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that the attorney general refused to proceed. The loss of property, and interruptions occasioned to the missions, were very great. The amount required to rebuild the places of worship destroyed, without including the heavy legal expenses incurred in defending the accused missionaries, is about £17,000.

South Sea Islands.

The American Mission at the Sandwich Islands was never an object of greater interest than at the present moment. The inhabitants of Christian countries are by no means aware of the difficulties of raising up a savage people to the enjoyment and character of a civilized society. Paganism disarranges the whole intellectual structure of man. It renders it impossible for the gospel to gain a complete triumph in one generation. Real piety may be possessed, where the memory is filled with loathsome recollections, the imagination burdened with degrading images, the mind totally destitute of refinement, and the whole body very imperfectly controlled by the authority of the will. In a country, where Christianity has been long enjoyed, an influence exists, which is derived from unseen, abstract, immaterial objects, imparting an elevation to the purpose, a dignity to the motive, an intellectual character, even where the gospel does not exert its highest influence. No such thing exists in pagan lands. This mental and moral influence is to be created. In fact, the very foundations of society are to be laid anew. You cannot transfer a community from a savage to a civilized state. That community must be formed again. The idols at the Sandwich islands are destroyed, but the intellectual idolatry exists; that is, idolatry has poisoned the soul; its contaminating influence will end only with life, and not then, unless the grace of God has intervened. Our brethren at the Sandwich Islands have performed a noble work, but the battle is not yet fought. The paganism of the mind and soul remains. We, in Christian lands, must study the difficulties with which they have to meet. We must look often at the melancholy side of the picture. We must be prepared for temporary reverses. We must encourage their progress by fully appreciating the appalling obstacles, with which they are called to contend even after Christianity is nominally established. We must not give full credit to every sanguine reporter of facts. We must compare and weigh accounts. It requires sound discretion, and no small measure of Christian philosophy, for a man on the ground to convey a just impression of the real state of a mission.

The above remarks will apply in their full force to the Society and Georgian islands. The habits of the people, fixed for ages, are to

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be broken up. The devil has erected his throne in the very constitution of the soul, and he will not be expelled without a desperate struggle. Over these islands, the fire of ardent spirits has also burned, and it is still burning. The Temperance reform, and it is not strange, has hardly reached that distant quarter of the world. Public opinion in England does not yet send a full measure of regenerating influence to the colonies and missions.

Africa.

A number of circumstances are conspiring to direct public attention to this continent. It was ascertained by the Landers, that the river Niger below Boosà, after wandering four or five hundred miles through the heart of western Africa, and receiving the contribution of many navigable streams, empties itself into the ocean, by several mouths, through the gulph of Guinea. The Nun river, by which the Landers descended to the sea, discharges its waters near cape Formosa; a promontory separating the bight of Biafra from the bight of Benin. By the Nun, the Niger is navigable for the whole four or five hundred miles between Boosà and the ocean. Though above Boosà, the channel is obstructed by rocks, yet little doubt exists of its having a communication with Timbuctoo. It appears highly probable that the whole course of the Niger is through a thickly populated region, studded with towns and villages hitherto unvisited by Europeans. Soon after the results of the expedition of the Landers were communicated in England, an expedition was planned at Liverpool for the purpose of exploring the Niger, and for establishing a settlement, if thought expedient, at Patùshie, a large and beautiful island in the Niger, one day's journey below Boosà. The command of the expedition is intrusted to Richard Lander. It is composed of two steamers and one sailing vessel. The largest steamer, commanded by Mr. Herries, is called the Quôrra, and is of nearly 150 tons. The other is of wrought iron, and is called the Alburkah, an Arabic word, which signifies blessing. She draws but two feet of water, and carries fifty tons, and will be capable of ascending the Niger much farther than her formidable companion. The sailing vessel, called the Columbine, will furnish the steamers with the necessary fuel, goods, &c. The expedition is amply supplied with chronometers and other instruments for making the necessary scientific observations and surveys. The British and Foreign Bible Society availed itself of this first opening into central Africa, to send thither copies of the Bible, and the merchants themselves, who planned the expedition, consigned presents of the Scriptures to the principal chiefs on the river. One of these merchants is Adam Hodgson, Esq., well known in the United States for

his liberal views and Christian feelings. It is gratifying to reflect that Liverpool, a city deeply implicated in the slave traffic, is leading the way in efforts to communicate the blessings of learning and christianity to the interior of that continent. The expedition reached Cape Coast castle on the 7th of October last, and soon proceeded up the Nun.

In the train of this expedition, it is highly probable that Christian missions will follow.

Perhaps no portion of the unevangelized world is making more rapid advances towards civilization than South Africa. The British government is more enlightened and liberal than in past days. The "Bible and School commission," formed in 1813, have established schools in the principal village of each district of the colony. In two schools in Cape Town, and twenty-four elsewhere, belonging to the Commission, there are 1,267 scholars. In Cape Town, there are twelve private schools for boys and ten for young ladies; two schools of industry have one hundred and forty scholars; an infant school has sixty pupils; a grammar school, begun in 1824, is supported by government; a college begun in 1829, supports itself, and is the first institution in the colony which has rendered it unnecessary to send children to Europe for education, and will be the means of raising many competent teachers for the district schools. The Dutch have a school, preparatory to the college, with 180 scholars. All these schools are independent of the various missionary and Sabbath schools. Temperance societies are about to be established in several places. It seems that the Hottentots have frequently been paid for their services in brandy alone. Among the Caffre tribes, occupying several hundreds of miles of the coast from Keiskamma river to the vicinity of Dalgoa bay, there are eleven missionary stations. Thirteen missionaries, connected with these stations, have lately requested the British and Foreign Bible Society to aid them in printing the Bible in Caffre. Many of the stations in Caffreland have, during the past year, been visited with the special influences of the Holy Spirit. At Lattakoo, 630 miles north-east of Cape Town, a printing press was established in June, 1831, which is now occupied on various small books.

The island of Madagascar is supposed to contain 4,000,000 of inhabitants. The queen, by an order of May 20, 1831, gave the missionaries of the London missionary society, liberty to preach, and her subjects permission to act according to their convictions. The printing of the New Testament in Mallagasse, and a considerable part of the Old, is completed. The number of scholars in the schools is about 2,500; and of communicants, 100.

Abyssinia, the scene of so many destructive wars, is in an unsettled

state. It has been for some time, divided into three provinces, Tigré, Amhara, and Efat. The province of Tigré, lying nearer to the Red sea, and farther from the risk of invasion from the interior, might enjoy more tranquillity, were the chiefs united among themselves. Sebagadis, the principal chief, and a supporter of the mission, was taken prisoner in a war with the Galla-the soldiers of the interiortwo or three years since, and was put to death. There is now considerable prospect that Wolda Michael, a son of Sebagadis, will obtain the supreme command. He was known, before his father's death, as almost a single example in the country for adhering to his word. The missionary of the Church mission, the Rev. Samuel Gobat, was enabled, through scenes of great confusion and suffering, to maintain his ground, and to exert his Christian influence on the mind of the young and hopeful chief. By the latest intelligence, he had twenty scholars, who were travelling about the country, and instructing the people.

In North Africa, there is a large field for moral and intellectual cultivation. Algiers is a central spot, from which the word of God may be widely diffused in the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Arabic languages. More than 4,000 protestants now reside in the city, without a church, minister, or schools. Arabic Bibles are purchased by the Moorish inhabitants, and the New Testament by Jews.

AMERICAN

QUARTERLY OBSERVER.

OCTOBER, 1833.

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