It was

stant danger of being betrayed into more than they wished of the character of political partisans. But it is still more glaringly evident that the Huguenots had a grand cause and object simply as Protestants; and that to this the great body of them were infinitely more devoted at all times than they ever were, at any moment, to any merely political object. In fact, the great body of them were devoted to this alone, insomuch, that if they did at any time support the personal designs of any distinguished leader, it was from being led to believe that this was the most direct way to their great object. Religious liberty, or so much of liberty as is comprehended in full toleration, was uniformly that object. It was for this that they were driven by relentless and aggravated oppressions to take up arms. because they were placed by a popish government, in the alternative of returning to a Church which they solemnly believed they had convicted of the grossest errors, impositions, and iniquities; and which courted them with anathemas, inquisitors, and denunciations of fire and sword ;-the alternative of returning to such a Church, or of being exterminated. They thought it their duty to expose themselves to the not greater perils of the field of battle, in the solemn experiment, whether Providence would not enable them to deliver themselves from this condition, and to vindicate for themselves, and secure for their posterity, the freedom of religious opinions and worship. And brave as they were, quite to the romantic pitch, they gladly threw down their arms the very first moment the concessions of their enemies allowed them to believe that object attained. But the hatred of the popish party, burned without intermission; and it was not long before the inefficacy of the enactments in their favour, unredressed outrages, and a universal, urgent sense of insecurity, compelled the Huguenots again to the last resort. Again they were readily disarmed by concessions and promises; too readily, we have always thought, in contemplating the history of those times; and again it was not long before the non-fulfilment of the most formal stipulations, numerous assassinations, for which no one was punished, and unequivocal signs of the most deadly intentions, would bring them once more into the field, to be yet again too readily disarmed by the treacherous professions and engagements of those whose power had failed to disarm them. That, with the great body of them, the sole object of all their zeal and exertions, was that religious liberty which they had avowed as their end, and that, this being granted them, they would have been zealously loyal to a popish government, is attested by l'Hôpital and Mr. Butler, who celebrate the unreserved fidelity and gallantry they displayed in its service, in one of the intervals in which the required toleration appeared to be granted.

Through this long period, down to the massacre of St. Bartholomew, whatever uncertain proportion of more liberal and humane adherents to the Church of Rome there might be in France, the Protestants experienced from the predominant portion, from that which effectively constituted the state, a conduct systematically bigoted, treacherous, and sanguinary. And that infernal tragedy itself-did it excite in the Catholic part of the nation any loud and extensive manifestations of abhorrence? Were not the executioners in the provinces as prompt and numerous as in the metropolis? Was there any indignant commotion through the grand mass of the ecclesiastics of France, bursting out into solemn anathemas on all the designers and actors? Was there ever one of the miscreants, from the King, that fired from his windows, and cried out-Kill them, kill them,-down to the butcher, who boasted how effectually he had executed this mandate, touched by the Holy Office, which had tortured so many victims for a few words of scepticism or disrespect to the Church? And the grand metropolis of that Church, which had sent forth so many vindictive fulminations, did Rome issue any of its tremendous denunciations? Was there in any portion of the Catholic world, any grand public manifesto to consign, in the name of the Church and its religion, all persons concerned in the transaction to infamy? Was there even any prohibition or repression of public rejoicings on the occasion? Was there, in short, any thing in the transaction itself so perfectly in opposition to the spirit which the Church of Rome had displayed, in innumerable instances, in the preceding times? On what ground could that Church be required to look, from its proud eminence, over the world, with a different visage from that which had been beheld by the Waldenses and Albigenses?

It is not without some degree of compassion, mingling with harsher feelings, that we view the lot of such men as Mr. Butler and Mr. Eustace. It is rather a melancholy destiny, we think, to be fascinated to a Church, which rises to view, on the great field of history, like a mountain beset almost all over with gibbets, fires, racks, black orifices of dungeons, savages for inHicting torments and death, and graves of martyrs. And it is melancholy to see such men labouring to soothe and coax the revolting, struggling repugnance of their better feelings, striving to qualify the characteristic facts with which their Church glares upon them, and seeking for any occasional or collateral causes to charge such facts upon, rather than the genuine inherent spirit of that Church. When driven to condemn, unequivocally and emphatically, some of the enormities which resulted from the intrinsic quality of the Church, they contrive, with admirable dexterity, to obey the precept of hating the sin and yet loving

the sinner. They would be smitten with horror at the suggestion of execrating and abandoning the Church, which not only has perpetrated such things, but has never been induced to avow, in any public solemn form, its repentance of them, and to enjoin, at length, on all its adherents, the duty of giving a full toleration to Protestants. How would any suggestion of this kind be received at the Court of Rome? How would it, at any moment, for half a millennium past, have been there received? How would it be received by the vast majority of ecclesiastics of all Catholic Europe, excepting France? These gentlemen know perfectly well that in those countries where the Catholic Church retains its full prevalence, the most furious hatred is still entertained against what they call the heretics; and that, in a large portion of Europe, the attempt to form a congregation of protestant worshippers, would infallibly draw down the instant rancourous vengeance of ecclesiastics, of magistrates, and of the populace. Such is, palpably, the Church which these intelligent persons revere as representative of heaven upon earth. We cannot allow them to make another Church of their own, with ever so much liberality, tolerance, and so forth, among its constituent qualities. and to let themselves fancy they are good Catholics, while they adhere to such an imaginary Church. The plain question for them is,-Are you of the actual Church of Rome, or not? The real, essential nature of that Church is still palpable in its spirit and works;-do you adopt that Church or not? If you are really the friends of religious freedom, by what paltering with conscience do you elude the conviction of the duty of becoming Protestants? In how many centuries do you expect that the actual Church of Rome will come to that liberality and charity, which you to profess to admire, and the contraries of which you must, therefore, abhor?

Art. IV. Journal of a Voyage from Okkak on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, westward of Cape Chudleigh; undertaken to ́explore the Coast, and visit the Esquimaux in that unknown Region. By Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch, Missionaries of the Church of the Unitas Fratrum, or United Brethren. Le · Fevre. 2, Chapel place. Seeley. 1814.

(Concluded from our last.)

IN reading their own account of these and similar enterprises, we cannot avoid being struck with the activity and perseverance of the missionaries; and the mere philosopher of second causes, would look upon these, aided as they frequently are by the most fortunate and unlooked for conjuncture. of circum

Journal of a Voyage from Okkak.

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stances, as sufficient to explain the whole secret of their unexampled success. But the Moravians are men of prayer. They wrestle with God, and never let go the engine, of which it has been said, that it moves Him who moves the universe. Were we to confine ourselves to a mere record of the visible events, we doubt not that many would receive it as a complete history of their missionary undertakings. But let us do no such injustice to their own narrative, and to the uniform spirit of piety and dependence which pervades it. Previously to the grant by the Privy Council, Jens Haven tells us, that the mission in Labrador was the constant subject of his prayers and meditations, and that with prayer and supplication he committed himself, and the cause he was to serve, unto the Lord. In the progress of the business we read much of his self-examinations and confessions, and of his crying out unto the Lord for help, and for faith to commit himself and his cause to Divine protection. This is a fair specimen of a Moravian missionary; and these are the deep and holy exercises with which the world cannot sympathize, and which the men of the world banish altogether from the history of human affairs. They form the turning point of the machinery, without which nothing would be accomplished; and they who smile at the occult influence which lies in a believer's prayer, should be informed, that to this principle alone do the Moravian preachers attribute the whole of that sensible effect on which they lavish all their admiration.

Such has been the success of the Moravians in these three settlements, that, in 1788, the whole number of the baptized, from the commencement, amounted to one hundred and four, of which sixty-three were then alive; and the actual number of baptized, and of candidates for baptism, in 1812, was two hundred and ninety-two. They have translated the Gospels into the Esquimaux language, and are proceeding with the other books of the New Testament. They have taught many of the natives to read and to write. These poor barbarians can now carry on an epistolary correspondence with the Moravians in this country, and in point of scholarship, and of civil accomplishment, are farther advanced than the great mass of the peasantry in England.

The following extracts from some of their latest periodical accounts, will give a more correct exhibition of the spirit and proceedings of the missionaries, than can be done by any description.

Your kind letter conveys strong proof of your participation in the work of God among the Esquimaux here, and of your joy at all the good which the Lord has done for us. You also mention that you join in our prayers that new life from God would visit our young people. We hope and trust with you

'that the Lord will, in his own time, so powerfully awaken 'them by his grace that they can no longer resist. With respect to the adults, we have again abundant cause for thankfulness in reporting what the Lord has done for them in the year past. The greater part are advancing to a more perfect 'knowledge of themselves and the power of his grace, and afford thereby a proof to others of the necessity of conversion. The 'schools have been attended, during the past winter, not without blessing, to which the books printed in the Esquimaux lan'guage, and sent to us by you, have contributed much. Since the departure of the ship last year, three persons have been admitted to the Holy Communion, one adult and three children baptized, and six admitted as candidates for baptism. Of the Esquimaux belonging to our congregation here, twenty-five ' are communicants, one of whom is excluded; fourteen bap⚫tized adults, of whom two are excluded; twenty-nine baptized 'children, and twenty candidates for baptism, in all eighty'eight persons. We cannot precisely state the number of Esquimaux who dwell on our land, as some of them purpose ' removing to Okkak, and one family from the heathen has come to us. The whole number may be about one hundred and fifty. 'As the highly respected British and Foreign Bible Society has again intimated their willingness to print part of the holy scriptures in the Esquimaux language, we accept their offer with 'much gratitude, and shall send, by the return of the ship, the Gospels according to St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, which our late brother Burghardt was still able to revise, re'questing you, at the same time, to salute the society most cor'dially on our behalf, and to assure them of our great esteen ⚫ and veneration. They have our best wishes and prayers, that 'their exertions may be crowned by the Lord with abundant success, in the salvation of many thousand human creatures in all 'parts of the globe.

6

The outward wants of our Esquimaux have been but scantily 'supplied during the last winter, as the seal fishing in nets did not succeed, only sixty-six being taken and they were able to 'get but little when they went out on kajaks, or on the thin ice. It was very providential that the supply of provisions sent for the Esquimaux by the ship last year, enabled us to relieve 'their most pressing necessities. The want was severely felt in 'spring, owing to the long continuance of the cold, with much snow, which prevented the seals from coming hither till late in the season. The Esquimaux bad, consequently, to be sup'ported for a considerable time out of the store, which occa'sioned us no small uneasiness, on account of the debts which 'they unavoidably contracted. Nor were these circumstances,