astonishment. That those who regret the interruption of their business, or their pleasures, should rejoice in this substitute, which amuses the merchant with a table of markets, the poli tician with cabal, the licentious with intrigue, the splenetic with scandal, and all with some matter adapted to their different tastes, is little surprizing; but that amongst the abettors of such a traffic, should be found men of reputed virtue and dis cretion, whose minds have been alarmed at the progress of infidelity, and who have seen with sorrow the strides of irreligion and profaneness, is a mystery which can only be accounted for upon the supposition of their not having sufficiently attended to the nature of the fact, nor conjectured the mighty mischiefs which it portends to society.

Persons of this description would do well to consider what numbers of their fellow-creatures are involved (some from fear of offence, others from love of gain) in this enterprize of unlawful and unsanctified commerce; how many are confined to the labours of the press; how many employed in the circulation, and how many decoyed into the purchase of this baneful commodity. Many, very many, of the venders and readers, it is probable, were once found, upon the Sabbath, in the sanctuary of God, attended to the concerns of their souls, and regarded the breach of this day with Christian abhorrence. To numbers of the first, the emolument arising from the traffic has appeared a suflicient counterbalance against all they might lose by sacrificing a good conscience, and flying in the face of a positive law. To as many of the last, the perusal of this paper now stands in the stead of a pious discourse, or a portion of God's word; and finding some food for the levity of their minds and the looseness of their affections in this modern contrivance, they seem to want leisure, because they want inclination, to seek some employment of a more profitable nature. Those, therefore, who have fallen into this snare, are conjured to consider how many engines are kept at work, in order to afford them this gratification; and in how complicate a scheme of mischief and transgression they are concerned.

It was

It is true, the pill was gilded over with a specious covering; and some respect was paid to our established prejudices (till now deemed wise and venerable) in the first introduction of this national evil. The laws of the land, and the opinions of men, were equally against so gross an article of secular commerce. therefore judged necessary to make some sacrifices to those habits and rules, against which it appeared unsafe notoriously to offend. Some disquisition on subjects professedly religious, was therefore inserted at the head of the page, in order to cover and to qualify all that might follow. Such sacrifices were not, however, of long duration. It soon appeared, that the feelings of the public were not so delicate upon affairs of conscience as had been at first imagined. Bills of the theatre therefore soon took place of these

religious preludes: and the artful modesty of the Sunday Monitor, was succeeded by the open and flagitious effrontery of the Sunday Messenger *.

If those who have watched and lamented the decline of religion in other countries, would attend to the gradation of causes by which it has been produced, they would tremble to engage in a plan for weakening the respect due to that day, which is dedicated to the offices of devotion. If the great body of the public should ever be released from the apprehensions of violating, in any notorious degree, such a solemn and beneficial regulation; if they should ever imbibe that interpretation of the Sabbath which the current reception of these papers suggests, and learn to regard it either as the bugbear of superstition, or the offspring of political contrivance, I see not what security will remain for the influence, or even the survival of any religious institution among us. Instead of assembling once in seven days to worship God, and to promote our salvation, we may only retain a bitter memorial of our abolished Sabbaths, in the dedication of every tenth day to the rites of infidelity, or the orgies of pleasure +.

Ye friends of order, virtue, and social happiness, be admonished of your delusion and your danger! Regard not with indifference such an artful innovation upon what you have learned to revere, and what you have shewn yourselves so forward to maintain. In pledging yourselves for the public defence, in bringing your property to the treasury, and your engagements before your fellow-citizens, you have done well. Establish one other claim to the gratitude of posterity. Give to Religion this last sacrifice, and offer your Sunday Newspapers upon the altar of your Country.

Shortly after the publication of this work, Lord Belgrave (now Earl Grosvenor) brought forward, in the House of Commons, his motion for the Suppression of Sunday Newspapers; and did the Author the honour (as appeared from the Parliamentary Reports) to read the strictures contained in these pages, as part of his speech. With the failure of that motion the public are acquainted; and the consequence has been, that the number of Sunday Newspapers has increased since that time from two to ten ‡; and every sort of tenderness about printing, vending, hawking, buying, and reading them has utterly disappeared! I know not how others may feel; bul, for my own part, I cannot see, without grief, those notices of Sunday Papers on sale, which are hung out on the Lord's Day through the streets of the metropolis. I cannot forget, when I witness this spectacle, that, while we have to thank our pious forefathers for shutting up the shops on that day, for the shamelsss bills of sale with which the shutters are now garnished, we have only to thank ourselves!

This alludes to the changes introduced into the French Calendar, by which the seventh day was secularized, and every tenth day set apart for - infidelity and dissipation. It is but justice to the French Emperor to say, that he has set aside these innovations in the calendar; though he seems very far from having a just idea of the homage which is due to the Sabbath.

The present number in circulation is very little short of twenty; some of which boast a sale of 8 or 10,000 weekly. EDITOR.

ANTICIPATION OF THE ENSUING ANNIVERSARY

OF

THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

THE Friends of the London Missionary Society look forward with sublime pleasure to another of its Annual Meetings in the metropolis. Thousands are delighting themselves with the anticipation of what their eyes shall behold, and what their ears shall hear. But what is it that excites this general interest among the followers' of the Redeemer? It cannot be a desire to forward the views of a particular sect; for Christians of all denominations forget their differences, and in this Society are a band of brothers.' It is no political object which, as a common cen tre, attracts to itself the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of the Christian world; for the Friends of Missions have a nobler purpose to accomplish than to sit in judgment on public mehsures and public men. They are not indeed indifferent to the temporal welfare of social man; but the grand end of their Association is to make the world Christians, that it may be happy! To gain wealth, or influence, or applause, the only stimuli known to the unsanctified heart, they do not feel; on the contrary, they are governed by a principle which lays the axe at the root of Selfishness.

The Missionary Society is a combination of men, who unite to devote a considerable portion of their property, their time, and their talents, to promote an object which can remunerate them with no earthly reward; and which brings down upon them the obloquy and contempt of the world in which they live. While with unbounded generosity they throw their money into the common treasury, and blend all their efforts to serve the common cause, they are stigmatized by Satan's men of rank (Infidel Reviewers, and their marshalled hosts, Socinian Barristers, EastIndian demagogues, and heathenized Christians) as acting under the wild impulse of Fanaticism,as madly aiming to destroy government and order, virtue and repose!

But let Calumny, for a few moments, sit down to rest, after her recent paroxysms, let the voice of Reproach be hushed, at least to momentary silence, and with the sacred volume in our hands, the Code by which the Missionary Society is governed, let us enquire, What is the glorious object for which it is associated? This is no less than, as instruments, to forward the kingdom of God among men. While God himself is setting up this kingdom, and we know that it must be established though a thousand worlds oppose, he condescends to employ instruments: he has ordained, that the dissemination of his truth, as revealed in the gospel of Christ, by the preaching and labours of Christian Missionaries, shall extend his spiritual empire. To promote this

design, in virtue of the divine command, thousands of Christians are uniting their prayers and endeavours. This is the bond of

the Missionary Society: they know of no other; and this is the grandest object which the eye of Reason, of Philosophy, and of Religion, can contemplate! It is this which employed the mind of God from before the first of Time, to accomplish which he sat in the Councils of Eternity. To this all the ages of Time, and all the events of history have been subservient; every century has rolled away some mountain of difficulty, which opposed this wonderful design! All the kings and potentates, the warriors and philosophers of the world, have been its unintentional, and often reluctant, but effectual servants; and have performed the office of John Baptist, and exclaimed, Prepare the way of the Lord! The greatest and the best of men, patriarchs and prophets, have lent it their willing aid. The Son of God himself became a Missionary; and died in the field of labour as a Martyr to the cause, and as an atonement for sin. His evangelists and apostles preached and wrote, lived antl expired, following the example, and influenced by the Spirit of their Master. Nor was the obligation confined to them, nor did the necessity of disseminating Truth cease with them, for while the world exists, and men are ignorant, the gospel is to be preached. And what glorious effects must succeed the diffusion of evangelical religion! That design must be worthy of incessant solicitude, which will disperse the ignorance, abolish the idolatry, and ameliorate the condition of the world.

We who live in a country enlightened by the beams of Christianity, who enjoy our Bibles and our Sabbaths, and who behold Vice shrinking abashed from the light of day, can form no adequate ideas of the horrors of Paganism. Infidels may talk of Heathen virtue, and the simplicity of savage life; and modern writers, lately returned from India,' may compliment the bloody religion of the civilized Hindoo, but the Bible pourtrays the dark and dismal shades of the human character, destitute of the gospel of Jesus, though blessed with all the culture of civilization! O, brethren, how affecting is the scene!-it rends the heart with anguish! We read on every Pagan altar, Without hope, and without God in the world,' and in every Pagan family, we behold the most disgusting features of human depravity and wretchedness. For a moment, let us forget the pleasant habitations of Zion, and, incog. visit the habitations of cruelty, the wilderness where the benighted Indiau roams. Behold the hoary chief: his enemy fell into his hands; and he triumphed in every groan which slow torture could produce! His son offended him, and he plunged a knife into his bosom! His aged mother was accused of witchcraft, and he thought it lawful to take her life! His relatives have been slain, and he thirsts for the blood of the murderers! Weighed down with sorrow and with

ANNIVERSARY OF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

200

years, view him stretched upon a bed of death! The Comforter is afar off, -the Balm of Gilead hath never been applied: no promise is heard to soften the anguish of disease: his only Heaven is the country beyond the hills! his highest pleasure, food, without the toils of the chace. The grounds of his hope are the trophies of his cruelty! I see him point to the number of those which hang around his hut! I hear him charge the youthful warrior to emulate his deeds, and to revenge him of his enemies! The earthly scene is closed, the awful realities of eternity open upon his soul! O how hard must it be to die in total uncertainty!how dreadful, under such delusion!

But we turn away from this horrid scene, and look forward with rapture and delight to the period when the principles of evange lical truth shall cover the whole earth! See, the habitations of Cruelty are exchanged for the abodes of Love and Happiness! — the Indian tribes worship Jehovah, and every idol is thrown down! War is no more, the earth yields its increase, empire of Peace is universal,- Jealousy is become an obsolete word, and is never heard of. All is order, sweet harmony, and mutual affection! The families of the earth are blessed, - Glory is ascribed to God in the highest, and the crown of universal dominion is placed upon the head of Jesus !

the

Go on then, ye Friends of Missions, with a noble ardour; difficulties shall smooth themselves away before you. Your enemies are the enemies of God and human nature; and to pursue their opposition to the Cause of Missions to its legitimate extent, they ought to renounce the Christian name, and to close for ever the volume of hope; and before they indulge the vain thought, that either ridicule or force shall keep the world in Pagan darkness, they would do well to consider that Christianity has outlived many a storm; that their puny efforts to oppose it (now eighteen centuries have added lustre and glory to its character) are but the whisperings of an impotent malignity; and that for their daring temerity, a cleaving curse will be their inheritance to all generations! J. S.

Evangelicana.

Missionary Seal of Cardinal Stephen Borgia,
who died at Lyons, in France, in 1804.

QUOTED AS A SPUR TO PROTESTANT;.

CARDINAL-Borgia was equally zealous for the support of Religion and the holy See, as he had been for the progress of Letters and Arts: he never lost sight of the affairs of the church. The Propaganda having been destroyed, and its members dispersed, he was anxious to re-establish it under the auspices of Pius VI. then a prisoner at Valence: he wrote, with this view, to the priests educated in the congregation, intended to be sent on oriental missions, and, at that period, scattered throughout Italy.

XVI.

Ff