The

nation, which has been urged on by a sacred and resolute band, which rests its ultimate hope on the arm of God and the resistless influence of his grace. The mind of Mills seized no other project with a more confident grasp. clouds of doubts and difficulties which at the first clustered around it have begun to disappear, and the precious life-drops of Ashmun have just set another seal to its triumphant accomplish

ment.

Who can doubt that the true interests of the United States, and especially of the slave-holding community, are most intimately connected with this exalted charity? If there was no other motive than pity for the free people of color; a people who enjoy neither the immunities of freemen, nor suffer the incapacities of slaves, even this would be enough to induce us to say, God speed the noble cause! But when we venture to anticipate the intellectual, civil, and moral elevation of the whole African race; when we think of the long arrears due that ill-fated country from the American people; when we inquire for some security against the continuance of the most accursed of all traffics-a traffic in human blood; when, from the lofty summit of our privileges, we survey the desolations of Africa, and then the prospects of the age, and the rising glories of our Immanuel's kingdom ;do there not exist the most constraining obligations to restore an outcast people-a people

"scattered and peeled, meted out and trodden under foot," to the land of their fathers; and in defiance of its darkness and misery, to render that extensive quarter of the globe the favored seat of science, civilization, and Christianity?

CHAPTER X.

His last Illness and Death.

WHILE in Africa, Mr. Mills was exclusively devoted to the objects of his agency; diligent, unwearied, watchful, persevering "in season and out of season," almost to a fault.

How

obvious to the eye even of a careless observer, that a Divine superintendence not only raises up and qualifies his agents for their work, and affords them the opportunity of usefulness, and crowns their efforts with successs-but that the same invisible and omnipotent energy also limits the sphere of their labor! It is the economy of a wise Providence, if I may so speak, not to accomplish too much by the agency of any one man. "The Lord of Hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory."

Mr. Mills's work was well nigh done. He often appeared much less fitted for earth than heaven. Few men were apparently more matured for "the glory to be revealed" than he. For several of the last weeks of his life particularly, he enjoyed peculiar manifestations of the Divine glory and favor. Though away from his

native shores, burnt by the sun, and drenched with the rains of an inhospitable clime, that Father of Mercies, who is every where present, "put gladness into his heart.” After his return from Sherbro to Sierra Leone, and while in waiting for a passage to England, it was his happiness to be the guest of the Rev. Samuel Brown, an English Missionary from the Methodist connexion, a man of an excellent spirit, and who "knew the heart of a stranger." Both Mr. Brown and Mr. Burgess were led to take notice of the spirituality of Mr. Mills during that period, and even to make it the subject of private remark. His frame of mind was unusually devout. At their stated seasons for prayer, these brethren expressed great delight when the duty devolved on him to lead in their devotions, and great satisfaction in his peculiar nearness to God, and his sweet and delightful views of another world. To adopt the sentiment of his colleague,"Notwithstanding my own apprehensions while in Africa, there was something in Mills, while we were at Sierra Leone, which left the impression on my mind that he was ripe for heaven, and would go before me."

Having finished his inquiries in Africa, and become convinced that he could do no more to promote the objects of the American Society, as there was no American ship in the vicinity, he improved the only opportunity for leaving the coast before the rainy season should set in with violence, and took passage for London, in the

brig Success, on the 22d of May, 1818. It was a delightful evening when he took his final leave of Africa. The sun was just going down, and the mountains of Sierra Leone appeared in great majesty and beauty. As he stood on the quarter-deck, taking a last glance at unhappy Ethiopia, his bosom began to heave with the thoughts of home. "We may now," said he to his colleague, "be thankful to God, and congratulate each other that the labors and dangers of our Mission are past. The prospects are fair, that we shall once more return to our dear native land, and see the faces of our beloved parents and friends." To all human appearance it was. The ship was good, her accommodations were pleasant-the sea air was cool, and the latitude toward which they were sailing both agreeable and healthful." But my thoughts are not as your thoughts," saith Jehovah, "neither are my ways as your ways." What is too vast in the works of God for the limited understanding of his people to comprehend, they learn to adore ; what is too minute for them to discern, they leave to other beings who have clearer perceptions; what is too high for them to see, they look at with admiration; and what is too deep for them to fathom, they pass by without complaint.

The health of Mr. Mills before he left the United States was slender, having a stricture on the lungs, and a dangerous cough. In England he complained much of the humidity of the at