if there has been one faculty of the mind impaired by neglect, if the debasing effects of slavery have damped one kindly emotion, or torn from the bosom one generous feeling; above all if they have tended to infix more deeply into their victims the fangs of superstition and idolatry, if they have not only deprived him of the joys of "the life that now is," but of the expectation of " that which is to come we are responsible.

How then shall we in any, the smallest degree, repay so accumulated a debt, unless it be by giving them the knowledge of a Saviour? We must point them to Him, from whom they have received their earthly freedom, and who is able to make them "free indeed."

A society is at present in existence for the education of the children of Negroes and people of colour, but its powers are limited; and it was in fact never calculated to be a large and comprehensive society. Might not this very institution, or some other with a similar object, be established upon a full and extensive plan? A society for this object, when once its existence became known, could not fail to obtain support; for the religious part of the community, by whom emancipation was claimed for the Negro, will not, now that is obtained, refuse him Christian instruction.

Christian Ladies! it is for you to effect it. Your exertions contributed much, under the blessing of God, to obtain for the oppressed the year of release. It was your zeal and energy that were mainly effectual

1 A very excellent society, which has laboured for years, to the utmost of its means; and is well adapted for any extension of usefulness, under more enlarged patronage.-ED.

to fan and keep alive the flame, which animated the country in behalf of that righteous cause. You will not allow those exertions to cease, that zeal shall not be damped, nor those energies expire, but what you have done for their temporal interests, you will continue for their eternal; and wherein you have already excelled, you will abound yet more and more.

LAICUS.

SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE.

I FIND, with regard to myself, that the benefit of prayers, sacraments, and the means of grace, bears exact proportion to the care I take to implore the influence and operation of the Spirit in them: that when I am only a little concerned in asking of the Lord the inestimable comfort of His help, my spiritual duties afford me little comfort in the exercise, and leave no lasting impressions. On the contrary, when I am importunate with the Lord to put life and power in the ordinances, and to make me feel some correspondent affections, I am enabled to say, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."

VENN.

TO G. E. M.

MADAM,

I WELCOME with delight the promise afforded by your late papers; anticipating the rescue of all our pleasurable occupations from the obloquy under which they have fallen among religious people. With a precipitancy peculiar to my character, I sold my jewels, though I was in no want of money, as soon as I saw in God's word that he prefers the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit: it did not occur to me till afterwards, that the jewels were his workmanship, and properly became my wealth and station. Under a similar impetus, I dismissed my music master, and gave away my piano, because I was persuaded that my whole time should be devoted to spiritual pursuits, and works of charity; and it never occurred to me that God might have a purpose for the musical talent with which he had endowed me. In like manner, I left a mansion, in which I could well afford to live, and which, for generations, had been the seat of hospitality, and took a house barely large enough to hold my family, determining to see no company but my father and mother, and the minister of the parish; that, abridging the claims. upon my attention, I might give it wholly to my children, and the neighbouring poor. It never came into my mind, till I read your last paper, that others

than these might have a right to some enjoyment from my abundant income. But no one is so easily convinced as I am; I have already recalled the music master, and am going to order a new dinner service; and I shall wait, not altogether patiently, for the occurrence of other subjects on which I desire to be enlightened. But there is one for which I find it so impossible to wait, I must ask you to excuse my freedom in pressing it upon you-Chrismas holidays and Christmas festivities bring it so urgently to mind, I almost wonder you have not anticipated my request.

My aptitude to learn, and promptness to act upon the advice that is given me, whilst it sometimes brings me to too hasty a decision, has, in one case, doomed me to endless indecision; for my best advisers are at variance upon the point. On the one hand, a pious friend, whose opinion has always been as law to me, refused a school I was anxious to recommend to her, because the word dancing appeared in the prospectus. On the other hand, calling one morning at my pious rector's, I learned that his children were engaged with their dancing master. My inclinations were too much on the side of the church in this instance, not to yield to its authority; and I was about to engage the same dancing master for my children, when I heard from the same rector an impressive sermon, touching on the sinful tendency of worldly amusements-balls and theatres in particular; with a closing injunction, to bring up our children in the way that they should go. What can I do? my girls had a party of little friends the other night; and after many playful gambols, the daughters of the rector proposed that they should

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dance. My pious friend was the only person present who could play, and she refused. I thought her extreme, and remonstrated; but she answered with great simplicity, that her own daughters were present, to whom she had refused the supposed advantage of a dancing master; and she could not be accessary to exciting in them a wish that they could dance, when it was not her intention to teach them. I was not sorry for the decision, because I had not yet had the dancing master: but my wish to do so was great, and I determined to collect all the arguments on the favourable side. Alas! they have only plunged me into more inextricable doubtings. Every parent I consult upon it, takes a different ground. One maintains that dancing, and learning to dance, have no sort of connection; and the one may be right while the other is indisputably wrong. Another argues that, though going to a dance is irreconcileable with religion, there is no harm in dancing in the abstract. Some think the way to discourage a practice, is to promote it; and that to prevent our children dancing, we must enable them to do it well. One cut the threat, by declaring that dancing itself is authorized in the scripture; and one, something more bold, but to the full, is candid as the rest, admitted the practice to be evil; but maintained that it is indispensable.

And now, madam, I have no resource but in yourself. You have so successfully vindicated the purpose of God in our natural gifts, and the consideration of his goodness even for our temporal enjoyment, I cannot doubt but you will be able to remove from the "dance" as you have from the "song," the characters of sin with which perversion has invested it, and