enforce the remedy. Do all you can to promote true seri ousness and a real sense of religion; cultivate to the utmost of your power the spirit and practice of rational and pure devotion. Neglect not family worship and the religious instruction of your children; and habituate them to attention to the Scriptures and to public worship, if would not leave them to fall into scepticism and unbelief.

you

It will be in vain for you to complain of the existence of Unbelievers in some of your churches, if you do not adopt such measures as are calculated to prevent their increase. If you could banish every Sceptic and Unbeliever now found among you, if you continued to neglect the advice which, with all plainness and faithfulness, I now give you others would soon spring up among you; but I hope bet ter things of you, my brethren. I entreat and beseech you, by the love I bear you, by my former labours among you, by your regard to your own eternal welfare, by your concern for the happiness of your families in time and to eternity, and by your regard to the glory of God and the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, to consider what I have said in this letter, to lay it to heart and reduce it to practice. In my next letter I shall enter on another subject.

In the mean time, I remain, with ardent wishes and fervent prayers for the prosperity of your churches, most faithfully and affectionately, Yours, &c.,

R. WRIGHT.

Mahometan Zeal and Orthodoxy..

[From Denham and Clapperton's Travels in Northern and Central Africa. 4to. 1826. Pp. 123–125.]

APRIL 25th. The news of the presents I had produced brought early this morning fifteen of the sultan's sons, with double the number of followers, to my tent: they all wanted gunpowder, knives and scissors; I had, however, neither one nor the other to give them. Two or three of the oldest of the princes got a French silk handkerchief each, and one a pair of cotton socks, and of course the others, went away sadly discontented. I this morning ventured to make two attempts at sketching, but my apparatus and myself were carried off without ceremony to the sultan. My pencils marking without ink created great astonishment, and the facility with which its traces were effaced by Indian rubber seemed still more astonishing. My old antagonist Malem

Chadily was there, and affected to treat me with great com plaisance: he talked a great deal about me and my country, which made his hearers repeatedly cry out," Y-e-0-0-0 !" but what the purport of his observations were I could not make out. I endeavoured, however, to forget all his former adeness, took every thing in good part, and appeared quite upon as good terms with him as he evidently wished to appear to be with me. Several words were written both by him and the others, which the rubber left no remains of; at length the fighi wrote, Bismillah Arachmani Aracheme, (In the name of the great and most merciful God,) in large Koran characters: he made so deep an impression on the paper, that after using the Indian rubber the words still appeared legible. "This will not quite disappear," said I. "No, no," exclaimed the fighi, exulting; they are the words of God delivered to our prophet. I defy you to erase them!" Probably so," said I; "then it will be vain to try." He shewed the paper to the sultan and them around him with great satisfaction; they all exclaimed, "Y-e-o-o-o! La illah el Allah! Mohammed rassoul Allah!" cast looks at me expressive of mingled pity and contempt, and I was well pleased when allowed to take my 'departure.

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The whole of this scene was repeated to Barca Gana in his tent in the evening, and they all exclaimed, "Wonderful! wonderful!" and as I did not contradict any part of this account, the fighi thus addressed me : Rais, you have seen a miracle! I will shew you hundreds, performed alone by the words of the wonderful book. You have a book also, you say; but it must be false. Why? Because it says nothing of Saidna Mohammed; that is enough. Shed! Shed! turn! turn! Say, God is God, and Mohammed is his Prophet. Sully (wash) and become clean, and paradise is open to you without this, what can save you from eternal fire? Nothing! Oh! I shall see you, while sitting in the third heaven, in the midst of the flames, crying out to your friend Barca Gana and myself Malem, Saherbi, (friend,) give me a drink or a drop of water!' but the gulf will be between us, and then it will be too late." The Malem's tears flowed in abundance during this harangue, and every body appeared affected by his eloquence. I felt myself at this period extremely uncomfortable; and Barca Gana, who saw my distress, called me into the inner tent, where nobody accompanied him except by invitation. The fighi,"

said he, “is a ragal alem" (a very clever man). « Very likely," said I; "but he surely might leave me to my own belief, as I leave him to his." "Staffer Allah!" (God forbid!) said he "do not compare them." " I do not," said I, "God knows; but you, Kasbella, should protect me from such repeated annoyances." "No," replied Barca "in this I cannot interfere. Malem is a holy man. Please God you will be enlightened, and I know the sheikh wishes it; he likes you, and would you stay amongst us he would give you fifty slaves of great beauty, build you a house like his son's, and give you wives from the families of any of his subjects you choose." "Were you to return to England with me, Kashella, as you sometimes talk about, with the sheikh's permission, would it not be disgraceful for you to turn Christian and remain? Were I to do as you would have me, how should I answer to my sultan who sent me?" "God forbid!" said he. "You are comparing our faiths again. I propose to you eternal paradise, while you would bring me to "Not a word more," said I. "Good night. Peace be with you." I hope we shall always be friends," said be. "Please God," returned I. said the Kashella.

"Amen,"

Penitent Malefactor's Address to our Lord. SIR, Dalston, September 8, 1826. AMONG the many interesting traits of character which the Scriptures exhibit, few, I think, exceed the account of the penitent malefactor, recorded in Luke xxiii. 40—43. * According to the expectations of the Jews, the Messiah was to have been a great personage, who would restore the Israelitish nation to its former glory, and, after rescuing them from the oppression of their conquerors, become their sovereign.

Such were not the pretensions of the man who presented himself as the claimant of this high distinction: born in humble life, the associate of fishermen and the lower orders of society, the preacher of a doctrine which possessed no attractions for the worldly-disposed aud self-opinionated, but levelled the pre-eminence of which they boasted, and raised those to an equality whom they despised.

The few who became the disciples of Jesus, I imagine, were attracted by the hope of gain; they flattered themselves, no doubt, with the idea that Christ would establish

a temporal kingdom, and raise them to the highest offices in it; for we find (Mark ix. 34) "they disputed among themselves who should be the greatest;" Luke xx. 21, "the mother of Zebedee's children" desired places for her sons; and all indeed, from a misconstruction of his language, entertained false conceptions of his character.

With impressions like these, can we conceive of the disappointment and dismay which pervaded the minds of the disciples when on the cross hung he whom in anticipation they had long beheld as the "Prince of the kings of the earth"? Was not their faith then shaken, and did not their hearts inwardly respond to the exclamation of the mocking populace which surrounded them, "If he be the Christ, let him come down from the cross, and we will believe in him;" "He saved others, let him save himself”?

Yet under all these circumstances, the partner of his fate believed; and, rebuking the other malefactor for his unreasonable request, he contrasted their guilt and the justice of their punishment with the innocence of Jesus; and, separating external appearances from reality, he ad dressed the dying man, in language apparently unsuitable to his situation, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.'

Perhaps he might have heard some of our Lord's discour ses, or he might even have witnessed some of the miracles he wrought, but he was certainly destitute of those private admonitions and instructions; the transfiguration, the ministration of angels, the voice from heaven, he had never observed: these and many other advantages the apostles possessed, but they left to the penitent malefactor the sole honour of furnishing to the world an example of a faith uninfluenced by conditions, and a true, philosophic resigna, tion to the will of God.

GUILLAUME

Curious Superstition in Edward the Third's Reign.

ABOUT the year 1350, in the reign of Edward III., the dreadful pestilence which had broken out in the North of Asia, and with a destroying course made its way through Europe, approached England, This plague was called The Black Death; and it truly deserved the name in England, where it has been said that nine out of ten persons were swept away by the awful calamity. This is probably

an exaggeration, though it is chronicled that there fell at Yarmouth above 7000 persons, and in Norwich more than 50,000. It is complained that the plague stripped the church of the priests. Law-suits and sessions of Parlia ment were suspended. The poor Jews were charged with the visitation, though it is difficult to conceive how they drew it down upon the country.

Lingard, the Roman Catholic writer of the History of England, thus describes the effects of the plague upon some men's minds:

"The piety of the age attributed this destructive visitation to the anger of the Almighty; but in speculating on the causes which provoked that anger, every writer seems to have been swayed by personal prejudices or local considerations. All, however, embraced the opportunity to inveigh against the prevailing extravagance of dress, the silk hoods and party-coloured coats of the men, their deep sleeves and narrow confined waists, the indecent shortness of their hose, and the ridiculous length of their pointed shoes, the bushy beard before and the tail of hair behind. Some had even the temerity to extend their censure to the females, whom they affected to describe as having renounced the native modesty of their sex, to ape the manners and adopt in a great measure the dress of the men. No lady of distinction, if we may believe them, could now ride on a palfrey; she must be mounted on a spirited charger. Her head was encircled with a turban, or covered with a species of mitre of enormous height, from the summit of which ribbons floated in the air like the streamers from the head of a mast. Her tunie was half of one colour and half of another: a zone deeply embroidered and richly orna mented with gold, confined her waist, and from it were suspended in front two daggers in their respective pouches. Thus attired she rode in the company of her knight to justs and tournaments, partook of the different diversions of the men, and by her levity and indiscretion afforded food to the lovers and retailers of scandal. Whatever the reader may think of these censures, he must be entertained with the descriptions.

"But there is one discovery I must not omit, that of the fanatics denominated Flagellants or Whippers. It was their peculiar felicity not only to know that the mortality was sent in punishment of sin, but to be in possession of the only means by which the remission of sin could be