printed in England; and every attempt was made, both at home and in that colony, to cover the mission with odium, and, if possible, to break it up. Under these circumstances Mr. Watson prepared an Appendix to the Report of the Missionary Society, containing Mr. Orton's narrative, with his own observations upon the facts of the case;. in which he furnishes a complete justification of the missionaries, and exposes the heartless calumnies by which it was intended to obstruct their useful labours.

CHAPTER XXII.

Mr. Watson publishes his "Conversations for the Young"-Annual Meeting of the Missionary Society in 1830-Mr. Watson's Speech-Letter to the Rev. Samuel Entwisle-Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society-Resolutions of Conference on Slavery-Letter to Dr. Emory-Address to the Congregation at CityRoad on Slavery-Mr. Watson's Sermon on God with us-] -Missionary Report for 1830-Speech at the Anti-Slavery Meeting-Address to the Methodists on Slavery -Supplement to the Methodist Hymn Book-Mr. Watson publishes the Life of Mr. Wesley-Conference of 1831.

NOTWITHSTANDING the pressure of Mr. Watson's duties, as the superintendent of an important circuit, and the attention which he was called to devote to the concerns of the missions, particularly in the West Indies, by his unparalleled diligence he found time to execute various literary projects. In the spring of the year 1830 he published his "Conversations for the Young; designed to promote the profitable reading of the Holy Scriptures;" a work of great utility, which he had written in his intervals of time during the autumn and winter. It was intended to be of a miscellaneous character; and in this view the plan is very judiciously laid. A young person, actuated by good motives, and seriously inclined, is introduced making inquiries relative to the Holy Scriptures, and the nature of true religion. His questions call forth replies, which embody a large mass of important information, the substance of many an elaborate treatise. In the course of twentyfour conversations the youthful inquirer, and the teacher who acts as his "guide, philosopher, and friend," go through every book of Scripture ; and instruction, remarkable for its solidity, importance, and variety, is elicited on every subject which was likely to be started by an inquisitive and intelligent mind. The volume is a neat and beautiful epitome of Scripture antiquities; containing, also, all the great principles of Biblical truth and personal religion. The style of this volume has great merit, and differs considerably from that of the author's other publications. It is easy, terse, and elegant; suited to the subjects and the occasion. Nothing of a polemical or sectarian character occurs in it; and hence it has been read with equal approbation by Christians of different denominations; and the demand for it has been extensive.

The annual meeting of the Wesleyan Missionary Society was held this year in the City-Road chapel, on Monday, May 3d, 1830; the Right Hon. the earl of Mount Cashel in the chair. Preparatory sermons had been preached before the society by the Rev. Messrs. Henry F. Burder, of Hackney, Robert Newton, and Theophilus Lessey. An

eloquent pamphlet, entitled, “A New Model for Missions," had then just made its appearance, and created some attention, proposing a plan of missionary operations, which the anonymous writer, theorist as he was, could hardly deem practicable, in the present state of the Church. It was, that all the different missionary societies should be merged in one; and that its management should be confided to several distinct committees, each of which should turn its exclusive attention to one peculiar and separate field of labour in the heathen world. Mr. Burder, who moved the first resolution at the public meeting, had controverted the reasonings of this publication in his sermon, which was preached in the same chapel on the evening of the preceding Thursday. The Rev. Dr. Steinkopff moved the following resolution: "That the continued success of the missions to the negroes of the West India colonies, and the prudence, fidelity, and fortitude of those of the missionaries who have been exposed to unmerited reproach and persecution, afford additional reasons for the support and extension of a system of religious care and instruction which at once conveys the direct blessings of Christianity to the slave population, and tends more fully to prepare them for all those ameliorations which it may be the purpose of a wise and benevolent legislature to introduce and extend."

This resolution was seconded by Mr. Watson; and the particulars which have been just stated will explain the allusions contained in the following speech, which he delivered on the occasion:

Our excellent friend, who moved the first resolution, told us, with great truth and force, that our success is not the rule of our duty. I agree with him that it is not. It is a principle of the greatest importance, that, in this work, immediate success is by no means the rule of duty. If this and every other missionary society had been toiling for many years without any success, the obligation to speak in these meetings, and to contribute to these societies, and to send forth missionaries, would, in my judgment, according to the principles of the word of God, have been precisely the same and yet I fear that our patience would not have endured that trial. If we had toiled all night, and had taken nothing, we should, in the morning, have thrown our nets away, and have concluded that we were not called to the profession of fishermen. We have, however, not been called to that trial; but our success, calculated with the greatest possible sobriety, appears not only to have put to flight the fearful forebodings of the timid, but to have exceeded the most sanguine calculations of the warmest spirits. And this success is God's broad seal upon our work. For if there be truth in our religion, such effects as have been produced in the instruction of negroes, and in introducing them into the spiritual liberty of the Gospel; in the civilizing, humanizing, and Christianizing of the fierce Caffres; in bringing Hindoos, besotted with superstition, to cast their idols to the moles and to the bats, and to subscribe with their hands to the Lord, prove that a more than human hand has been with us. Men who were aliens from God have become, in the true Christian sense, children of God, and heirs of immortality.

Now, my lord, if there be truth in the statements of Scripture, such effects could not have been produced but by Divine agency; and, if so, then they are the visible sanction of almighty God impressed upon

our labours; and so far from being moved by the charges of fanaticism or enthusiasm which are brought against us, we will wear them, not as badges of our shame, but as our boast and our glory. It has been said, that we rejoice in the success with which God has been pleased to crown other societies. We do rejoice in it; and we are happy to know that though this society comes forward, occupying the first public day in this glorious, this consecrated month, to report the triumphs of religion, other societies will come forward in their order, and they, too, will have their triumphs to report. We lay our trophies at the feet of our great Lord in this temple; and they are collecting theirs, to lay them before him in their respective temples, and to acknowledge that he is Lord of all. It is not one of the solitary tribes of Israel, my lord, which has been employed in this glorious warfare; but we may take up the language of Deborah, and say, "Out of Ephraim there was a root of them against Amalek: Benjamin was among the people.Out of Machir came down governors; out of Zebulun, them that handle the pen of the writer; and the princes of Issachar were with Deborah ; Barak was sent on foot into the valley. Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field." All have been warm in the contest; all have partaken in the glory of the victory; and, in the language of that same elevated ode, perhaps a prophetic one, looking to these future times, we exclaim, "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."

I confess, my lord, that one of the most interesting effects I can contemplate from these meetings and associations, next to their great effect of propagating the Gospel among the heathen, is their tendency to abolish all that which may properly be called a sectarian spirit; that they tend to gather together the children of God, who have been divided more in principle and affection than by place. If this were a mere matter of sentiment, it is a sentiment so hallowed and delightful, that, even as a sentiment, I should deeply value it; and I would not that my heart should be divested of it. It is very true, we might go on, as the various religious bodies went on formerly, with something less of this. The established Church might throw on us a look of haughty contempt, and we might return it with a scowl of defiance; we and our Calvinistic brethren might wrathfully wield our quinquarticular controversy, and dip our pens in gall; and our excellent friends, the Baptists, might convert the waters of the sanctuary into the waters of bitterness and separation. All this might be done, and perhaps the common Father might, in pity, deal better with us than we were disposed to do with each other. We might go on in this way; but what should we gain by this? That I cannot answer; but I think I can easily tell how much we should lose. We should lose character, my lord: Christianity has lost character in consequence of its divisions.— It has been the triumph of infidels, that there has been a malignant and persecuting spirit in the Churches of Christ; and they have scornfully written upon the very temples of the Church of the living God, in legible characters, "See how these Christians hate;"-a motto only fit for the gates of hell. We have been attempting, of late years, to obliterate this reproving motto; and though there are a few remains of the characters not quite effaced, hard as the marble is, we shall, I trust,

succeed. I hope we shall all come, without exception, to that sentiment which is embodied in what is, I believe, the oldest formulary extant in the Christian Church; the oldest form of sound words, which may be traced to the earliest ages: "I believe in the communion of saints." But we should lose strength, also; for if unity be not strength, and if division be not weakness, we must unlearn the lessons of history, and invert the inferences of experience. We should also lose good acquaintance: some of our best friendships would have been lost, with all their advantages. There are many of us who now know and love each other, who had never known each other, but as we have known the Lord; and the anniversaries of such a month as this extend our acquaintance with the wise and good, not only of our own country, but of the whole world. We can recollect the effect produced in former years, by the presence of holy men from distant Churches and distant lands; how we were excited by their warmth, and how our virtues were strengthened by their eminent piety. The circle of our friendship now embraces the wisest and best men that earth has in it; and it is still enlarging by the diffusion of this catholic spirit, and these Christian associations. Perhaps, but for this, we had all been like the moody, melancholy prophet, who went into retirement, and mourned that he alone was left of all the worshippers of the God of Israel, and we had still been ignorant of those noble spirits who, in various parts of the world, have not bowed the knee to Baal. We should have lost something more; we should have lost that unutterable feeling which is expressed by the Prophet Isaiah, in a manner which nothing but the power of inspiration could have dictated, when he calls the Church not to look within this, that, or the other little enclosure; not to go to the dark and narrow corners of this or the other of her sects, but when he says, "Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee; thy sons come from afar, and thy daughters are nursed at thy side: then shalt thou see and flow together, and thine heart shall fear;"-the very fear of joy, the strong impression of awe mingled with exultation, such as an assembly like this produces; -" and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee." We should have lost this fine impression; and, what is more valuable than that, we should have lost our portion in that blessed legacy of our Saviour, who said, "Peace," not strife and division, but "peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you."But, my lord, there is perhaps an excess even on this side; and it was that amiable excess, I have no doubt, which led a very powerful and liberal writer lately to propose that we should carry this unity into an absolute amalgamation; and instead of having various societies in friendly correspondence, we should all form but one grand missionary institution. But on this subject I agree with my estimable friend, Mr. Burder, in the arguments he made use of in that excellent sermon which he preached to us on Thursday. I am sure he is no bigot; and I hope I am no bigot either; but I fully subscribe to his principle; that our true oneness is not that of amalgamation, but of generous and cordial affection. It has been a frequent and a favourite metaphor made use of by several eminent speakers and writers on this subject, to compare the fraternal union of Churches, to the union of the colours

in the rainbow; and a very beautiful metaphor it is. It was not till lately that the Church of Christ has been at all entitled to this comparison; for, if formerly it was like one, it was so distinct in its lines of colour, and with edges so sharp and defined, that they seemed to be intended to cut each other through the whole span of the arch. For my part I should not admire such a rainbow as this; neither should I be much taken with a rainbow of one colour only: I am afraid we should begin to dispute as to what colour this should be; and if we agreed as to that, we should not long rest satisfied with it. One party would wish to have it enlivened with a little more red; and another would have it sobered with a little more purple. For my part I am contented with the rainbow of nature, with its distinct yet commingling hues, soft, beautiful, varied, one; and if we could see all the Churches of Christ worthy to be compared to such an appearance, we might, in the language of one of the writers of the Apocrypha, say, “ When thou seest the rainbow, bless Him that made it; very glorious is it to behold, and the hands of the Almighty have bended it ;" and I have no desire that the union of the Churches should be more perfect than this, till we enter into the bright and colourless light of eternity, and see "eye to eye and face to face."

There is another topic which I take to be of very great interest, suggested to me by some particulars in this report, and in the reports of other societies: it is the effect of missionary operations in the civilization and moral improvement of savage men. There was a time, I believe, when there were theorists living, who preferred the savage to the civilized state; who preferred the man in the wood, to man surrounded with all the advantages of enlightened society. Such theorists, I believe, have died with their dreams; and the passion now is to extend civilization, and to carry it through the whole earth. I have no doubt this is in the order of God and his providence; but, my lord, it is no easy matter to civilize men without Christianity; and if any person were to allege the states of antiquity, I think we might reply that, in the modern sense of the word, these states were not civilized. If we take civilization to imply that mankind live under equal laws, and enjoy all that liberty which is requisite to general order and prosperity, we may affirm that none of the most celebrated states of antiquity were civilized; that the bulk of the people were brutal, ferocious, and enslaved; and that the splendour with which they appear on the pages of history is but "barbaric pomp and gold." In the middle ages, Christianity was employed in civilizing the nations of Europe: its progress was, however, remarkably slow; and the reason was, that the Christianity applied was a mixed and adulterated Christianity. The fatal principle, my lord, as you well know, was introduced, to treat the body of the people like children, not as men; and for Christianity, they gave them superstition; hiding from them the manly and elevating truths with which it arouses the dormant spirit. So slow is man to learn, that the contrary experiment has been put in operation on a large scale, only by two of the great and leading nations of the earth; Great Britain and the United States of America. The precise character of this experiment is to make the plain simple verities of Christianity, by the circulation of the Scriptures, and by preaching the word of God, to bear on the moral and civil condition of the whole body of the people.