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. My lord, if these things be so, are not the bulk of your great compeers living to little purpose, and in a manner which but ill comports with their high destinies and real interests as immortal beings? If there is truth in the awful disclosures of the sacred scriptures, how lamentable is the prospect of the vast body of this world's great men!

My Lord, will you allow me to say that, while speculating on the glory which, in coming ages, awaits you, I could not help also anticipating the judgment of posterity in regard to your lordship's religious character. I would allude to this point with profound respect and great tenderness; but I dare not be wholly silent, because I can even now speak with certainty as to the light in which they will view you. Before me are the writings of holy prophets and apostles, with the true sayings of Christ, the rule of judgment. By these records will posterity estimate you. Its conclusion

may, therefore, be easily ascertained. Its higher tribunal will affirm the decision which has been already pronounced by a great majority of educated and liberal Christian men, your contemporaries. It will declare your lordship to have been a man of pure morals, of unusual disinterestedness, and of an ambition not greater than your capabilities to serve your country, and benefit mankind-the prince of patriots and philanthropists. But, my lord, while future generations thus pass sentence upon your personal and public character, they will tremble when they think of the possible condition of that mighty spirit which once informed the frame that bore the name of Brougham! They will be unable to discover any thing in your lordship's past history which bespeaks true sympathy with the religion of the Son of God! They will discover nothing in all that you have written or spoken that indicates a right understanding of the doctrines of the cross, or any anxious concern about the world to come! I have looked for such indications in vain, where, if at all, they might have been expected to be found-in your speeches for the missionary Smith. This is a remarkable and mournful defect in those otherwise admirable orations. On that tragical occasion, an opportunity was furnished such as no senator ever before enjoyed, of doing justice to a class of men "of whom the world is not worthy ;" an opportunity, too, of atoning to earth and heaven for the injury done to the cause of humanity, instruction, freedom, and religion among the whole human race, by the impious, calumnious, and atrocious articles on "Methodism and Missions," which had appeared in the great literary organ of the North, with the origin and early conduct of which you are closely identified. But you let the occasion slip. This was the more to be regretted, my lord, because your case fully admitted -nay, demanded- -a defence of the class as well as of the individual. In your exordium, you truly repre

sented those around you as pouring contempt upon your cause, ridiculing the petitioners, and adding, that, after all, it is merely about a poor missionary." Oh! my lord, then was the moment to have summoned your boundless resources, and collected your giant strength, that you might exhibit to your ignorant auditory the progress of civilization with the degree to which it had been the effect of missions, and the impossibility of its extension and completion over our world but by their means to have set forth the claims of these truly noble persons to the world's gratitude and admiration, to the protection of governments, the patronage of princes, and the smile of kings-to have shown that the home deeds, even of a Howard, and his short continental tours of compassion, were but trifles, cheap and safe amusements, as compared with the suffering and sacrifice, the disheartening toil and the voluntary exile, the frequent perils and the cruel persecutions, the illpaid and unpraised labours of these apostolic men— and then to have hurled your thunderbolts of burning indignation at all governments, whether home or colonial, and at all functionaries, whether civil or military, subjects or sovereigns, who dared to impede the progress of these best benefactors of the human race! Never, my Lord, never had orator such subject before! Never had statesman such an occasion of promoting the highest enterprise on earth-an enterprise comprehensive of the interests of all classes, of all nations, through all times! Heroes and sages, all who have been deemed first among this world's wise and good, are poor and limited subjects, poor beneath all poverty and limited within all limitation, as compared with the murdered missionary of Demerara!

Since the death of John Smith, the subject of the missionary character has been repeatedly pressed upon your Lordship in a manner which strongly claimed your parliamentary attention and defence; and it is gratefully

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admitted that you have somewhat improved in your knowledge of its claims, and also made repeated reference to it. In your speech of July 13, 1830, in the House of Commons, you smote, with just severity, the persecutors of Mr. Orton and his brethren, whom you pronounced "blameless and pious men," which, though "faint praise," was still something. In your speech in the House of Lords, February 20, 1838, you came more fully out and did good service to the Missionary Body in the West Indies. Adverting to the sober and even devout manner in which the negroes passed the festival of their liberties, you found the cause of their laudable conduct in the labours bestowed upon them by the missionaries. "They enjoy," said your Lordship, "the advantages of much religious instruction, and partake, in a large measure, of spiritual consolation. These blessings they derive not from the ministrations of the Established Church,-not that the aid of its priests is withheld from them, but the services of others, of zealous missionaries, are found more acceptable and more effectual, because they are more suited to the capacity of the people. The meek and humble pastor, although perhaps more deficient in secular accomplishments, is far more abounding in zeal for the work of the vineyard, and being less raised above his flock, is better fitted to guide them in the path of religious duty. Not made too fine for his work by pride of science, nor kept apart by any peculiar refinement of taste, but inspired with a fervent devotion to the interests of his flock, the missionary pastor lives but for them ; their companion on the week-day, as their instructor on the Sabbath; their friend and counsellor in temporal matters, as their guide in spiritual concerns. These are the causes of the influence he enjoys,—this the source from whence the good he does them flows. Nor can I pass by this part of the West Indian picture without rendering the tribute of heartfelt admiration which I am proud to pay,

when I contemplate the pious zeal, the indefatigable labours of these holy and disinterested men; and I know full well that if I make my appeal to my noble friend,* he will repeat the testimony he elsewhere bore to the same high merits, when he promulgated his honest opinion, that 'for the origin of all religious feeling among the negroes, it is among the missionaries, and not the clergy, we must look.""

Accept, my Lord, in the name of my missionary brethren in the West Indies, most sincere thanks for the noble "tribute" which concludes this passage. "Heartfelt admiration" is a thing in which your Lordship has dealt but sparingly; seldom have you bestowed it upon unworthy objects, and never in undue proportions. On these grounds this strong expression of your Lordship's views is estimated at a very high value. I beg leave, however, to state that your Lordship's view of the causes of the missionaries' success is wholly unsound, and your idea of their inferiority in any respect, to the clergy, inaccurate. In your analysis of those causes, you have done all that philosophy can effect, which is just-nothing! The wondrous difference between these two classes of spiritual physicians, my Lord, consists not merely, nor even chiefly, in rank, tastes, talents, culture, condescension, and habits-in all of which, however, the superiority for the most part lies on the side of the missionaries-but in the medicines which they respectively administer. Their views of human nature, of the character of God, of the essence and object of the " Gospel," are nearly as different as morals and mathematics-and just as different are the effects produced upon their respective auditories. The creed of the missionaries, to a man, is that of your late evangelical friend WILBERFORCE; the creed of that class of the clergy, the impotence of whose

* Lord Sligo.