plentiful supply," that is, not by Divine direction, but from his knowledge of the habits of quails; just as, in another volume of the Family Library, Columbus, from his knowledge of astronomy, having ascertained that there would be an eclipse of the moon, told the Indians that "the great Deity whom he and his followers worshipped, would chastise them with famine for neglecting to furnish them with provisions;" and lest they should disbelieve the warning, he, without hesitation, added, that "a signal would be given that very night in the heavens; the moon would change its colour and lose its light, in token of the fearful punishment which awaited them." But is this the tone in which a person would have related the circumstance if he happened to believe that Columbus was really inspired; and that even if the eclipse were natural, the fore-knowledge of it was Divinely revealed? Mr. Milman's narrative, whatever may be said for it, virtually comes to this, that Moses understood the habits of quails, as Columbus understood eclipses; and that each, to serve a purpose, induced an ignorant people to believe that the predicted events were preternatural. Calmet, as quoted in the Christian-knowledge Bible, attributes the supply directly to God, even while he proceeds to shew what he considered to be the second causes by which the Divine Providence wrought out its designs. Had Professor Milman done this, a wholly different turn would have been given to his narrative.

But if further proof were needed that Professor Milman's work is highly exceptionable, it would be afforded in the joy with which it has been hailed by the avowed enemies of the faith; by all who would deteriorate the inspiration of the Scriptures, from the avowed infidel Carlile to the semi-Socinian and Neologian, who reduce Old-Testament miracles to magic, to accident,

to poetry, to any thing in short but the finger of God. We need go no farther than the very last Number of the Monthly Repository, "the organ of the Unitariau party," in which the conductors give a most flattering review of Our Oxford professor's labours. "We hail," say they, " Mr. Milman as a valuable auxiliary;" a valuable auxiliary to the cause of the Unitarian party! They continue," He has executed his task with a liberality and rationality highly commmendable, and hardly to be expected from an orthodox Oxford professor." quite concur with the Unitarian Repository in the last clause of this remark. They gravely add, "Our author assigns very high praise to Moses ;" and what think our readers this praise is? why, that he actually prefers him before Numa, Charondas, Lycurgus, and Solon, inasmuch as-inasmuch as what? that his was a Divine legation? no-but only "inasmuch as they had much of this work done to their hands, whereas Moses had first to form his people, and bestow on them a country before he could create his commonwealth." Very high praise indeed for this divinely inspired legislator!

Yet even the conductors of the Unitarian Repository think our "orthodox Oxford professor" defective. They lament that his hypothesis goes "to deprive us of one of the most forcible arguments for the Divine legation of Moses;" which, they add, "strikes us rather as an inconsistency; though, upon the whole, this part of the work is written with a liberality and talent that have highly gratified us.” They also conclude their panegyric with one slight censure: and what do our readers think this censure is; this censure from the pen of Unitarianism upon an Orthodox professor? "There is," say they, "one defect in this work; to our minds it appears a great omission; we mean the small mention which is made of Christ, and the various

transactions of his ministry;" which, they proceed to shew, ought to have been especially noticed. But our chief object in alluding to this Unitarian critique, is for the sake of repelling the following left-handed compliment: "We trust, from the acceptance which we understand Professor Milman's work has met with among the members of his own church, that times of reformation are at hand."--We record this compliment only to disclaim it. The work may have been acceptable to Carlile the blasphemer; or to the conductors of the Unitarian journal; and possibly to some who call themselves churchmen, but who do not think the worse of a book for "making small mention of Christ," and depriving us of one of the most forcible arguments for the Divine legation of Moses;" but all true churchmen and pious Christians have deeply mourned over it; one of our universities has obliquely in its last prize questions, and the other directly through its first divinity professor, censured the principle on which the whole work is founded; and we know not that even the voice of one solitary Church of England reviewer has been heard in its favour. We can, therefore, with great confidence, assure the Monthly Repositor that the times of [Unitarian] reformation," which he fondly predicts for our church are not yet "at hand."

The Christian's View of the Cause and Remedy of the present National Distress; a Sermon. By the Rev. E. B. ELLIOTT, A.M. Vicar of Tuxford, Notts. London. 1830.

SECULAR politicians entertain contending views both of the cause and the cure of national distress; but the Christian, though free to investigate secondary causes, traces up every thing ultimately to its source: all that is good comes directly from

God, and all that is evil is the product of sin, God himself being, often almost visibly, the minister of his own just displeasure. "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" This solemn question furnishes the subject of Mr. Elliott's salutary and appropriate inquiry, which he conducts in a manner befitting the sacred character of one who is commissioned as it were to stand between God and man, and to shew to an incredulous world, beyond the interposing cloud of sense, that Almighty arm which they are unwilling to acknowledge as the director of all human destinies. The following illustration of the subject, by a reference to the circumstances of the Israelites at the time when the above question was asked, is not merely ingenious and indicative of that familiar knowledge of Jewish history which is of essential utility to a well furnished divine, but it strikingly exposes that sceptical cast of reasoning which is current in the lips of modern statesmen, over whose vision the smallest passing mote too often subtends an angle that prevents their discerning whatever is great and majestic in the direction of human affairs, just as a floating atom, diminutive in size, but pressing on the sight, blots out the sun, and the material universe.

would in questions respecting the origin "The merely philosophic Israelite of the distress confine his speculations to second causes. Contrasting the then commercial stagnation with that activity and prosperity of commerce which was enjoyed by the land under Solomon, when Tyre and Sidon were but as the outports of Israel, and the trade of Arabia and of the East had to make its transit through the ten tribes, and drop its wealth among them, he might enlarge on the obstructions to trade arising from the unhappy separation between Israel and Judah, the loss to the former of its harbours on the Red Sea, the restlessness of Edom, Ammon, and Moab, and other nomadic tribes on the borders of the desert which in Solomon's time were subjugated and quiet, the rise and aggrandisement of the kingdom of Syria, and the natural transfer, in consequence of all these causes, of the Southern trade to Egypt, and the Eastern to Damascus and Phoenician cities. Again,

sure, wealth, or fashion as prevalent now as that of idols in Samaria. The heartless and partial observance of the Sabbath-day, alike by high and low, will especially weigh upon his mind; and when contrasted with the well-appointed establishment and legal sanctions for its proper celebration, force on his notice the formal

ism of the religion in vogue, and complete too well the parallel between the present character of England and that of Israel and Judah when ripe as summer fruit' for judgment. So long as the country is characterized by such sins as these, he can hope for no sound or permanent return of prosperity; and therefore, as the true remedy, he will steadily and earnestly set himself to resist them, and endeavour to awaken around him, in respect of cach, a better spirit." pp. 11-13.

OUR only reason for noticing this pamphlet is, that the author has impressed religion into the service of slavery. We can listen with comparative forbearance while a man tells us that his interest is involved in this nefarious institution; that the emancipation of slaves would cut off two courses from his table, and abridge his daughters' portions; but we feel little tolerance when he adds that his Christianity does not revolt against the flagrant injustice of the whole system. Our author dedicates his labours to a pious and benevolent nobleman, Lord Mountsandford: his wish is, he says, to promote "the best interests of the Negro Slaves in the Mauritius;" he would have persons deal kindly with their slaves; he would even gradually commute post horses into palfreys; but beyond this he would not go: for he says,

"We reject the inference that the renunciation of slavery is a religious or moral duty; we utterly deny the conclusion that Christianity demands of the nation that violation of justice, and good faith, and sound political wisdom, which

is connected with the suicidal measure of abolition." pp. 45, 46.

Christianity demands no violation of "justice, good faith, or political wisdom." But none of these are in favour of slavery, but quite the contrary; for nothing is more unjust, perfidious, or impolitic, than WestIndian slavery-it is one tissue of injustice, perfidy, and political "suicide."

We wish no stronger arguments against slavery than the apologies of its abettors, most of all of its religious and clerical abettors. This pamphlet would furnish them by scores; but we have gone over the ground so often that we shall not weary our readers with a lengthened detail, but shall merely copy a few passages, with a brief comment. Our author is not pleased with those who disparage that slave elysium, the Mauritius; but his own panegyrics upon this paradise of bondage leave no very glowing impression upon our minds. In his representations of the miserable destitution of the slaves as respects their religious culture (though he sees compararatively little to alter for the better in their worldly condition), he exhibits in no very honourable light the character of those who call themselves their masters. There are, he says, in the Mauritius, 1294 government slaves, and 2010 apprentices. Of the former, the slaves, he informs us, that

"Nearly the whole of these slaves have been long destitute of any religious instruction; nor has any attempt been made to educate their children, until about five or six weeks ago, when (much to the honour of his Excellency Sir Charles Colville's administration) a Coloured Creole was hired to discharge the function of a catechist two hours each day, for about seventy children. Prayers are also read by him to the adults on the Sunday, and the military chaplain performs Divine service for their benefit once a month. Laud

able as this beginning is, it must certainly be allowed to be the infancy of things;' for, when the grossly ignorant and immoral state of the adult slaves thus long abandoned is considered, it is evident, that precept upon precept,' and line upon line,' and the most unremitting as. siduity must be necessary, if any moral or religious effect is expected and it is

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equally certain, that however admirable the character, and however endowed with pre-eminent qualifications for teaching, the preacher may be, slow progress could be hoped from a monthly lecture. But it is presumed, that the laborious duties of a military chaplain in a tropical climate (where there are two garrisons, thirty miles apart, besides detached outposts, and the schools and hospitals of three regiments to visit) will be considered an ample sphere for any clergyman, and prove that, unless he were to neglect the important duties of his specific appointment, a mere fragment of time is the utmost that he could devote to the slaves." pp. 10, 11.

Of the apprentices he gives the following account :

"The apprentices are those Negroes

who have been rescued from slave-ships since the abolition of the Slave Trade, and are bound by the collector of the customs for the period of fourteen, and latterly for seven years, to private individuals, who, by the indentures they sign, engage to teach them a trade or occupation by which they may earn a livelihood, to provide them with all things needful for their comfort, and also, as conveniently

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as may be, to instruct, or cause them to be taught and instructed in the Christian religion, and when instructed to be taken to be baptized, and to permit and encourage them to attend public worship." pp. 11, 12.

Our author, of course, gives the employers handsome credit for performing the first of these stipulations; but he is forced to admit a mournful account of the latter.

"There is reason to fear, that the latter part of the engagement made by masters is almost nugatory. In the first place, there is no specific teacher, or public worship, by which the apprentices can benefit." p. 12.

"If it is supposed that, by private instruction in his master's family, the apprentice may receive the benefit contemplated in the indenture, there are many obstacles to be considered. A master

must entertain more than an ordinary value for the Christian religion, to devote the necessary time, and to persevere with patience in the laborious task of pene trating the intellect of a densely ignorant Negro, and imbuing his mind and heart with the sublime and practical principles of Christianity. And it is believed, the instances are rare in which even an attempt has been made." pp. 13, 14.

"It may, therefore, be roundly stated, that the apprentices are also destitute of any adequate religious instruction." p. 14.

Where one half of the duty is thus violatedwithout scruple, we have little

confidence in the good faith with which the remainder is fulfilled, except so far as it suits the master's pecuniary interest to fulfil it. We attach as little credit to the averfort of the Mauritius slaves as we ments respecting the temporal comshould to a glowing account of their religious instruction. Against the anonymous statements of the "Resident," we have in this country the positive minute depositions of some hundreds of eye-witnesses attesting the extreme cruelty with which slaves are treated in this elysium. For a fearful sample of these depositions, our readers may refer to the horrifying paper on Mauritius Slavery in the AntiSlavery Reporter. But the half has not been told; and in particular the depositions are very explicit as to the frequent destitution of the enslaved population, in regard to those very "comforts "including the bare necessaries of life-which the Resident considers their common lot. Their condition is in fact as miserable as miserable can be. But were it otherwise, were they fed with luxuries, and chained on beds of roses, the great atrocity would be still the same; you have no right to chain them at all; you have no right to claim their unwilling services: the same God made them that made you, and who are you that dare to stamp and gave them the same freedom; the brand of slavery on the brow of your brother, whom he created your equal?

There is to our minds something most supercilious, to say the least, in the manner in which colonial "residents," and some among ourselves, are accustomed to speak of their fellow-creatures in the matter of slavery, even when professing to better their condition. Their very benevolence is insulting. Take, for example, the following passage from our author, who is an advocate for affording religious culture to the slaves.

"Shall the author, then, be accused of turning away from the spectacle of human