Bishops of the Islands have the power, and will have the glory, of diffusing among a vast population of British subjects, all the various blessings that may be expected to arise from the pure worship and discipline of a Christian church.

On the great question of Emancipation, Mr. Coleridge adopts the opinion which is now, we believe, universal among well-informed men, that it cannot be either immediate or very speedy. To say nothing of the rights of property, if you let loose at once 800,000 slaves without moral restraint, and without any habits of voluntary industry, they will neither work nor be quiet; their first act of freedom will be to kill the whites, and then they will prey upon each other.

"The philanthropist has one object to effect, and only one; he must civilize the negroes. He cannot do this by force, for the sources of barbarism are in the mind, and the mind even of a negro is intangible by violence. He cannot take the castle of Indolence by storm, for it will vanish before his face to reappear behind his back. He must make his approaches in form, and must carry a charm in his hand; he must hold steadily before him the mirror shield of knowledge, and cause the brutified captives to see themselves therein. He cannot disenchant them, until he has first inspired into their hearts a wish to be disenchanted, and they shall no sooner have formed that wish, than the spell which hath bound them shall be broken for ever."

Party spirit has run so high upon this question and every thing connected with it, that it is no easy matter to ascertain the simple truth on matters of fact. One thing is certain, that those who go to the West Indies come back with a very different story as to the condition of the slaves from that which we hear in the speeches of the anti-slavery party at home. Mr. Coleridge proclaims "that from the general and prominent charge of cruelty, active or permissive, towards the slaves, he for one acquits the planters." He asserts, moreover, that "the slaves eat, drink, and sleep well, and are beyond all comparison a gayer, smarter, and more familiar race than the poor of this kingdom."

Now, though nobody alleges this as a reason why slavery should be tolerated one day or one hour after it can be safely got rid of, yet it is, or ought to be, a great consolation to the philanthropist in the mean time, and may dispose him calmly to consider the means, and patiently to await the season of the complete and final abolition of slavery in our colonies.

"The question lies between our fingers. We all profess an intention of ameliorating the condition of the slaves, and a wish to raise them ultimately to an equality with the rest of the citizens of the empire. The dispute is about the means. Now unless we are infatuated by the mere sound of a word, we must acknowledge that the power of doing whatsoever a man pleases, if unaccompanied with some moral stimulus which will insure habitual industry, and correct the profligate propensities of savage nature, is so far from being a step in advance,

that it is rather a stride backwards; instead of being a blessing, it is plainly a curse. The body of the slave population do not at present possess this moral stimulus. Emancipation therefore would not put them in the road to be good citizens.

What must be done then? Manifestly this one single thing; we must create a moral cause in order to be able to abolish the physical cause of labour: we must bring the motives which induce an English rustic to labour to bear upon the negro; when the negro peasant will work regularly like the white peasant, then he ought to be as free. we to originate this moral stimulus ?

"How are

means.

By various "I. By education;-that is to say, by teaching every child to read; by providing Bibles and Prayer-books at moderate prices; by building or enlarging churches, or increasing the times of service, so that every one may be able to worship in the great congregation once at least on the Sunday.

"II. By amending the details of existing slavery; that is to say, by thoroughly expurgating the colonial codes, by enacting express laws of protection for the slaves, by reforming the judicatures, by admitting the competency of slave evidence; by abolishing Sunday markets at all events; by introducing task work; by declaring females free from corporal punishment.

"III. By allowing freedom to be purchased at the market price."

The foregoing notice is brief and imperfect-but the subject is all important-and we are persuaded that every word is useful which tends to calm the irritation of hostile parties upon a question which has lately suffered more than any other from the blind impetuosity of ill-informed enthusiasm, and of zeal without knowledge. Mr. Coleridge's book, besides the direct information which it has communicated to the public, will doubtless have the effect of drawing forth more information from many quarters; and as truth and reason are attended to, the cause of humanity will triumph over all opposition.

Once more we repeat, that the mission of the Bishop to the West Indies is a measure from which infinite good may be expected to arise, for if ever this troubled world is to be made good and happy, it must be by the influence of that religion which has already perceptibly ameliorated the moral and physical condition of men.

The Semi-Sceptic, or the Common Sense of Religion Considered. By the Rev. J. T. JAMES. Hatchard and Son, London. 1825. 8vo. pp. 399.

THIS Volume contains much valuable and useful matter. We find in it a variety of arguments and illustrations, delivered in an easy and popular style, all tending to the vindication of true religion, and the refutation of the most usual objections brought against it; and this upon the professed principle of taking the same ground on which the

enemies of Revelation make their stand, that of reason. As the Author's arguments are confessedly thrown together without any precise arrangement, we shall not attempt to follow them in detail, but will merely comment upon a few of the most striking points of reasoning and illustration, in the order in which they occur.

The Mosaic history is curiously and strikingly verified by Calvisius, in his Chronology. From a minute comparison of several particulars in the Mosaic account of the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, he deduces, that at that event the moon was full on the fifteenth day of the first month, which commenced at the vernal equinox, that day being a Friday. From these data the year may be found, by reckoning backwards; and the result agrees exactly with the date assigned to this event on other grounds.

Mr. James has brought together many of the most remarkable testimonies in profane writers, who incidentally notice various events recorded by the sacred historians; as well as numerous illustrations of Jewish customs and oriental allusions, from the observations of modern travellers in the East. The general traditional expectation of a Messiah; the present state of the Jews; and several other topics of argument in evidence of the truth of revelation, will here be found put in a very concise, striking, and popular form.

To shew the imperfection of the mere moral code, deduced by reason, even in the most favourable circumstances, we have a striking instance in the celebrated Benjamin Franklin. It is perhaps impossible to find in any part of history a stronger example of strictly regulated moral conduct, upon the mere principles of ethics, than was exhibited in his life. Though he did not profess a belief in Christianity, he entertained no actual dislike of it, and was in some measure a supporter of its institutions, whilst he avowed a belief in a future state. The exactness with which he regulated every action of his life, is well known. During many years he constantly kept a register, in which the number and degree of his daily transgressions were marked by appropriate signs. Yet he felt himself obliged to confess, that he fell far short of the standard he had proposed. But the most remarkable result, perhaps, to which this system of self-examination led him, was that at last he really thought it best for man not to be too good. To illustrate this, he tells an anecdote of a countryman, who once, when he took an axe to be ground, expressed himself displeased with the grinder, because the edge merely, and not the whole of the axe, had been brought to a state of brightness. The grinder promised to satisfy him in this respect, and desired him to lend his assistance, by turning the stone: the countryman did so, but finding the labour irksome, and continually growing worse in proportion as it was necessary to bear harder upon the stone to remove some of the deeper spots, he

begged leave to desist, saying, he was content-the axe would do very well as it then was: the grinder pressed him now in his turn, and urged to him the statement of his former wishes, till at last the countryman having nothing more to say, was obliged to allege that he really liked a speckled axe better. Now, says Franklin, I begin to be of a similar opinion with this man as to my own case, and think the speckled axe is best. This is a species of optimism, our Author observes, which no one would have expected from a philosopher; and we may venture to say, that a Christian could not have wished for a stronger argument to confirm him in the nature of the religion which he professes, than this admission of Franklin affords him. The Christian, indeed, can never think that it is useless to be better,-can never be weary in well doing. But cheered by the hope of a glorious and eternal inheritance, and assisted by the influence of the Holy Spirit, he proceeds joyfully onwards in his course, striving to be perfect, as his Father in heaven is perfect.

The traditions relative to the Deluge, preserved among various nations, are collected and enlarged upon by Mr. James with considerable force. The memory of such an event is preserved by the Egyptians as well as the Hindoos. In the avatars of Vishnu, it is recorded that eight persons only were saved. The Chinese have a tradition that their emperor, Zao, raised himself to heaven, and then brought a flood upon the earth. The inhabitants of the South Sea Islands believe that their country was once dragged through the sea by the anger of the Great Spirit.

An ingenious argument was deduced by Cuvier, tending to prove the accuracy of the date usually assigned to the Deluge: from observing the average rate of the accumulations of soil at the mouths of certain rivers, and of sand in the department of Les Landes, in the south of France, he calculates when they must have commenced, which must have been immediately after the Deluge; and thus infers the date of that event at very nearly the period assigned by sacred chronologists.

Nothing can be more striking than the general testimony borne by those who ridicule all systems of religion in general, to the purity of the moral law delivered in the Gospel. And it is remarkable, that all the more rational and liberal of the Deists have invariably conceded to Christianity the merit of being the best system of religion ever promulgated, each of course excepting his own peculiar view of natural theology. This remark is thus illustrated by our author :

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"It calls to our recollection," he observes, a curious story related by Herodotus in the history of Themistocles: a severe naval battle having been fought with the Persians, in which the Athenians were victorious, they were required severally to name the man whom each

thought had most distinguished himself in the course of the engagement. The names were recorded accordingly by each, as he thought one more deserving than another; those who had any pretensions to merit in themselves very generally writing down their own names first: but mentioning Themistocles as being in their eyes decidedly the second person in point of conduct and courage-whence it appeared, says Herodotus, that Themistocles in reality far excelled them all.”—P. 321.

The extraordinary reveries of Volney and Dupuis, afford a curious instance of that species of mental hallucination that sometimes is brought on by studying a single subject too long, and indulging too far one's partialities for a favourite hypothesis. It was well known that the dances of the Cabiri, and some other mystical rites celebrated in the eastern countries, had been interpreted as having been originally instituted in illustration of the motions of the heavenly bodies. Volney then zealously following up the idea, and warm with recollections furnished by his own travels in the east, undertook to explain upon a similar theory the doctrines of revelation: to shew that the facts recorded in the Gospels were mere types of occurrences in the astronomical world, and the whole system of Christianity nothing more than a mere astronomical allegory.

Absurd and extravagant as this wild nonsense may appear, we yet gnd that it did actually excite in France a considerable sensation. M. Benj. Constant, in particular, has thought it worth a serious refutation; speaking of it as a theory, however absurd, qui semble neanmoins avoir decidé des idées en France sur cette matière."

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Perhaps, as our Author justly observes, the case stands thus ;-those who are ignorant of any religion in a rational point of view have as large a share of their credulity to offer at the shrine of Dupuis as of any other systematiser; they do not disbelieve this system more than others which are the subject of discussion in the circles at Paris.

One of the strongest testimonies to the weakness of the infidel cause is found in the unsettled and misgiving state of the minds of unbelievers. In none was this more remarkable than in Hume:-in the midst of all the caution of his doubly-guarded arguments, and the confidence with which they are held forth to the public, we have in a private letter to a friend, the following curious avowal:

"I often imagine to myself that I perceive within me a certain instinctive feeling which shoves away at once all over subtile refinements, and tells me with authority that these air-built notions are inconsistent with life and experience, and by consequence cannot be true or solid. From this I am led to think that the speculative principles of our nature ought to go hand in hand with the practical ones: and for my own part, when the former are so far pushed, as to leave the latter out of sight, I am apt always to suspect that we have transgressed our limits, &c."-P. 355.