stating their circumstances, and requesting the Missionary Committee to send them a Minister. This was the object of their most earnest solicitude. To meet the expense as far as they were able, they raised among themselves a sum of money, and sent it home by the hands of Mr. Campbell, on his return to England from his first Missionary journey. Their leader, Sergeant Kendrick, was a devoted man, and longed to welcome a Wesleyan Missionary on the shores of Africa; but he died ere one was sent. He scattered seed, however, which has since appeared, and has been productive of an abundant harvest. His death was lamented as a general calamity. "Though many," says the Rev. Barnabas Shaw, "opposed his preaching, all bemoaned his loss." "Even Lady Cradock" (wife of his Excellency the Governor) "spoke of him as a man whose equal in virtue she believed she had not seen." Who hath despised the day of small things? The cloud which first appeared on the horizon of South Africa was small indeed, -no bigger than a human hand; but it has increased and spread, and now covers the heavens, and is dropping its refreshing showers on the dry and thirsty soil. What may not a few Christian soldiers effect, who, visiting a distant land, carry in their hearts a Saviour's love? Though their worldly calling is the art of war, they may become the agents and ambassadors of peace. They may plant not only the standard of their country, but the standard of Immanuel too, and be the means of enlisting many in the cause of righteousness and truth.

The Rev. J. M'Kenny who recently terminated his career at Sydney, New South Wales, was the first Wesleyan Minister stationed at the Cape; but his residence there was only brief, and during the period he was called to encounter considerable difficulties, in consequence of the refusal of the authorities to allow him the exercise of his ministry. According to certain regulations formed by the Batavian Government in 1804, no one was permitted "to perform divine service except with the perfect knowledge of the Governor for the time being," and no Clergyman was allowed to preach in public "who had not previously gone through the regular Universities." * Mr. M'Kenny, writing to England in March, 1815, observes: "I have been obliged to remain silent to the present, and must remain so until I hear from home; so that I have not had the privilege of preaching one sermon since I came to Africa. O what a time of trial has this been! but I must wait the Lord's time. I know well that all is in the hand of almighty power." Yes, all was in the hand of almighty power, and all was ultimately overruled for good. Mr. M'Kenny went to Ceylon, and was succeeded at the Cape by the Rev. Barnabas Shaw, a man admirably adapted for the work, and one whose name will ever live in connexion with the history of Christian Missions at the Cape. The door was closed against him likewise; but he unbolted it himself, and, beginning boldly to proclaim his message, the work spread, and the Society in Cape-Town and in the neighbourhood grew and multiplied. From that time to the present the leaven has continued to operate, and now, in 1848, we possess in the Western Province of the Colony nine chapels, in which probably as many as two thousand persons, white and coloured, bend the knee before the Lord of all. Of these, seven hundred and fifty are united with us in church-fellowship, and are "walking in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost." Nor is this all. The Missions in the Colony have given rise to the Missions in the interior; and from Cape-Town as a centre, the light of

* See Campbell's First Journey. Appendix.

truth, through the instrumentality of Wesleyan and other Missionaries, has radiated far into the country of the Namacquas, and the Damaras, tribes whose existence was scarcely known until they were visited by the heralds of the Cross, the latter residing within the tropic of Capricorn, on the south-west coast, in a region so sterile, that no one but a lover of the souls of men would ever think of taking up his abode there for a period, however brief. The Bechuana Missions, too, originated partly from those commenced at the Cape; and there likewise, among the Griquas, Corannas, Barolongs, and Mantatees, wild and fierce and barbarous tribes, have the institutions of Christianity been established, and the blessings of the Gospel been diffused. There are hundreds in the interior of Southern Africa who could adopt the language of Justin Martyr, in his "First Apology," and say, "We who formerly rejoiced in licentiousness, now embrace discretion and chastity; we who rejoiced in magical arts, now devote ourselves to the unbegotten God, the God of goodness; (we who set our affections upon wealth and possessions, now bring into the common stock all our property, and share it with the indigent ;) we who, owing to the diversity of customs, would not partake of the same hearth with those of a different race, now, since the appearance of Christ, live together, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who unjustly hate us, that, by leading a life conformed to the excellent precepts of Christianity, they may be filled with the hope of obtaining the same happiness with ourselves, from that God who is Lord above all things.'

"

But we have yet to refer to the Wesleyan Missions of the Eastern Province of the Colony. When the British settlers of 1820, to whom allusion has been already made, left their father-land, each party of a hundred was provided by the Government with a Minister, chosen by themselves; and the Rev. W. Shaw accompanied the Wesleyan party in this capacity, who, on his arrival in the country, laboured zealously to perpetuate and extend "Christianity in earnest" among his charge. I could wish that he would give to the public a narrative of his long and eventful Missionary life. He is one of the Princes of modern Missionaries, and, in the cause of Christ, has suffered much "in perils by the Heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren." His worth will perhaps be estimated only when his work is done; but I will not hesitate to say that he merits the designation of the Cyprian of South Africa.

The settlers were accustomed first of all to worship in the open air under the shade of some clump of yellow-wood trees or mimosas, then in workshops and in sheds, and at length they erected chapels, some of reeds, others of stone and brick. The history of their efforts of this kind would form a chapter in itself; but it is not my intention to enter into the circumstances; I will only observe that as the new Colony prospered and increased, vital piety did not become extinct, but grew and flourished, and spread its healing influence around, until the barren wastes were vocal with the songs of praise, and the wilderness began to bloom with flowers of righteousness. Within five-and-twenty years, the members of the Wesleyan church in the Eastern Province have multiplied to upwards of eleven hundred, of whom, perhaps, one-third are natives of different tribes, who have thus been rescued from a state of Heathenism, and constituted heirs of everlasting

* Quoted in Waddington's Church History. The sentence in brackets may alone be excepted. See in proof Moffat's Narrative, and the Rev. B. Shaw's Memorials of South Africa, &c., &c.

life. Day and Sabbath schools have been formed for the instruction alike of the white and coloured population, which at present contain between two and three thousand scholars. Thus, knowledge is increasing, and the dense dark clouds in which Africa was enveloped are beginning to roll away. The fact that, during the last year, the sum of eleven hundred pounds was raised in the Albany and Kaffraria District, in support of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, proves that in this part of the Colony Christianity is prospering, and that, inasmuch as Kaffirs, Fingoes, and Bechuanas are amongst the most liberal contributors to our funds, it is producing its gracious and benign effects upon the heathen mind.

Religion is the grand conservator of communities. But for vital Christianity, the British emigrants of Albany, placed as they were in the very vortex of Heathenism, must gradually have degenerated into barbarism and misery; but, instead of this, they have not merely maintained their original position, but have both risen higher themselves, and have elevated greatly the native tribes around them. I quote the testimony of one of them given at a public meeting in Port-Elizabeth :-"You cannot have forgotten the deplorable state in which we found the aborigines on the Eastern Frontier; for, (with the exception of those on the Missionary stations,) they were a degraded, oppressed, and injured people; sunk into the lowest abyss of human wretchedness, and many of them appearing before us in their daily employment without any kind of clothes, save and except a filthy sheep-skin carelessly wrapped around their bodies. But is it so now? I answer that, with respect to the race of Hottentots whom we found residing here, and to whom I allude, such appearances as presented themselves to our notice are scarcely to be met with, while many of them who attend our places of worship on the Sabbath-day are handsomely clothed, and all of them are clean and neat." Thus, it will be seen, has the formation of the Albany settlement been the means of ameliorating the condition of the original occupants of the soil, and of establishing on the South-Eastern shores of the continent of Africa civilization and Christianity, with their innumerable blessings. The Missions of the Wesleyan Society, as well as those of other Societies, having for their object the welfare of all classes, are in efficient operation; and, though for a season held in check by the recent conflict of the Colony with the Kaffir tribes, are, now that that conflict is decided, likely to be as evangelistic and successful as ever. I must reserve for another chapter events and circumstances which took place under my own immediate observation; but the preceding sketch is offered with the hope that it will excite additional interest in a portion of the dominions of the British crown, by no means the least important and valuable, but destined perhaps to rise into a mighty state, not inferior in some respects, and in others much superior, to Carthage in her glory and renown.

(To be continued.)

DANGER OF BEING DECEIVED.

ALL come not home at night who suppose they have set their faces heavenward. It is a woful thing to die, and miss heaven, and to lose houseroom with Christ at night it is an evil journey where travellers are benighted in the fields. I persuade myself that thousands shall be deceived

and ashamed of their hope; because they have cast their anchor in sinking sands, they must lose it. Till now, I knew not the pain, labour, nor difficulty that there is to win home; nor did I understand so well, before this, what that meaneth, "The righteous shall scarcely be saved." O, how many a poor professor's candle is blown out, and never lighted again! I see that ordinary profession, and to be ranked amongst the children of God, and to have a name among men, is now thought good enough to carry professors to heaven; but certainly a name is but a name, and will never bide a blast of God's storm. I counsel you not to give your soul nor Christ rest, nor your eyes sleep, till you have gotten something that will bide the fire, and stand out the storm.-Rutherford.

"WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION."

THOUGH none ought to conclude that their day or season of grace is quite expired, yet they ought deeply to apprehend the danger, lest it should expire before their necessary work be done, and their peace made. For though it can be of no use to them to know the former, and therefore they have no means appointed them by which to know it, it is of great use to apprehend the latter; and they have sufficient grounds for the apprehension. All the cautions and warnings wherewith the holy Scripture abounds, of the kind with those already mentioned, have that manifest design. And nothing can be more important or apposite to this purpose, than that solemn charge of the great Apostle, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," considered together with the subjoined ground of it; "for it is God that worketh in you both to do and to will of his good pleasure." How correspondent is the one with the other! Work, for he works; there were no working at all to any purpose, or with any hope, if he did not work. And work with fear and trembling; for he works for his own good pleasure. As if he had said, It were the greatest folly imaginable to trifle with one that works at so perfect liberty, under no obligation, that may desist when he will; to impose upon so absolutely sovereign and arbitrary an agent, that owes you nothing, and from whose former gracious operations, not complied with, you can draw no argument into any following ones, that because he doth, therefore he will. As there is no certain connexion between present time and future, but all time is made up of undepending, not strictly coherent, moments; so also there is no certain connexion between arbitrary acts,-no men can be sure, because one now exists, another shall: so that I cannot be sure, because he now darts in light upon me, is convincing me, now awakening me; therefore he will still do so again and again. Upon this ground, then, what exhortation could be more proper than this, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling?" What could be more awfully monitory, and enforcing of it, than that he works only of mere good-will and pleasure? How should I tremble to think, If I should be negligent or undutiful, he may give out the next moment, and let the work fall and me perish!-Howe.

MEXICAN APPRECIATION OF A SWORD.

On the road between Zacatecas and Fresnillo, as I was jogging gently on, a Mexican, mounted on a very handsome horse, dashed up and reined in suddenly, doffing his sombrero, and saluting me with a Buenos dias, Caballero. He had ridden from Zacatecas for the purpose of trading with me for my sword, which he said he had heard of in that town as being something muy fino. Riding up to my left side, and saying, Con su licencia, Caballero, By your leave, my Lord," he drew the sword from its scabbard, and, flourishing it over his head, executed a neat demi-volte to one side, and performed some most complicated manœuvres. At first I thought it not head to make off with the

unlikely that my friend might take it into his

sword, as his fresh and powerful animal could easily have distanced my poor tired steed; so I just slipped the cover from the lock of my carbine, to be ready in case of need. But the Mexican, after concluding his exercise, and having tried the temper of the blade on a nepalo, rode up and returned the sword to its scabbard, with a low bow, offering me at the same time his horse in exchange for it, and, when that was of no avail, another and another horses, he assured me, de la mejor sangre, of the best blood of the country, and of great speed and strength.-Ruxton's Adventures in Mexico.

ADDRESS OF THE WESLEYAN-METHODIST CONFERENCE TO THE QUEEN.

TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

The humble Address of the Ministers of the Gospel in the Connexion established by the late Rev. John Wesley, A.M., in their Annual Conference assembled.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,-On the opening of our Annual Conference, and previously to our proceeding to the transaction of any other business, we hasten most respectfully to tender our loyal and dutiful congratulations on the birth of another Princess. In common with the rest of Your Majesty's faithful and loyal subjects, we hail this event as not more happily auspicious to Your Majesty and your illustrious Consort, than it is to the people over whom, by the providence of God, you have been called to reign.

Our own devout thanksgivings, as well as those of our societies and congregations, have been already offered to the great Author of all good, for this renewed instance of his kindness to Your Majesty and to the nation. And it is now our earnest prayer and hope, that, as Your Majesty's royal House is thus, by the favour of divine Providence, built up, and your domestic blessings multiplied, there may, through the same means, be afforded to the nation an increased security for the perpetual maintenance of those great principles, on the basis of which the House of Brunswick was called to the throne of these realms.

May the infant Princess be especially guarded by divine Providence in her tender years! May she grow up in the enjoyment of health, and in the exhibition of such virtues as shall adorn her exalted rank! Above all, may she inherit that favour of Almighty God, which to persons in all conditions of society is the crown of every other gift, and find in the loving-kindness of the Lord the pledge of everlasting life and blessedness!

VOL. IV.-FOURTH SERIES.

3 x

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