Original Letters from Archbishops Tennison and Sharp. are a succession of parentheses to be met with explanatory of geographical names. (See vers. 2, 3, 7, 8, 17.) Lastly, the whole spirit of this fragment proves its author not only to have lived prior to Moses, but even to have written at a period not very distant from the time in which those events took place which are recorded by him. The style is at once as refined and apposite as can possibly be expected from an historian narrating the events of his own times, and writing at an early period, when no fixed rules of authorship existed. The writer is careful not to let the foreign king of Salem speak of God as Jehovah, or El Shadai, or even as Elohim, but as ,"the most high God;" nay, he even makes him change the Hebrew epithet of creator of heaven and earth, קנה שמים into ברא שמים וארץ ,וארץ "the possessor of heaven and earth." On the other hand, when Abraham, as a genuine Hebrew, swears to the king of Salem, he raises his hand to Jehovah, the "most high God, possessor of heaven and earth," and his friend. Expressions like these, varying according to the situation and circumstances of the parties by whom they are used, speak in favour of the writer's having lived at a period when the events narrated by hiin occurred, whilst the ancient geographical names adopted by him, decidedly pronounce him to have existed prior to those important changes which swept away the original names of the country in which they took place. (To be continued.) I SIR, Clapton, August 1, 1822. KNOW not whether Euelpis (p. 409) is acquainted with the circumstance that the opinions of Dr. Watts, which he has quoted from a work first published in 1725, were considered by strict Trinitarians among his immediate contemporaries, as a virtual renunciation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Thus, according to Johnson's Life of Watts, with Notes, &c., by the late Rev. S. Paliner, (ed. 2, 1791,) "Mr. T. Bradbury, in a letter dated 1725, charged him with making the Divinity of Christ to evaporate into a mere attribute,' and after jeering at 491 his professed love of truth, writes to him thus: It is pity, after you have been more than thirty years a teacher of others, you are yet to learn the first principles of the oracles of God. Was Dr. Owen's Church to be taught another Jesus?-that the Son and Spirit were only two powers in the Divine Nature?'" (P. 91.) To the same purpose was a pamphlet which I once met with, only long enough to copy the following title-page: "The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, vindicated, in opposi tion to Mr. Watts's Scheme of One Divine Person and Two Divine Powers, by Abraham Taylor, ed. 2nd, 1728." The author was tutor of an Independent Academy at Deptford, which preceded the institution now fixed at Homerton. In Vol. XVI. pp. 223, 224, I mentioned Dr. Tindal's "Rights of the Christian Church," the controversy it produced, and how the doughty champions of High-Church, to quote the well-known sarcasm of Jurtin, "called upon the constable to come and help them." Looking very lately among those treasures of historical information which Dr. Birch bequeathed to the British Museum, I found in his hand-writing the following extract, entitled "Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, to Archbishop Tennison, 1st June, 1706." (Ayscough, 4292; 73.) Nonconformists ought, I think, to acknowledge the fairdealing of a clergyman of the Church of England who preserved for posterity such an ecclesiastical document. "as for Tindal's book, I shall be sorry if any of our friends answer it; for so much must be yielded, if we well defend the Reforimation, that it will raise a new controversy; for hot people will think the church is given up, by what is yielded. I know Mr. Kelsey's notions are generally wrong in that matter; and to call for his book and not to make use of it is to affront him. But if your Grace insists on this, I will ask it of him." The annexed letters I copied from the same volume, where they are also in the hand-writing of Dr. Birch. Of these documents I was not aware when I sent you in 1819, (XIV. 721,) some account of the controversies in the Church of England, on the once warmly disputed validity of Lay or Anti-Episcopalian baptism. J. T. RUTT. Archbishop Tennison to Archbishop Sharp. Lambeth, April 27, 1712. MY LORD, In pursuance of the agreement made here by your Grace and the rest of my brethren the Bishops, when I had the favour of your good companies on Easter-Tuesday, I met yester day with some of them, and we drew up a paper suitable (as we judged) to the proposal then made. It is short and plain, and, I hope, inoffensive, and for a beginning (as I humbly conceive) full enough. I here inclose a copy of it for the use of your Grace, and of as many others as your Grace shall think fit to shew it to. I send the declaration unsigned, because we, who were present, desired first to have the opinions of your Grace and others, who were absent, and should be glad to know, whether you would have any to dine with your Grace the last week. But yet for all that, I can by no means come into the proposal your Grace has now made in your letter, viz., that we should all declare under our hands, the validity of lay-baptism; for I am afraid this would be too great an encouragement to the Dissenters, to go on in their way of irregular, uncanonical baptism. I have, as your Grace desired me, communicated the matter to three of our brethren the Bishops, and we have had a full discourse about it, and are all of the same opinion, that I have now represented. I am, with all sincere respects and hearty wishes of health and happiness to your Grace, Your Grace's most faithful Ayscough, 4292. 67. Mr. Cooper on the Disposition of the Negroes to embrace Christianity. LETTER III. thing added to it, or altered in it; for (For Letter I. see p. 217, and Letter II. we affect not the vanity of dogmatizing. We hope for your Grace's speedy answer, (to-morrow, if it may be,) because the evil grows, and we have heard of more odd books and sermons since we met, and of an increase of the scrupulous, and your Grace well knows, that the more timely the check is given, the likelier it is to have, through God's blessing, a good effect. I commend this weighty affair to your Grace's most serious consideration, and yourself to the protection of the great Shepherd of souls, and remain Your Grace's most affectionate CANTERBURY. Endorsed, copy of my letter to A. B. Y., April 27, 1712, concerning a declaration against Rebaptization. Dr. Sharp, Archbishop of York, to April 28, 1712. I had the honour of your Grace's letter, with the declaration inclosed, the last night. I am entirely of the same sentiments that we all declared we were of, when we had the honour SIR, You p. 297.) Newcastle-under-Lyme, August 2, 1822. YOUR readers will remember my stating, that during a part of the time I was in Jamaica, I paid considerable attention to the instruction of the Negro children. I formed them into a class, had them to my house every day in the week, and with the assistance of Mrs. C., succeeded in teaching a few of them to read. At one period we had as many as twenty under our care, but this number was soon diminished, in consequence of four or five of them falling ill with an infectious disease; and we were never able to get a sufficient supply of recruits to repair the breach. That such should actually be the case, will, I doubt not, appear rather an extraor dinary case to persons unacquainted with the state of society in the West Indies, but who have been told that we resided on an estate containing a population of four hundred souls. The fact is, the Negroes in Jamaica are a very unprolific race: not that they are naturally so, for they are evidently made barren by that brutal and demoralizing system of government under which they are doomed to pass Mr. Cooper on the Disposition of the Negroes to embrace Christianity. 493 their wretched lives. It is notorious, that slavery is most unfriendly to the production of life, and also that in several ways it leads directly to its destruction. The few scholars we had, made, on the whole, a satisfactory progress. Before they left us, eight of them, including two brown girls, could read the Scriptures with considerable ease: they went through three of the Gospels, besides reading various extracts from the Old Testament and the Acts of the Apostles. But it is unnecessary that I should dwell on this point, it being so well known and generally acknowledged, that the Negroes are capable of learning to read with as much facility as any other people. I must not, however, omit to explain a circumstance of some importance, as connected with their instruction in this art, upon which, I flatter myself, considerable light was thrown by our experience. The loss of time which it might be supposed would be occasioned to the master, if the slaves were allowed an opportunity of learning to read, has been regarded as constituting a most powerful objection to the measure; but the children under our tuition made the progress described above, by the time it is usual to send them into the field to work, and, consequently, an important ob ject was accomplished without putting the estate to any inconvenience what ever. Now there certainly is no reason why the children of other estates might not be brought to make a similar improvement with as little loss or inconvenience to their owners. But it will, perhaps, be said, that by the time they become of age to learn their letters, they might be formed into a gang, and sent out to gather green herbs for the pigs, under the superintendence of an aged woman; and on some estates this is done; not, how ever, so much in consequence of the value of what is brought in, as the importance of keeping the little creatures out of idleness, and getting them to form habits of industry in early life. But surely the school-master or mistress would be able to secure the former as effectually as the driver, if not the latter also, and at the same time, make sure of laying a good foundation for their future advancement in know ledge and virtue. Thus it appears, that arrangements might be made with the greatest ease, sufficient to secure to the slaves the means of a common education; but the policy of the measure is, no doubt, another question. What I now chiefly contend for is, that the children might be brought to a valuable degree of forwardness by the time the planters would think of employing them in the cane-field; and till they are employed there, any thing they may do in the shape of work, can be of but_trifling importance to the estate. For my own part, I have no hesitation in confessing, what I have indeed, in effect, stated before, viz., that I quite believe education would bring on a revolt amongst the slaves; for I cannot be brought to believe, that an enlightened people would ever submit, with the least degree of patience, to the indignities, privations and hardships which naturally result from slavery, as it now exists in Jamaica. Any people may be held down for a time, by dint of mere force, but as long as they retain the feelings, faculties and virtues of men, they will be sure to watch for and embrace the first opportunity of escaping. As long, therefore, as the Negroes are to remain the victims of a disgusting tyranny, it seems to be nothing more than a piece of necessary policy to keep them from every spe cies of intellectual improvement; and, what is worse, even to instil into their minds a number of false maxims and erroneous doctrines. It is consistent, if not humane, in those masters who will not admit of the idea of ultimate emancipation, to keep their slaves not only from reading and writing, but from every thing that may be regard ed as at all above the wants of animals doomed from their birth to hard labour. Where is the kindness or wisdom of pointing out to a fellow-creature the miseries of his situation, when it is decreed that the cause of them shall not be touched till he goes to the place appointed for all living? I am disposed to believe, that the planters in general would rejoice to see the Negroes become an informed and happy peasantry, provided such an amelioration in their condition could be brought about without endangering their fidelity; but that they are not prepared to risk; and hence they seem to be quite opposed to every plan of improvement which, either directly or indirectly, contemplates a blow at the root of the evil. The highest object aimed at by the most benevolent seems to be, to make them as happy as their situation will possibly admit of. But this may not be doing enough; for liberty seems evidently to be the natural right of every human being. Why not then admit of their being prepared for the enjoyment of privileges which cannot be held from them without acting contrary to the sacred laws of truth and justice? The planters, however, are not the only persons with whom I would remonstrate on this subject, for all who indulge in the consumption of West-India produce, or contribute in any way to the maintenance of the present order of things in our sugar islands, ought, in common fairness, to bear their share of the blame. With what propriety can a consumer of rum or sugar cast a stone at the cultivator of the sweet cane? The Negro is the injured individual: he is robbed of his liberty, and with that, of every thing that can render a rational existence desirable. He is denied all the advantages of education; condemned to the vilest ignorance, lest by becoming informed he should discover and seek to remove the cause of all his unmerited misfortunes. He cannot marry, and is thereby not merely tempted, but in a manner compelled, to form the loosest and most unhallowed connexions. I would appeal to the common discernment and feeling of mankind, whether marriage can exist where a third person has it in his power to step in and disannul the holy league. Now, every one knows that this is virtually the case with respect to the slaves in the West Indies. The connexions which they form do not always take place between individuals belonging to the same proprietor; in numerous instances they are the property of different persons. But it is no uncommon thing for the inhabitants of one plantation or settlement to be removed to another, situated, perhaps, on the opposite side of the island; and, consequently, in all such cases, husbands, wives and children belonging to other gangs, are, contrary, no doubt, to the wishes of the respective masters, left behind. Others, again, are seized and sold to pay the debts of their owners. These evils might be removed by attaching them to the soil, but then others would remain, of a nature almost equally formidable. Every slave being compelled, under pain of corporal punishment, to yield implicit obedience to the will of the master, the wife, as well as the husband, would be under the necessity of joining a gang under the command of a driver, and in case of not giving him satisfaction, to submit to the most degrading chastisement, administered in the most indecent manner. I have known them point to things of this description for the purpose of shewing that it is impossible for them to marry. Over their children, it is obvious they could have no authority resembling that which parents in a free country possess: they could only leave them the same wretched inheritance which they received from their ancestors. Hence, those who have children, are generally careless with respect to the habits they form and the lives they lead they know they can never sink lower in the scale of society than they already find themselves placed, and they have no hope of rising. A regular line of orderly conduct may save them from the lash, but it can effect no radical change in their condition. The highest office to which they can ever aspire is that of a driver; an office which no one, not destitute of every manly and generous feeling, could wish to hold. In short, they have nothing to gain and nothing to lose; they have no character at stake; a good name, which, Solomon says, "is rather to be chosen than great riches," is of no avail to them. Their worth is estimated by the strength of their bodies, and the talent and disposition to perform their masters' work. The greatest villain, therefore, in a moral respect, may be, and sometimes is, the most valuable slave; the natural consequence of all which is, that the Negroes, as a people, are as destitute of correct morality as they are of liberty. Chastity is utterly out of the question amongst the whole tribe, and both men and women are found to vindicate, as innocent, practices which it is scarcely allowable to name amongst Christians. This is followed by low cunning and contempt of truth, a i Gleanings. determined resolution to thieve, and the greatest aversion to every species of labour. Gratitude, affection, fidelity, activity and courage, make no part of the character of the West-India slave, and yet thousands and tens of thousands of them have been received into the congregation of Christ's flock, and signed with the sign of the cross," &c. &c. I have been present, more than once, at the christening of two or three hundred of them, and repeatedly conversed with individuals who have been thus regenerated. Need I add, that the whole is a solemn mockery of what the people are exhorted to regard as a Christian rite? No effort whatever, that I could ever learn, is made to prepare them for the ceremony, or, after it is performed, to enforce its design. The poor creatures get a new name, with which they are mightily pleased, and some of them are said to fancy themselves out of the reach of obeah or witchcraft. Within the last few years, it is true, curates have been sent out for the avowed purpose of instructing them in religion, but it is to be feared they meet with no adequate success. The Negroes cannot attend on their services on a Sunday; and when I left Jamaica, no regulations had been made or, I believe, thought of, for allowing them time in the week. These missionaries are expected to visit several estates every week, for the purpose of preaching to the slaves, if they can obtain leave of the proprietor, or person acting in his place, to do so. But this they very seldom get: on some estates not at all, on others once or twice in the year; so that their presence in the island can be of but little importance. I have heard it, indeed, repeatedly declared, that the Curate Act was intended for England, not for Jamaica; and this really appears to me to be viewing the subject in its true light; for it must have been known, before it was passed, that the planters would not allow the slaves any opportunity for attending on their new instructors, and that consequently such a law could have no tendency to improve their condition. But I decline the invidious task of dwelling on this extraordinary Act, which runs the island of Jamaica to an expense of upwards 495 of ten thousand a-year currency. In a thousand instances the clergy are rather to be pitied than blamed; and I have not the least doubt that many a curate most deeply repents that ever he crossed the Atlantic. I shall trouble you with one more letter. T. COOPER. GLEANINGS; OR, SELECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE OF GENERAL READING. No. CCCLXXXIX. In the present state of the moral world, despotism, falsehood, injustice, and brute force, are not the preventatives of revolutions, but the seeds by which they are infallibly generated; and the sovereigns who have recourse to them, in order to stifle the spirit of the age, are only throwing water upon unslacked lime, and attempting to smother a fire with gunpowder. The re-action will be proportioned to the pressure-they will be upset by the recoil of their own instrument; but even then I would not have the friends of liberty forget their proud pre-eminence of clemency and generosity. I would pare to the quick the nails of these royal tigers, and give them another trial. If they still attempted to fasten their fangs in the flesh of their preservers, I would remove them to some uninhabited island in the Northern Ocean, where, if their thirst for blood and power remained inappeasable, they might have the privilege of knocking down one another with their respective crowns, and beating out each other's brains with their sceptres; that so, when some future traveller contemplated their bones, he might be told-these are the remains of the human Mammoths, who so cruelly harassed and devastated the world, that their subjects, in self-defence, transported them to this island, where they exterminated each other, and the race is now happily extinct. Morning Chronicle, May 23, 1822. |