THE SUBSTANCE OF A MISSIONARY SPEECH,

Delivered on the 23rd of June, 1842, in the Church-street Chapel, Kingston, Jamaica, by MR. M. BAXTER, Wesleyan Methodist Association Missionary.

(Continued from Page 381.)

I cannot conclude, sir, without remarking, that mournful as is the actual condition of mankind, there are in it many striking indications of improvement. Men now occupy, in reference to slavery, to war and barbarism; those natural enemies of mankind, a very different position from that they occupied fifty years ago. My brethren, the time was, and not long ago, when persons on the other side of the Atlantic, were almost utterly ignorant of slavery and of the slave trade. Their cruelties were practised in the unknown region or on the unseen ocean. The horror-stricken yell of the negro, affrighted by the approach of the slave ship and the man dealer, was given to the wide canopy of heaven, and the deep sigh of the "stolen one," in the midst of the cruelties of the middle passage was swallowed up by the deep, or hushed by death. Those worse than penal settlements, whose ancient peace was disturbed by the clank of the captives' chain, and the sound of the slave driver's whip, were equally unknown to justice and philanthropy, and visited only by those spirits of the earth-earthy," that had circumnavigated the globe in the pursuit of gain But I thank God that time has passed away. The horrors of slavery and of the slave trade, have been brought by the African Institution, through the medium of the newspaper press and of the periodical literature of Europe, before the eyes of kings, statesmen, and people throughout the civilized world. They have uttered a verdict against them! Their days are numbered! Not all the slave-holders in America will be able to resist the omnipotence of public opinion. America must yield up to expediency, what she has refused to justice; and some of you, I am of opinion, will live to see 3,000,000 of negroes emancipated in a day!

To a mind in any degree philanthropic, it must be deeply interesting to witness the great changes which have taken place among the views and feelings of men, in reference to war. Not long since, and you might have found the whole family of genius-poets, orators, statesmen, philosophers, sculptors, and painters, all offering sacrifice on the altar of the idol; bowing before her shrine, paying tributes of admiration to the slaughters at Marengo and Austerlitz, and Waterloo, of a more lofty kind, than was ever yielded to Franklin, "the playmate of the lightning and the philosopher of liberty," or to Herschel, the discoverer of unknown worlds! But, sir, these "times of ignorance have passed away!" Men begin at length to recognize in the demon of war, the features of an infernal savage. In Europe and in America the war-cry is becoming feebler and feebler, and soon the co-operation of Christianity and your peace societies, will hush it into the silence of death: "For they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Another glorious feature of the present day is, the progress of improvement and the advancement of mankind in civilization. All things seem conspiring for the improvement of the race. Intellect is on the march! and carries civilization in her train! The first great impulse communicated to society in modern times, was, by the formation of the great American Republic. That event, by the inquiries to which it gave rise, concerning the practice and theory of government, has contributed very materially to the improvement of the social condition of man. After that there came the application of machinery and steam power in the manufactories, by which it is computed that, 200 men manufacture as much cotton now, as twenty millions could have produced without machinery forty years ago; and that the quantity of manu

factures of all sorts, produced by British workmen, is so great, that if machinery were disbanded, it would require 400 millions of hands to produce the same amount of manufactures. The application of machinery and steam power as the great agents in manufactures, was followed by the employment of steam in navigation and in land travelling: the effect of which was to bring places far distant from each other, in a practical sense, almost into immediate contact-to open new channels for commerce, and best of all, to promote exceedingly the mutual intercourse of the maritime nations. It now takes no more time to pass from Liverpool in a steam vessel to the United States of America, a distance of 4000 miles, than was formerly taken to travel between Edinburgh and London.

But sir, there is another agency, which little as it may be thought of, is rapidly, though silently, proceeding to change the face of the world :—it is colonization! It is a remarkable fact, at which political economists have arrived by a comparison of the "population returns" of the countries on the Continent, with those of Great Britain and Ireland, that while during the last half-century, the continental populution has doubled, that of the united kingdom has trebled, what has been the result of this fact upon the colonization movements ? So far as continental countries have been concerned, the effect has amounted to almost nothing,-those countries being not even now overstocked with inhabitants; but upon Great Britain and Ireland the effect has been most important. The average number of souls in a square mile, has long been vastly more in the mother country than any where in the European world; the result has been that while the surplus population of other countries might be usefully employed in their less densely occupied territories, the only means that could be resorted to in the united kingdom was emigration. And to show the scale upon which it has taken place, under the auspices of Government, as well as on the private account of the emigrants, we have ascertained from unquestionable authority that, in sixteen years ending in 1836, more than half-a-million of the population of the mother country, emigrated to the United States and to British America, to the Cape of Good Hope and to the Australian settlements. What an amount of influence must the intelligence and the piety found amongst these thousands, and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands, exert upon the Aborigines that occupy the surrounding countries? for it should never be forgotten that our emigrants carry along with them-the arts, the sciences, and the religion of Britain. I regard it, Sir, as a deeply interesting fact, that the necessities of Great Britain, should have sent abroad in the character of colonists, so many of her children, the apostles of the arts and sciences-whose colonies planted in the midst of the surrounding waste, will be to the natives as a normal school, from which they may derive a knowledge of the arts of life; the manners and customs of a civilized people. Britain, of all the powers on earth, is best able to give security to a distant colony, and her people best adapted, by their character and state of information, to improve the condition of the half-civilized tribes by which they may be surrounded.

Let us suppose that this work had not been assigned (under God) to Britain -that it had been committed to France, and what would have been the consequence? What would have been the effect upon the moral character of these untaught tribes that surround the distant colony? What would have been the effect? Why, it would have been to carry abroad an attractive literature and gay manners, a little science, and much of what is called etiquette, but the moral influence would have been awfully pernicious. For if, in the centre of civilized Europe, when their passions were inflamed, they were so thoroughly purged of all the sympathies of nature, and all the restraints of religion, that they could close the temple against the worshipper -that they could convert the church bell into cannon, that they could force men, women, and children, by hundreds, on board scuttled vessels, and drown

ing them in the Loire, and call that "Republican Baptism"-that they could bind men and women together, and casting them into the river, designate, this mortal union "Republican marriage "that they could canonize the scaffold under the name of the "Holy Mother Guillotine"-that they could call a polluted wretch from the brothel, and deify her under the appellative "Goddess of Reason ;"-O, sir, if these abominations were practised in France, and in the eighteenth century, (the period which it was hoped would prove the commencement of their philosophical millenium,) what would have been their enormities, had they been allowed to act on a darkened stage and in unknown regions! Blessed be God! the experiment has not been tried, for Britain, the "moral centre of the earth, has also been the centre of the colonization movement, and in all instances we find in her colonies the arts and the religion for which she is so eminently distinguished.

Allow me, sir, to remark in conclusion that, the prospects of Missionary enterprize are brightened exceedingly, by the increased extent and efficiency of those auxiliaries which are now co-operating with ministers and missionaries in the glorious work of instructing and saving men. Before the art of printing was invented, and while the vulgate was the only version of the Scriptures generally known in Europe, those who were engaged in the ministration of the Gospel, had no subordinate agency from which they could draw any assistance whatever; but now, the Tract Society and the Bible Society, which were called into existence at the close of last century, have acquired a gigantic stature, and occupy a wide sphere of operation. The publications of the Religious Tract Society have been issued in eighty different languages-languages which range from the Irish, Manx, and Welsh, up to the Chinese. The Bible Societies of Britain and America have put forth energies of a more Herculean order. Those two societies have circulated the Scriptures in nearly 200 languages and dialects, and the number of versions into new languages is annually increasing, and the extent of circulation too. The other year, the American Society circulated above 40,000 copies of the English Scriptures amongst emigrants in New York alone; and soon afterwards Dr. Eastburn crossed the Atlantic, that he might present to the British Institution, versions made at the expense of the American Society of the Gospel of Matthew into the Grebo language of Africa, and of the prophecies of Isaiah into the Mohawk Indian language, and to promise a version of Genesis and of Exodus for the following year. The efforts of the British Society have been still more numerous. It was found last year, that the circulation from the commencement, amounted to nearly 14,000,000 of copies, and the circulation in 1840 was about 100,000 copies more than in any previous year. At this moment they are printing the Scriptures in five languages; and have engaged liberally to assist the Madras Auxiliary Society, in giving a copy of the Word of God to each family-amongst 25,000 people in that presidency, speaking the Tamul language. In Persia we find them circulating the version of Archdeacon Robinson, as an antidote for the poison of the Koran: in Ireland the authorized version; in France De Lacy's version; and in Brazils the Portuguese version, for the enlightenment of those who are bound by the manacles of antichrist. By the translation of Luke from the missionary Moffat, they have gained access to the Bechuanas of Africa; by the translations of the missionary of Serampore, they have found the way to idolaters, speaking several of the languages of India; by the translation into the Chinese, from Dr. Morrison, they have received a key to the minds of more considerably than 300 millions of earth's population. Surely the time has come "when many run to and fro, that knowledge may be increased;" and we are standing on the verge of the period, "when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters the great deep." Amen.

LONDON:-T. C. JOHNS, PRINTER, Red Lion Co rt, Fleet Street.