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mittee "are but too visible in the whole of their proceedings." "They have acted under strong irritation and vindictive feeling, whatever be its source." They had never a "very cordial" intercourse with the Parent Society. And the Reviewer hopes that his remarks will " confound the machinations of those who would divide, and if possible ruin, an institution which is the glory of our country and the hope of the world!" (pp. 12, 14, 15.)

The length to which this letter has been protracted does not allow me to make any comments upon these INCONSISTENT statements, although some of them deserve serious reprehension. It will, however, sufficiently answer my purpose to have pointed them out. Many of the readers of the Christian Guardian, I doubt not, will conclude, with me, that a writer who has taken such little pains to arrange his own

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ideas on this subject, was not well qualified to direct the public opinion on the reasonings of others. flatters himself that he has “not overlooked any essential part of the argument in this discussion, while, in truth, he has met neither a single fact nor argument of the case; but has founded the whole of his observations upon the gratuitous assumption that "our own canon" of Scripture "may possibly include books not inspired." It is lamentable to think, that, in supporting a weak position, any individual can thus trifle with the question of the inspiration of the Sacred Writings! May the God of the Bible avert the fearful consequences which may attend discussions so conducted, and confirm the faith of his servants in the truth and efficacy of his holy Word!

GEORGE CORNELIUS GORHAM.

Clapham, Surrey, Sept. 22, 1825.

THE PRESENT WORLD.
WHAT is this passing scene?
A peevish April-day?

A little sun-a little rain

And then night sweeps along the plain,
And all things fade away:

Man (soon discuss'd) Yields up his trust;

And all his hopes and fears lie with him in the dust!

And what is beauty's power?

It flourishes and dies;

Will the cold earth it's silence break,
To tell how soft, how smooth, a cheek
Beneath it's surface lies?

Mute, mute is all O'er beauty's fall;

Her praise resounds no more, when mantled in her pail.

The most belov'd on earth

Not long survives to-day;

So music past is obsolete,

And yet 'twas sweet, 'twas passing sweet,

But now 'tis gone away :

Thus does the shade, In memory fade,

When in forsaken tomb the form belov'd is laid!

Then since this world is vain

And volatile and fleet,

Why should I lay up earthly joys,
Where rust corrupts and moth destroys,

And cares and sorrows eat?

Why fly from ill With anxious skill,

When soon this hand will freeze, this throbbing heart lie still?

KIRKE WHITE.

4

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

The Substance of a Journal during a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America; and frequent Excursions among the North-West American Indians. By John West, M. A. late Chaplain to the Hudson's-Bay Company. Pp. xi. & 210. Seeley: 1824. Ir has pleased Divine Providence to place under British controul very extensive territories in far distant parts of the globe. In addition to our empire in the East-an empire exceeding those of Alexander or of Cæsar-we are the undisputed monarchs of New Holland; have an unlimited territory in Africa; and are governors of an immense region in North America, extending from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific, and measured rather by degrees of latitude and longitude than by the puny standards of miles or leagues.

Of various parts of these possessions our information is very scanty and imperfect. Few travellers have so much as attempted to explore the immense tracks of the Hudson'sBay Company's possessions; and, large as they are, they have attracted little notice until of late years, when some unhappy quarrels, which had a sanguinary termination, brought them more within the field of public view.

Our information as to their moral state is still more defective; and we have therefore read with painful interest the work before us, which shews that in the North, as well as the East, the profligacy of Europeans, and the criminal neglect of Government in not providing adequate religious instruction, have produced the most lamentable effects. The original inhabitants of all our colonies have been rendered still more corrupt and licentious by their connexion with us; and the unhappy settlers have too commonly given way to immoral and disgraceful practices. The consequence has been, that depraved and vicious ост. 1825.

habits are formed that every new settler is assailed with powerful temptations, and finds comparatively few, if any, to encourage his perse

verance in moral and virtuous con

duct;-that, if once he yield to temptation, there are none to remind him of his guilt and his danger, while many will combine to keep him in countenance, and persuade him that, under such peculiar circumstances, he could not act otherwise, and therefore need not apprehend either human or divine displeasure. Hence, also, every attempt at moral and religious improvement has to contend with almost insurmountable obstacles, and the most patient and indefatigable agents are at length compelled to relinquish the almost hopeless task.

Such are the ideas which have sprung up in our minds from the perusal of Mr. West's Journal. It is the plain, unvarnished, honest narrative of a pious and judicious Clergyman, who went out, in 1820, as chaplain to the Hudson's-Bay Company, and under the patronage also of the Church Missionary Society;who endeavoured to form and carry into effect plans for the education of the numerous offspring of Europeans by Indian women; and to collect a few native Indian children, and train them up in Christian and civilized habits—and who, after labouring with great zeal and assiduity for three years, and erecting the first Protestant church in this immense wilderness, returned to England, under the idea of conveying his wife and family to the seat of his labours; but who, from some cause, not here assigned, has been induced or compelled to relinquish his important services. We fear he has been compelled to quit the field:

and that the same evil influence

with which our ministers and missionaries have had to contend in the East and the West, has also been exerted in the North, to prevent the 3 E

permanent exertions of an individual who appears, with the spirit of an Apostle and a Martyr, to have devoted himself to the work of an Evangelist.

The following extracts from Mr. West's Journal will confirm these observations, which, we are compelled to remark, apply very generally to a large proportion of the British colonies and possessions. The whole subject demands the serious attention, not only of the Christian public, but of the British statesman. If the empire of England is to be perpetuated in those territories which are now under her controul, some more effectual means must be adopted for their moral and religious improvement. The most formidable enemies of Great Britain

will, we doubt not, be found among the country-born of India, the coloured population of the West Indies, and the half-breeds of our North American possessions ;-men who, to a large portion of European activity, add a considerable degree of native cunning, and who, from a low, debased, and vicious education, are prepared to indulge ambition and cruelty whenever an opportunity is afforded. This may appear to some of our readers strong language, but we fear it is not stronger than the actual circumstances of the case will justify.

Of the moral depravity Mr. W. speaks,

The blasphemy of the men, in the difficulties they had to encounter, was truly painful to me. I had hoped better things of the Scotch, from their known moral and enlightened education; but their horrid imprecations proved a degeneracy of character in an Indian country. This I lamented to find was too generally the case with Europeans, particularly so in their barbarous treatment of women. They do not admit them as their companions, nor do they allow them to eat at their tables, but degrade them merely as slaves to their arbitrary inclinations; while the children grow up wild and uncultivated as the heathen.-Pp. 15, 16.

Many of these Indians were strong, athletic men, and generally well-propor

tioned; their countenances were pleasing, with aquiline noses, and beautifully white and regular teeth.-The leggins of some of them were fringed with human hair, taken from the scalps of their enemies; and their mocasins, or shoes, were neatly ornamented with porcupine quills. They are notorious horse-stealers, and often make predatory excursions to the Mandan villages on the banks of the Missouri, to steal them.-Such indeed is their propensity for this species of theft, that they have fired upon, and killed the Company's servants, close to the fort, for these useful animals. They take as many wives as they please, and part with them for a season, or for a gun, a horse, or some article they may wish to possess. All the lowest and most laborious drudgery is imposed upon the woman, and she is not permitted to eat till after her lord has finished his meal, who, amidst the burdensome toil of life, and a desultory and precarious existence, will only condescend to carry his gun, take care of his horse, and hunt as want may compel him.-Pp. 38, 39.

rupted in their simple and barbarous

The Indians have been greatly cor

manners, by their intercourse with Europeans, many of whom have borne scarcely any other mark of the Christian character than the name; and who have not only fallen into the habits of an Indian life, but have frequently exceeded the savage in their savage customs. When a female is taken by them, it does not appear that her wishes are at all consulted, but she is obtained from the lodge as an inmate at the Fort, for the prime of her days generally, through that irresistible bribe to Indians, rum.-Pp. 53, 54.

One of the principal settlers informed me this morning, that an Indian had stabbed one of his wives in a fit of intoxication at an encampment near his house. I immediately went to the Lodge to inquire into the circumstance, and found that the poor woman had been stabbed in wanton cruelty, through the shoulder and the arm, but not mortally. The Indians were still drunk, and some of them having knives in their hands, I thought it most prudent to withdraw from their tents, without offering any assistance. The Indians appear to me to be generally of an inoffensive and hospitable disposition; but spiritous liquors, like war, and barbarous feelings. They are infuriate them with the most revengeful conscious of this effect of drinking, that and arrows, and knives, to the officers, they generally deliver up their guns, bows before they begin to drink at the Company's post; and when at their tents, it is the first care of the women to conceal them, during the season of riot and intoxication.-P. 56.

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A daughter has driven her aged Indian father, lashed, in his buffalo robe, on

a sledge, to the colony. He appeared to be in a very weak and dying state, and has suffered much from the want of provisions. I was much pleased with this instance of filial affection and care. Sometimes the aged and infirm are abandoned or destroyed. The Chipwyan or Northern Indians are no sooner burdened with their relations, broken with years and infirmities, and incapable of following the camp, than they leave them to their fate. Instead of repining, they are reconciled to this dreadful termination of their existence, from the known custom of their nation, and being conscious that they can no longer endure the various distresses and fatigue of savage life, or assist in hunting for provisions. A little meat, with an axe, and a small portion of tobacco, are generally left with them by their nearest relations, who, in taking leave of them, say, that it is time for them to go into the other world, which they suppose lies just beyond the spot where the sun goes down, where they will be better taken care of than with them, and then they walk away weeping. On the banks of the Saskashawan, an aged woman prevailed on her son to shoot her through the head, instead of adopting this sad extremity. She addressed him in a most pathetic manner, reminding him of the care and toil with which she bore him

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on her back from camp to camp in his infancy; with what incessant labour she brought him up till he could use the bow and the gun; and having seen him a great warrior, she requested that he would shew her kindness, and give a proof of his courage, in shooting her, that she might go home to her relations. "I have seen many winters," she added, “and am now become a burden, in not being able to assist in getting provisions; and dragging me through the country, as I am unable to walk, is a toil, and brings much distress-take your gun. She then drew her blanket over her head, and her son immediately deprived her of life; in the apparent consciousness of having done an act of filial duty and of mercy.-P. 124. The character of the North American Indian is bold, fierce, unrelenting, san.. guinary, and cruel; in fact, a man-devil in war, rejoicing in blood, exulting in the torments he is inflicting on his victim, and then most pleased when his inflictions are most exquisite.Our surprise ceases when we learn that he is trained up in blood, that he is catechized in cruelty, and that he is instructed not in slaughter only, but in torment. Nothing that has life without the pale of his own immediate circle not only does not escape destruction, but is visited with torment also inflicted by his infant hand. If his eye in passing by the lake observes the frog moving in the rushes, he instantly seizes his victim, and does not merely destroy it, but often ingeniously torments it by pulling limb

from limb. If the duck be but wounded with the gun, his prey is not instantly dispatched to spare all future pain, but feather is plucked out after feather, and the hapless creature is tormented on principle.- -At one moment he satisfies the cravings of nature from the breast of his mother, and instantly rewards the boon with a violent blow perhaps on the very breast on which he has been hanging. Nor does the mother dare resent the injury by an appeal to the father. He would at once say, that punishment would daunt the spirit of the boy. Hence the Indian never suffers his child to be corrected. We see then the secret spring of his character. He is a murderer by habit, engendered from his earliest age; and the scalping knife, and the tomakawk, and the unforgiving pursuit of his own enemy, or his father's enemy, till he has drenched his hands in, and satiated his revenge with his blood, is but the necessary issue of a principle on which his education has been formed.-Pp. 152-154.

The following extracts point out some of the difficulties with which Mr. W. had to contend, and shew the fatal tendency of Popery to rivet the bonds of sensuality upon its unhappy subjects.

The prejudices which the Canadian priests at the colony express against Catholics marrying Protestants must tend to weaken the religious and moral obligation of the marriage contract, as entered into between them. I have known the priests refuse to marry the parties of the above different persuasions, at the time that they were cohabiting together, as though it were better for them to live in fornication, than that they should violate the rigid statutes of the Papal see.

I married a couple a short time ago, and afterwards found that the priests had been unwearied in calling upon the woman who was a professed Protestant, and never ceased to repeat to her their opinions of heretics, till, with the persuasion of her husband, they prevailed upon her to be re-baptized, and re-married by them in the nominal profession of the Catholic faith. And I was assured by a Swiss gentleman at the settlement, who had married a Catholic from Montreal, that some months after their marriage, one of the priests called upon his wife, and told her that it would have been better for her to have married a heathen, than a Protestant. A heathen, he said, might be converted to the Catholic faith, and be saved, but little hope could be entertained of a Protestant. These circumstances prove that Popery, as it now exists, at least in this quarter of the globe, is not contrary to what it was in the days of the Reformation.-Pp. 75, 76.

and carried into effect, if patronized by an active co-operation, which would ultimately result in producing great benefits to the half-caste population, and the Indians in general. There is an opening for schools on the banks of the Saskashawan, where the soil is good for cultivation, as well as on the banks of the Athabasca river; and frequent applications reached me to forward their establishment in those quarters, under the prospect of their being supported through the produce that might be raised from the soil, and the supplies to be obtained from the waters and the chase.-P. 107.

The following passage deserves serious attention by all the friends to missions among the heathen.

Without the curb of civil restraint, the settlement can hold out but faint hopes of answering in any way the expectations of its patrons. Till morality and religion form its basis, disappointment must follow. Nor can I imagine that the system taught by the Canadian Catholic priests will avail any thing materially in benefitting the morals of the people; they are bigotted to opinions which are calcu lated to fetter the human mind, to cramp human exertion, and to keep their dependents in perpetual leading-strings. Their doctrine is," Extra Ecclesiam Romanam, salus non esse potest "("there is no salvation beyond the pale of the Roman church"). They appear to me to teach Christianity only as a dry system of ecclesiastical statutes, without a shadow of spirituality. While they multiply holidays, to the interruption of human industry, as generally complained of by those who employ Canadians, they lightly regard the Sabbath; and sanction the practice of spending the evenings of this sacred day at cards, or in the dance. In their tinkling service of worshipping the elevated host as the very God himself, they fall down also in adoration to the Virgin Mary and proudly arrogate to the church of Rome the absolute interpretation of Scripture; forbidding the people to examine whether she does it rightly or not. I thank God that I am a Protestant against such idolatry and ecclesiastical tyranny! Pp. 120-122.

It was now hinted to me, that the interest I was taking in the education of the native children, had already excited the fears of some of the chief factors and traders, as to the extent to which it might be carried. Though a few conversed liberally with me on the subject, there were others who were apprehensive that the extension of knowledge among the natives, and the locating them in agricultural pursuits, where practicable, would operate as an injury to the fur trade. My reply on the contrary was, that if Christian knowledge were gradually diffused among the natives throughout the vast territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the North Pacific, it would best promote the honour and advantages of all parties concerned in the fur trade, and which I was persuaded was the general enlightened opinion of the Directors in London.-P. 92.

We have a considerable number of halfcaste children, and some adult Indian women, married to Europeans, who attend a Sunday-school, for gratuitous instruction; and I have no doubt that their numbers will increase considerably in the spring. These children have capacity, and would rival Europeans, with the like instruction, in the development of their mental faculties. Extensive plans might be devised,

Of all men, the missionary most needs strong faith, with a simple reliance upon the providence and promises of God in the trials that await him. His path is indeed an arduous one. Many unexpected circumstances will oppose his conscientious endeavours to fulfil his calling; and difficulties will surround him in every shape, so as to put his patience, his hopes of usefulness, and steady perseverance, severely to the test. He will often exclaim in the deep conviction of his mind, who is sufficient for the great undertaking?— Experience in the missionary field has convinced me, that there are indeed but few among a thousand qualified for the difficult and exalted work. If that eminent missionary, St. Paul, abounding in zeal, and in all the graces of the Spirit, thought it needful to solicit the prayers of the churches, that "the word of the Lord might run, and have free course," how earnest ought our entreaties to be of all friends of missions to "pray for us,". who, if we feel aright, must feel our own insignificance, in our labours among the heathen, and in our services to the Christian church, when compared with the labours of the Apostles, or with those of a Swartz, a Brainerd, or a Martyn.-Pp. 111, 112.

Mr. W. concludes by remarking, In sending this volume to the press, I feel that I am discharging a duty which I owe to the natives of the rocks and of the wilderness, whom I have seen in the darkness and misery of heathenism; and I ardently desire that the Mission already entered upon, may become the means of widely extending the knowledge of Christianity among them. I have no higher wish in life, than to spend and be spent in the service of Christ, for the salvation of the North American Indians. Not my will, however, but His be done, who alone can direct and control all Missions successfully, to the fulfilment of His prophetic word, when " the wilderness shall become a fruitful field," and "the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."

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