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The last scene in this tragic play is generally a room in the rear of the building, a species of deadhouse, where lie stretched those who have passed into the state of bliss the opium-smoker madly seeks-an emblem of the long sleep to which he is blindly hurrying.-Lord Jocelyn's Six Months with the Chinese Expedition.

A CHAPTER FOR THE YOUNG. THE FIRST MISSIONARY TO THE NEGROES.

THE ARRIVAL.

DOBER and Nitschman on reaching the shore of St. Thomas, were naturally the subjects of various and conflicting emotions; and on the following day, they went in search of Anthony's sister. After a little inquiry, they reached the plantation where she and her husband laboured, bearing the names of Anna and Abraham; and having delivered to the former her brother's salutation, and read a letter from him to his sister, they preached Jesus and the resurrection to them and to the blacks, who joined them during

the conversation. No sooner was it said to the sable crowd, as the work of the Redeemer for perishing sinners was described-"For you also our Saviour has procured this salvation, and we are come hither on purpose to bring you the glad tidings," and the meaning of this appeal was caught, than the poor negroes clapped their hands with delight. And doubtless there was joy also in the presence of the angels of God as they hovered over this memorable scene. Compared with it, the brightest spectacle of mere earthly grandeur which could then be beheld was mean and contemptible.

It need scarcely be said that the brethren now thanked God and took courage. A fresh cause for gratitude speedily arose. While deliberating how they might live as cheaply as possible, a planter invited them to his house, engaging to supply them with all necessaries and comforts till they could provide for themselves. This offer was deeply affecting, not only because on such hospitality they had no claim, but from the consideration that they expected to have been obliged to sell themselves for slaves, in order to promote the welfare of the negroes.

This unlooked-for kindness was however not long wanted. Nitschman, according to previous agreement, returned to Denmark, and the governor engaged Dober as tutor to his children. The new situation supplied him with all he required; and it was accepted on the express condition that he should be allowed, after his daily duties in the family, to visit the negroes wherever he could gain access, and declare to them the whole counsel of

till the fever of tropical climes suspended his efforts. Comparing the ease and luxury of the governor's mansion with the condition of a field-negro, to which he had resolved to stoop that he might give every moment to the ministry of the gospel, he now reproached himself for the enjoyments he had, and on his recovery sought his dismission from his Excellency's service, which was reluctantly granted.

He then obtained little more than bread and water to sustain life by acting as watchman on some neighbouring plantations, and performing other small services; but great was the blessing which accompanied his humble, self-denying, and faithful labours. For a long time he heard nothing from Europe; but at length a vessel arrived, and he sent a negro to ask the usual and almost hopeless question if there were letters for him. Anxious for the result, and the night coming on, he went to the harbour, and being weary, sat down by a watchfire at the way-side to wait for his messenger. While musing, three men, whom he had not perceived coming, stood before him; and, to his indescribable surprise and joy, one of them was his early friend and brother Leopold, who, with seventeen the party, were to be stationed, some in St. Thomas, other missionaries, including the wives of four of and the rest in the adjacent island of St. Croix.

During the first years of the mission on St. Thomas, great hindrances and occasional persecutions were raised by the planters to prevent the Then preaching of the gospel to the slaves. such a lamentation as the following might often be

heard.

My native land! far o'er the sea,
Enslaved and sad, I think of thee,
When, free as the unbridled breeze,
I chased the deer 'mongst spicy trees,
And stay'd, amidst his fleet career,
The ostrich, with my swifter spear.
Then bright of look-as sun at noon,
Then gay of heart-as bird in June,
And careless as the lark that flies,
With song to bid the morn arise,
I rose in gladness, breast and brow
Fearless and free,-how rise I now?

How rise I-my heart throbs to ask;
See, there's the whip, and here's the task;
Nor toil alone enchafes my mood,
My tax'd and burthen'd soul sweats blood;
My heart leaps up in arms,-the brand
Smites sharp in an insulted hand.
This golden clime, in vain for me,
Pours liquid fragrance from the tree,—
The fruits which cool men's lips at noon,
The preacher's prayers beneath the moon,
Are vain,-my trampled heart, in truth,
Nor food can cheer, nor words can soothe.

Nor did the negroes suffer alone: for several months the missionaries, under false accusations,

on which they were brought to trial, were cruelly held in prison; nor were they liberated till Count Zinzendorff arrived at St. Thomas, applied to the governor in their behalf, and obtained their immediate enlargement. When the Count returned to Europe, he was entrusted with two petitions,-one from the negro-men to the King of Denmark, the other from the negro-women to the queen. The following are exact translations.

"To His Majesty the King of Denmark. "Most Gracious Lord King!

"Now we hope that your Majesty will command that we may continue to learn to know the Lord Jesus. We remain immovable, if it please God our Lord; though we are greatly oppressed by men, who beat us and cut us, when Herr Martinus (Massa Martin) teaches us. They burnt our books, and say, 'Negroes must not be saved, a baptized negro is fuel for hellfire!'

"They have put the brethren, whom God hath sent to us, and who are the only survivors of twenty, for three months, into the fort, and now they intend to drive them out of the country. They all appeal to your Majesty, and say, you have forbidden that the negroes should be made acquainted with our Saviour, and would shortly send Massa Martin away. But we do not believe this; and we pray your Majesty to allow us to be instructed in the knowledge of the Lord, and to remain in connexion with the Brethren's Church, for we wish to go with them to our Saviour.

We will be obedient to our masters in all things; we only wish to send our souls to heaven to the Lord Jesus. Formerly we have cheated our masters, stolen provisions, run away, and been idle. But now things are quite different, as our masters themselves know very well. Many a negro, for his wicked deeds, has resolutely suffered his hands and his feet to be cut off; we will cheerfully put our necks under the axe for the Lord Jesus, if our masters, as they say, will kill us. "God the Lord bless our gracious king a thousand

times.

"Written in St. Thomas, the 15th day of Febuary, in the name of more than six hundred and fifty scholars of the Lord Jesus, who are taught by Massa Martin!" Signed by PETER, and three hundred Negro Assistants.

The following was written by Magdelene, one of the female negro assistants :—

"To Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark. "Great Queen!

"WHEN I was in Papaa, in Africa, I served Massa Mahu; now, when I am come into the land of the white people, they will not suffer me to serve the Lord Jesus. The white people will not obey him, and they may do as they please; but when the poor black brethren and sisters wish to serve the Lord Jesus, they are looked upon as maroons (run-away negroes). "If it seemeth good to the Queen, may your Majesty pray the Lord Jesus for us, and also pray the king, that he would permit Massa Martin to preach the word of the Lord, that we may learn to know the Lord, and that he may baptize us negroes.

"The Lord preserve and bless you, together with your son and daughter, and the whole family; I shall not cease praying to the Lord for you.

"Written in the name of more than two hundred negro-women, who love the Lord Jesus."

These very petitions, supported by a representation from the Count, when he reached Copenhagen, had so happy an effect, that a royal ordonnance was passed, dated August 7th, 1739, securing liberty and protection to the Brethren in preaching to the slaves in the Danish colonies.

Of their subsequent labours wecannot now speak. It must suffice to observe that Dr. Chalmers, filled with admiration at the labours, and sufferings, and success of these Christians, exclaims :—

"Oh! when one looks at the number and greatness of their achievements—when he thinks on the change they have made on materials so coarse and so unpromising-when he eyes the villages they have formedand when, around the whole of that engaging perspective by which they have chequered and relieved the grim solitude of the desert, he witnesseth the love, and listens to the piety of reclaimed savages,—who would not long to be in possession of the charm by which they have wrought this wonderful transformation,-who would not willingly exchange for it all the parade of human eloquence, and all the confidence of human argument? and for the wisdom of winning souls, who is there who would not rejoice to throw the loveliness of the song, and all the insignificancy of its passing fascinations, away from him?" S.

THE NATIVES OF KASHMIR. THE natives of Kashmir have been always considered as amongst the most lively and ingenious people of Asia, and deservedly so. With a liberal and wise government, they might assume an equally high scale, as a moral and intellectual people; but at present a more degraded race does not exist. The complexion of the Kashmirians varies from dark to an olive, and is sometimes ruddy and transparent: the eyes are large and full, the nose is well defined, and commonly of an aquiline form. The stature varies; but the Hindus who have least intermixed with foreign races are, in general, tall and symmetrically made. The inhabitants of the city are rather slight; but among the peasantry, both Hindus and Mohammedan, are to be found figures of robust and muscular make, such as might have served for models of the Farnesan Hercules. In character the Kashmirian is selfish, superstitious, he has great ingenuity as a mechanic, and a decided ignorant, supple, intriguing, dishonest, and false : genius for manufactures and commerce; but his transactions are always conducted in a fraudulent spirit, equalled only by the effrontery with which he faces detection. The vices of the Kashmirian I cannot help considering, however, as the effects of his

political condition, rather than his nature, and conceive that it would not be difficult to transform him into a very different being. Religious bigotry forms no part of his character, and the teachers of either faith, Mullas or Pundits, are exceedingly ignorant, and possess little influence. Since the establishment of the Sikh authority, Hinduism predominates, and the country is infested by numerous and audacious bands of mendicants. They are patronised rather by the government than the people, and the latter would gladly get rid of their presence. There seems, indeed, to be little attachment of either the Mohammedans or Hindus of Kashmir to their respective creeds, and I am convinced there is no part of India where the pure religion of the gospel might be introduced with a fairer prospect of

success.

Literature of any description is almost unknown in Kashmir, and it is not easy to discover any relics of those celebrated Sanscrit compositions which originated in the patronage of the princes of the country whilst it was a Hindu principality. Our attention was especially directed to this subject by a communication from the Secretary of the Asiatic Society, who was desirous of procuring copies of the Chronicles of Kashmir, the Raja Tarangini, of a local legend called the Nila Purana, and a collection of tales, entitled the Vrihat Katha. The most particular inquiry was set on foot for these works, and after much delay, we heard of two copies of the Chronicles, written on birch-bark, and one of the Vrihat Kathá, on a similar material: they were shown to us, and appeared to be ancient. Nothing could induce the owners to part with them, but they had no objection to copies being taken. A copy of the Raja Tarangini was accordingly transcribed during our stay, and one of the Vrihat Katha was put in hand, under the superintendence of a native friend, who promised to forward it when finished to Calcutta. The Nila Puràna was less scarce, and a copy was purchased, and sent down. These were the only Sanscrit works of the existence of which we obtained any information. The dress of the people, both male and female, commonly consists of a long loose wrapper and trousers, the former of woollen cloth. As a further protection against the cold in winter, the Kashmirians usually carry under their tunic an earthen pot, with a small quantity of live charcoal; a practice that invariably discolours and sears the skin, and not unfrequently occasions palsy. The Hindu women never go veiled, and never affect concealment, either at home or abroad. They had long been exempted from the cruel obligation of burning with their husbands, the custom of which, according to tradition, was never very popular in Kashmir, having being suppressed by an edict of Aurungzebe in 1669, and never subsequently revived.

The food of those who can afford it, is partly of meat, mutton of goats or sheep, which sells at about

31

three-pence per pound. Beef is not procurable, as the Sikh ruler punishes the death of a cow capitally. The chief food of the people is vegetable, turnips, cabbages and radishes, the Sinhara, or water-nut, and rice. The turnips are purple or reddish, and speedily become woolly: the radishes are mostly white and strong; the cabbages do not head, but the leaves are frequently stripped. Besides these, lettuces, spinach, and other common vegetables, are in extensive use, boiled into a sort of soup, with a little salt, or even the leaves of the dandelion, dock, plantain, or mallow; and the catkins of the walnut are employed as food, seasoned with a little salt, mustard, and walnut oil.

Although wheat, barley, buck-wheat, millet, maize, pulse, and amaranthus, are grown in Kashmir, yet the staple of cultivation is rice. This is sown in the beginning of May, and is fit to cut about the end of August. The grain is either sown broad-cast in the place where it is intended to stand till ripe, or thickly in beds, from which it is transplanted when the blade is about a foot high. As soon as the season will admit after the 21st of March, the land is opened by one or more ploughings, according to its strength, and the clods are broken down by blows with wooden mattocks, managed in general by women, with great regularity and address, after which water is let upon the soil, which, for the most part of a reddish clay, or foxy earth, is converted into a smooth soft mud. The seed grain, put into a sack of woven grass, is submerged in a running stream until it begins to sprout, which happens sooner or later, according to the temperature of the water and of the atmosphere, which ordinarily takes place in three or four days. This precaution is adopted for the purpose of getting the young shoot as quickly as possible out of the way of a small snail, which abounds in some of the watered lands of Kashmir, but sometimes proves insufficient to defend it against the activity of this diminutive enemy. When the farmer suspects, by the scanty appearance of the plants above the water in which the grain has been sown, and by the presence of the snail drawn up in the mud, that his hopes of a crop are likely to be disappointed, he repeats the sowing, throwing into the water some fresh leaves of the prangos, called krangos, which either poisons the snails or causes them to descend out of the reach of its influence. The seed is, for the most part, thrown broad-cast into about four or five inches of water, which depth is endeavoured to be maintained. Difference of practice exists as to watering, but it seems generally agreed that rice can scarcely have too much water, provided it be not submerged except for a few days before it ripens, when a drier state is supposed to hasten and to perfect the maturity, whilst it improves the quality of the grain. In general the culture of rice is little expensive, though more so in Kashmir than in

Hindustan, from its being customary in the former country to manure the rice lands, which is never done in the latter. This manure for the most part consists of rice straw, rejected by the cattle, and mixed with cow-dung. It is conveyed from the homestead to the fields by women in small wicker baskets, and is set on the land with more liberality than might have been expected from the distance it is carried. Many of the rice lands are situated much higher than might be thought convenient in Hindustan, and are rather pressed into this species of culture than naturally inviting, but still yield good crops, through the facility with which water is brought upon them from the streams, which fall down the face of the neighbouring hills. In common seasons the return of grain is from thirty to forty for one, on an average, besides the straw. MESSRS. MOORCROFT AND TREBECK'S Travels in the Himalayan Provinces

THE JOY OF BENEVOLENCE. WOULDST thou from sorrow find a sweet relief? Or is thy heart oppress'd with woes untold? Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief? Pour blessing round thee like a shower of gold. "Tis when the rose is wrapp'd in many a fold Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there Its life and beauty; not when, all unroll'd, Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair, Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the ambient air.

Wake, thou that sleepest in enchanted bowers,
Lest these lost years should haunt thee on the night
When death is waiting for thy number'd hours,
To take their swift and everlasting flight;
Wake, ere the earth-born charm unnerve thee quite,
And be thy thoughts to work divine address'd;
Do something-do it soon-with all thy might;
An angel's wing would droop if long at rest,
And God himself, inactive, were no longer bless'd.

Some high or humble enterprise of good
Contemplate, till it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food,
And kindle in thy heart a flame refined.
Pray Heaven for firmness, thy whole soul to bind
To this thy purpose-to begin, pursue,
With thoughts all fix'd, and feelings purely kind;
Strength to complete, and with delight review,
And grace to give the praise where all is ever due.

No good of worth sublime will Heaven permit
To light on man as from the passing air;
The lamp of genius, though by nature lit,
If not protected, pruned, and fed with care,
Soon dies, or runs to waste with fitful glare;
And learning is a plant that spreads and towers
Slow as Columbia's aloe, proudly rare,

That, 'mid gay thousands, with the suns and showers
Of half a century, grows alone before it flowers.

Has immortality of name been given
To them that idly worship hills and groves,
And burn sweet incense to the queen of heaven?
Did Newton learn from fancy, as it roves,
To measure worlds, and follow where each moves ?
Did Howard gain renown that shall not cease,
Or did Paul gain Heaven's glory and its peace,
By wanderings wild that Nature's pilgrim loves?
By musing o'er the bright and tranquil isles of Greece?
Beware lest thou from sloth, that would appear
But lowliness of mind, with joy proclaim
Thy want of worth; a charge thou couldst not hear
From other lips without a blush of shame,
Or pride indignant; then be thine the blame,
And make thyself of worth; and thus enlist
Tis infamy to die and not be miss'd,
The smiles of all the good, the dear to fame;

Or let all soon forget that thou didst e'er exist.
Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
And thou an angel's happiness shalt know,—
Shalt bless the earth while in the world above;
The good begun by thee shall onward flow
In many a branching stream, and wider grow ;
The seed, that, in these few and fleeting hours,
Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sow,
Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers,
And yield thee fruits divine in Heaven's immortal
bowers.
The late Rev. CARLOS WILCOX of America.

FILIAL AFFECTION OF THE CHINESE. THE habitual reverence inspired in the mind of a child follows him through life, and forms an indissoluble link-a social bond of the strongest kind. The duty incumbent on a son to provide for the necessities of his indigent parents is seldom slighted, save by those who have no regard for themselves, and is usually discharged with many other becoming acts of esteem. I have sometimes admired the conduct of a son when he has brought an aged parent to the hospital; the tenderness with which he conducted him to the patient's chair, and the feeling with which he detailed his sufferings, showed how deeply rooted filial piety is in the heart of a Chinese. At Macao, a Chinese shoemaker, who had done some work for me at Singapore, called to ask for some further encouragement. "Why," said I to him, "did you leave Singapore, where you had a good business ?"-"My old mother," he replied, "is getting very old, and she will have me live near her." In obedience to the commands of a parent, he had given up the certain pursuit of a livelihood abroad, and returned to take a very precarious chance at home. The reader will not be sorry to hear that this man used to come, from time to time, for a stock of New Testaments, to distribute amongst such of his countrymen as were likely to make a proper use of them. LAY's Chinese as they are.

8.SLY.S

FOUNDLING HOSPITALS.

WHEN those excellent men, St. Vincent de Paul, and Captain Thomas Coram, following the dictates of their own noble hearts, successfully exerted themselves to establish Foundling Hospitals in their respective countries, they fancied that they were erecting institutions which would prove lasting blessings to all succeeding generations. Who, indeed, having ever gazed on such sights as had too often met the eyes of these warm-hearted philanthropists-who, having ever beheld a weeping and wailing helpless infant, cast forth in the streets to perish if not relieved by the chance passenger, would not look upon the man who should make provision for such unfortunates, as a worthy benefactor to his fellow-creatures? How natural the conclusion, that the knowledge that

NO. III.

provision was certain for the infant which the wretched mother found herself unable to provide for, would put an end for ever to the fearful practice of child-murder, a crime usually the result of despair and agony of soul !

What wonder, then, that St. Vincent de Paul was hailed as an angel of light? That when Captain Coram had succeeded in obtaining a charter for a Foundling Hospital, the establishment immediately became one of the most popular objects of charity

that munificent donations and subscriptions flowed in-that annual parliamentary grants were made; and that when Handel lent his talents in its support, which he did by annually superintending and aiding in the gratuitous performance of his oratorio, "The Messiah," in the chapel of the hospital, such crowds attended that the receipts frequently amounted to nearly a thousand pounds!

D