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By the side of this we may venture to place a few lines from a letter of the "famous" Samuel Baker, probably written four five years afterward:

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"I am glad to see your son so well furnished with evangelical knowledge. I only wish he delivered truths in your style, in that plainness of expression which the gospel teach and most conduce to edification. You have also the spiritual skill of speaking words in season." -p. 514.

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The same distinguished man may be quoted as authority for the statement that then, as now, there was a scarcity of young men fit for the ministry.

"I was much pleased," he writes to Increase Mather at the beginning of 1683, "to see the names of those who had commenced in your college, with some of which I have been acquainted. I wish for its future flourishing you had seen your way plain to acceptance of the presidentship. The scarcity of good men in the ministry is much to be bewailed. The education of persons qualified that way, where opportunity serve, is much to be desired and promoted. Here I cannot but subjoin a caution how you in New England entertain strangers, and employ them in preaching work; for I have heard some debauched young men of parts and good education, when become prodigals, have gone thither pretending sobriety, [and] engaged in that work for a subsistence, which a sufficient testimonial might prevent.” — p. 510.

One of the letters from Dudley to Increase Mather is so creditable to the writer, that we gladly quote it entire; and we do so with the greater readiness because Dudley's name rests under so great a weight of deserved opprobrium. The Cotton referred to was either the son or nephew of the Plymouth minister.

"A little discourse from yourself," he writes, " and more from others, hath informed me of unkindness and distance grown between yourself and Mr. John Cotton, your kinsman and mine, for which I am deeply sorry, knowing that your resentment and representation thereof will tend to his utter ruin; and for that he is a person of good descent and hopes, and I think of present good improvement, and if God please hereafter may be of much more, I am concerned to intreat your favor for him. I am ignorant of particulars, and would be so, but pray you

on his behalf to consider that what he is and hath of value in him,, -which I hope is not a little, is, under God, of your own making; and it is an argument to be used to good men, as unto God, destroy not the work of your hands. Remember that he is young; and, if he should strive to fly before he is fledged, you may laugh at him, but not suffer him to break his neck. I have written to him to advise a retrenchment of any aversation grown from yourself, and shall further say when opportunity presents. In the mean time, I humbly pray your favor for him and the work in his hands, and which you will not deny for myself, who am, sir, your humble servant."—p. 482.

It is to be hoped that this manly appeal was successful, for at that time Dudley and Mather were on excellent terms; but every student of our history knows how bitter was the subsequent quarrel between Dudley and the Mathers, and with what sort of confectionery they treated each other.

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We have space remaining for only one more extract. It is from a letter of John Westgate to Increase Mather, written from England in the summer of 1677, which we cite not only as showing the opinion entertained by some of the best friends of the Colony in the mother country, but also as indicating the views of a considerable number of persons here.

"Your town," he writes, "is the seat of justice, from whence laws to other towns proceed. What need have you, therefore, to take heed to make none but wholesome laws, agreeing with the word of truth, such as you may be sure you can answer before God another day?... Dear sir, I pray be not offended at my plainness. Your fathers, with much hazard, difficulty, and danger, went to that wilderness (even when it was a mere wilderness) to set up the pure worship of God, and to enjoy the liberty of their consciences: you had need, therefore, to be certain in the knowledge of this one thing, viz., how far liberty of conscience extend, and to what persons, before you go about to execute laws for the suppressing of them. I dare not be an advocate to plead for the cursed generation of Quakers, who have much disturbed the peace of your commonwealth. If they be of the same principle with them amongst us, they neither own the Scriptures of truth, nor Christ's dying for sinners, but set up a Christ within them. To say no more of them, I look upon their religion here amongst us to be no religion at all, but a heap of confusion: yet, let me tell you, New England suffers much in this country for imprisoning many of them, and feeding them

with bread and water, and not suffering their relations to minister to them; and putting others of them to death. Though I am apt to conclude their offence was more heinous than they make it in their books wherein they reproach you, and that they did not only disturb the churches, but made a breach in the peace of the commonwealth, yet I could heartily wish you had printed a narrative of your proceedings with them, together with the grounds thereof; and also in a due testimony to be borne against them (as your book hints the magistrates would have done), which I conceive is intended by making a law, due care would be taken to have such bounds and limitations, that such as have estates among you, and live peaceably (if any such there be), may not suffer so deeply as the perverse, obstinate ones."- pp. 578, 579.

This is very well put, and much to the point; but Westgate did not know, what those who dwelt on the spot knew, and what we now know, that the principles and the practices of the early Quakers were utterly inconsistent with civil governmeift. Those of them who were not insane or idiotic-and it is impossible to say how many this exception would includewere fit subjects for exemplary punishment. But this whole question of the treatment of the Quakers and the Baptists by our ancestors has recently been discussed so fully and so admirably by Dr. Palfrey in his History, that we need not re-open it here. It is enough to say, that, however mistaken our fathers may have been in respect to the wisdom of their policy, no one was punished for speculative errors, and that Quakers and Baptists might both have remained here undisturbed, if they had kept the peace and obeyed the laws. They were sent away or punished for gross and persistent violations of order, morality, and decency, and for scurrilous abuse of the lawful authorities. It was a matter of little importance, except as a breach of good manners, for men to misuse the English language and to put on their hats when others were uncovered; but it was a matter of importance to prevent young women from walking naked into the religious assemblies, and to prevent the interruption of public worship by unseemly cries and absurd antics.

We are aware that these hurried observations, and these scanty extracts, can give but a very inadequate idea of the

great interest of the volume from which we have thus gleaned a little; but our purpose will be fully answered in introducing to the notice of our readers one of the most important of the recent contributions to our historical literature. It will be found a perfect treasury of curious and interesting details in the departments of colonial history and biography.

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Six Months in India. By MARY CARPENTER. London: Longmans. FOUR-AND-THIRTY years ago, the first great reformer of his countrymen in India visited England, and was warmly welcomed by all denominations of Christians. His visit made an indelible impression on many minds, especially at Bristol, where his remains now rest, and really prompted the remarkable visit of an English lady, of the largest experience in philanthropy, to the suffering women of India. During all these years, Miss Mary Carpenter has been gathering ability for this crowning effort of her life. Six years before her brave expedition, another converted Brahmin had visited Bristol; had rekindled her interest in female Hindooism; had compelled her to believe that so long a voyage at so advanced a period of her life would, at any rate, show the earnest sympathy of British women with their suffering sisters in Asia. Nor were there wanting the encouragements of Hindoo gentlemen, and the conviction that her specialty of the reformation of female criminal children would not suffer in her absence, to bid her seek that land where so few of her countrymen go with any ,other motive than the acquisition of wealth.

Her experimental mission proved a perfect success. Every class welcomed her warmly, from the Governor-General down to the most timid prisoner of the zenana. Private letters, as well as public meetings, show that her visit providentially accorded with a ferment of inquiry on this very subject in India. Every facility was thrown in her way. All institu

tions, criminal and educational, invited her visit. All persons in authority solicited her advice. The same searching criticism, which was resented in Miss Dix's examination of American prisons, seems to have been thankfully received in Miss Carpenter's criticism of Indian jails. Through all the Presidency towns, and many others, doors that were shut against male visitors flew open at her approach; and no abuse seems to have escaped her notice, nor any perversion of the purpose of imprisonment to have passed without her condemnation. In all the inferior criminal institutions, she had to deplore two abuses, which are not confined by any means to India, that boys were herded in with hardened old reprobates; and that at night large numbers slept in the same apartment: the result being, as any person familiar with prisons must know, the rapid corruption of young offenders, and the general demoralization of the whole mass of criminals. Miss Carpenter, from her long acquaintance with juvenile reformatories, demanded, first, the removal of the boys from such poisonous association with hopeless villains; second, the entire isolation of every prisoner at night; and, third, the introduction of work and teaching. The subject is far greater than persons at a distance can believe. There are six hundred thousand prisoners in different parts of the empire, confined in buildings unsuitable originally, insecure, unhealthy, unfitted for reformation, provided with no teachers, and necessarily deprived of religious influences. At Ahmedabad, Dr. Wylie stated that the good influence of employment through the day was counteracted entirely by the twelve hours of confinement in masses during the night; so that no youth could enter that large prison without having his fate sealed for life! At Surat, frequently eight convicts occupied the same cell at night; and the wretched women were declared to be so vile, that they could not become any worse. At Poona, forty females were shut up together, without any attempt at their improvement, all sense of shame having been thrown aside. At Alipore jail, one thousand prisoners supported the institution, chiefly by printing; but there was no separation for sleep. In the Calcutta female prison, the crowd was such at one time, that a sixth part died. In the

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