to be done, except in Africa. The reign of fancy is now generally giving place to that of reason. Knowledge has narrowed and lowered the province of imagination, and the splendid is now less looked for than the useful. Not only are earth and ocean explored, but the boundaries of empire are generally fixed. Dreams of conquest, and of universal empire, are fled for ever. The world pants to be happy. Amelioration at home is now the watchword of nations; and civilization abroad is the great problem of philanthropy. In a word, the world is now prepared for the missionary enterprise. It is now generally confessed, among all enlightened men, that civilization is missions; missions. are civilization. By missions only can "the wilderness and the solitary place be made glad," and the desert be brought to "rejoice and blossom as the rose." The missionary is, therefore, by far the first of human kind. He is the great type and character of the age. Even men of the world begin to understand his object, and concede his claims. Concession bespeaks candour; candour will lead to more inquiry; more inquiry to full conviction; and full conviction will be followed by intense admiration and munificent support. Poets will celebrate his exploits, orators eulogize his virtue, princes will caress him, and crowned heads will show him the highest favour. The smiles of royalty will not always rest upon worthless objects.

A few more centuries, my Lord Duke, of the labours of Gospel missions, and what will be the aspect of our globe? What will then meet the eye that surveys it? An awakened world! An enlightened, a purified, a

Y