tion as the best in which a Providence of infinite wisdom and goodness sees fit to place me: but, if I envied any, I should envy you; because you seem to breathe in a free air, and to be connected with such whose christianity can be al lied to candor. What a pity such an alliance is not universal! But I mistake―true christianity, genuine, unadulterated christianity, is all candor. Oh! I hear her sweet voice whispering from above, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Ah, how different the spirit of profess ing christians to the genius of the religion by which they are distinguished! Worse than the tyrant of Babylon; he sat up an image to be worshipped, but we have exalted ourselves, and have said in fact, Whoso, when he heareth our voice, falleth not down and worshippeth as we worship, believes as we believe, and gives our understandings credit for an acquaintance with the truth, however dissonant his opinion may be to our

own, he shall be cast into a furnace of fire. The God of love himself assumes the tone of severity at such tyranny as this; and exclaims, with a keenness which must pierce to the heart, "Who art thou that judgest another's ser vant? To his own master he standeth or falleth." Brother, I am sick of almost every thing that has been called religion but Love

supreme love to God-universal benevolence to man. I don't know that I am a better christian than ever, but I can assure you that I am a firmer believer than ever, and I am enraptured at the thought that all the objects which christianity requires me to believe, are to be contemplated with delight. It is all love: love is the Alpha, love the Omega. It originated in love: it is exemplified in love: it works by love: it terminates in perfect, universal, love. Thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift, this religion of love!

י

placed, beheading, crucifying, star vation, ripping open of the belly, sawing, piercing through, starving to death, flogging upon the breast to death, exposing to the rays of the sun to death, blowing up with gunpowder or other combustible materials, pouring hot lead down the throat, scalding to death by plunging into hot oil, shooting with a gun or arrows, spearing to death, squeezing to death by pressing a nut of the betle on each temple between two bamboos, until the eyes and brains start out of the head, drowning, beating on the head to death with a large cudgel, giving to wild beasts, and roasting upon a slow or quick fire.

deatree

Severe punishments are such as cutting off the hands, feet, ears, nose, tongue, &c. extracting of the eyes, flogging upon the breast, tying of the arms with a thin cord until it cuts down to the bone, hanging up by the heels, hanging up by the tips of the fingers, exposing to the rays of the sun, banishment into forests, from which it is almost impossible to escape.

hands and feet to a cross, some or most of his members are amputated one by one, before he receives his mortal wound; sometimes the puhishment, though small in its kind, is continued as long as life remains; and frequently so many various punishments of a trivial nature are inflicted, that death is the inevitable consequence; united together, \ they form capital punishments severe in the extreme, and horrid to reflect upon, and yet these are the most common.

Among trivial punishments may be reckoned flogging, marking the criminal's crime in legible characters upon his face or breast, and condemning him to perform the of fice of a public executioner for life; squeezing of the legs or arms between two bamboos; confinement in the stocks with the legs extended as far as possible. Such punish ments as hanging, shooting, exposing in the pillory, burning of the hands, condemning to a long confinement, and hard labour, are seldom practised; banishment is not often heard of.

an It often happens, however, that several of the above punishments are inflicted upon the same criminal previous to his being finally exes cuted. Instances often occur when a person, after being nailed by the

Frequently the innocent suffer with the guilty; as, a wife for the fault of her husband: children for the fault of their parents; a whole family is extirpated for the fault of a single individual; and servants are cut off for the fault of their masters; these kind of punishments however seldom occur, except from sudden anger or revenge, unless in case of deserters and persons guilty of treason.

When a person of royal extraction is to receive a capital punishment, it is generally done by drowning; in the first place the person is tied hands and feet, then sewed up in a red bag, with again is sometimes put into a jar, and thus the prisoner is lowered down into the water, with a weight sufficient to sink him. This practice is resorted to because it is reckoned a sin to spill royal blood.

Women, comparatively speaking, are seldom the subjects of capital punishment: when a circumstance of this kind occurs, it is generally for some very flagrant crime. Women when executed, are most frequently knocked on the head with a large cudgel; until the brains" burst forth; but sometimes they are ripped open, or blown up, or given to a tiger or other wild beast.

397

The bodies of criminals are always exposed to public view for three days, after which they are

shoved into a hole dug for the purpose, and covered with earth, without being permitted the honour of being burnt.

Criminal causes are frequently tried by ordeal before judgment is past.

I will now just relate what has taken place in this single town of Rangoon since my residence in this country; which does not exceed four years. Some of the criminals I saw executed with my own eyes, and the rest I saw immediately after execution,

In the first place. One man had melted lead poured down his throat, which immediately burst out from the neck, and various parts of the body.

Four or five persons, after being nailed through their hands and feet to a scaffold, had first their tongues cut out, then their mouths slit open from ear to ear, then their ears cut off, and finally their bellies ripped open.

Six people were crucified in the following manner: their hands and feet nailed to a scaffold; then their eyes were extracted with a blunt hook; and in this condition they were left to expire; two died in the course of four days; the rest were liberated, but died of mortifi cation on the sixth or seventh day. Four persons were crucified, viz. not nailed but tied with their hands and feet stretched out at full length, in an erect posture. In this posture they were to remain till death'; every thing they wished to eat was ordered them with a view to prolong their lives and misery. In cases like this, the legs and feet of the criminals begin to swell and mortify at the expiration of three or four days; some are said to live in this state for a fortnight, and expire at last from fatigue and mortification. Those which I saw,

were liberated at the end of three or four days.

Another man had a large bamboe run through his belly, which put an immediate end to his existence.

Two people had their bellies ripped up just sufficient to admit of the protrusion of a small part of the intestines; and after being secured by the hands and feet at full stretch, with cords in an erect posture upon bamboo rafters, were set adrift in the river to float up and down with the tide for public view.

The number of those who have been beheaded I do not exactly recollect; but they must be somewhere between twenty and thirty.

One man was sawn to death, by applying the saw to the shoulder bone, and sawing right down until the bowels gushed out.

One woman was beat to death with a large cudgel.

Two persons were simply crucified, but liberated soon after.

Five persons, consisting of a man, his wife, (who was six months gone in pregnancy,) his child about five years of age, and two other men, were led out to the place of execution; the men were sentenced to be crucified, and opened, and the woman and child were to be stretched out upon the ground and opened; every thing was prepared, and the executioner was standing by with his weapon of destruction, ready to perform his bloody office, nay, boasting that he was able to perform it neatly; however, a reprieve came, and the execution was prevented; these people are still alive.

Several amputations of hands and feet have taken place: some died from loss of blood, but the greater part are still alive.

These are most of the punishments I have seen and heard of

during my stay in this place, but many other instances happened during my absence, which I have not related. As for the crimes for which these punishments were inflicted, I shall only add, the crimes of some deserved death: some were of a trivial nature, and some of the victims were quite innocent.

EXORDIUM

To a Sermon of Father Bridaine.

This celebrated Missionary preached for the first time in St. Sulpice Church, in Paris, 1751. The first quality of the capital went there from curiosity. They beheld there a number of bishops, many persons of rank, and a numerous body of ecclesiastics. This spectacle, far from intimidating our orator, at once inspired this Exordium:

"At the sight of an auditory, so new for me, it appears, my brethren, that I should open my mouth only to crave your indulgence for a poor Missionary, destitute of the talents you require when we come to speak to you of your salvation. I feel, however, this morning a very different sensa tion; and if I be humiliated, beware of thinking that I abase any self to the wretched uneasiness of vanity, as if I were accustomed to preach myself. God forbid that a minister of heaven should ever think of needing apology among you; for whoever you be, you are all sinners! It is before your God and mine, that, in this moment, I feel myself pressed to smite my breast. Till now, I have published the righteousness of the most high God, in temples covered with

thatch; I have preached the rigors of repentance to the wretched who were without bread; I have proclaimed to the dwellers on the fields, the most frightful truths of my religion. What have I done? wretched me! I have given sorrow to the poor, the sincerest friends of my God; I have carried terror and grief into the simple and faithful souls, that I should have pitied and consoled. It is here that my looks fall only on the great, on the rich, on the oppressors of suffering humanity, or on audacious and hardened sinners! It is particularly here, where his holy word should echo in all its force of thunder; that I place with me in this pulpit, on the one side, death that threatens you-on the other side, my God who is coming to judge you. I hold your sentence in my hand today. Tremble before me, then, proud and disdainful men, who hear my voice: The necessity of salvation, the certainty of that fearful hour for you, final impenitence, the last judgment, the small number of the elect, hell, and above all, eternity-eternity! these are the subjects I am going to urge on your attention, and which I should have reserved for you alone. What! do I need your praise, which might condemn me, without saving you? God is about to stir up your minds, while his unworthy minister is speaking to you; for I have had long experience of his mercies. Penetrated, then, with horror for your past iniquities, you will embrace me, shedding tears of compunction and repentance; and by dint of remorse, you will find me eloquent."

R. Thomson.

PERSECUTORS ADMONISHED.

The Rev. Henry Williams, was a Baptist minister, who lived on a small estate of his own, in Montgomeryshire." Being disabled from the public exercise of his ministry in 1662," (says Calamy,) "he continued to preach more privately in several parts of the country, as he had an opportunity. He was an upright man, very active for God, and a lively preacher. He suffered much for the sake of a good conscience, both by imprisonment, and spoiling of his goods; but he endured all patiently, and went on doing the work of the Lord in the most difficult times. He had a wife and 12 children, which made his severe sufferings the more grievous and distressing. One of his daughters was the wife (not the mother, as the late Mr. Palmer asserts by mistake,) of Mr. Richard Davies, who was formerly an eminent independent minister at Rowell, in Northamptonshire. Mr. Davies had, deservedly, a very great veneration for his father-inlaw, and wrote, it is said, a very affecting elegy on his death, which took place in 1685, aged 60.

Among the heavy trials and severe sufferings which Mr. W. underwent, the following have been related, on undoubted authority, as some of the most remarkable and affecting.

He was once violently set upon, while preaching, by some of the ruffian persecutors, dragged from the place, most cruelly beaten, and left as dead, like Paul, at Lystra. His imprisonments were long and rigorous, and are said to have taken up in all, no less than 9 or 10 years. At one of the times he lay in prison, the bloody persecutors set fire to his house, and burnt it to the ground. At another time they beset his dwelling,

broke in, and plundered his goods, and even murdered his aged father, who was attempting to prevent their getting into the upper rooms. His wife too, who was then big with child, in endeavouring to escape, (with one child in her arms, and leading another,) was brutally insulted by one of them. At last they seized the stock upon the land, and seemed to leave nothing behind them for the future support of the family. There was, however, a field of wheat, then just sown, which the unfeeling wretches could not carry off, and which they probably did not think worth while to destroy. That field afterwards thrived amazingly. All the winter and spring, its appearance struck every beholder; and the crop it produced was so very abundant as to become the common talk and wonder of the whole country. Nothing like it had been known there in the memory of the oldest man. In short, the produce of that field amply repaid him for the losses of the preceding year. It was said, indeed, that it amounted to more than double the value of what the persecuting plunderers had carried off. Its value, also, was much enhanced, by the following year being a season of scarcity. The field is known there, and shewn to strangers to this day. I was travelling that way, and was shewn that field in 1745. This, together with the untimely and awful end of diverse of his most bitter persecutors, had such a terrifying effect upon the inhabitants in general, as secured him from being ever after very violently persecuted.

In that ill-conditioned age, it was not uncommon for such as had been very forward and violent in oppressing and harassing others, in matters of conscience, to be themselves suddenly overtaken with some very grievous disaster, which