contemptible, and indeed, in a sense, in consequence of its being so. Complacency mingles with the very contempt for that from which contempt may rebound on Christianity.

These fierce advocates of paganism it were in vain to warn of a time, when the summons to them will be, in effect, to " 'come forth against the Lord," if they dare then repeat their well remembered words of reverence for idolatry; a time when their impious affectation of liberal homage to all "religions," as proper and useful for their respective parts of the world, will give place to the insufferable conviction of having insultingly rejected that infinite good, which only one had to offer; and when their contemptuous disallowance of any higher rule of judging and proceeding with respect to a people's religion, than the consideration of how it may affect government and commerce, will come to be esti

*The most furious of them, a person under a military designation, is dead since this was written. The most jocular, vulgar, and far enough from least malicious, of the revilers of the design for converting the idolaters, a person with the ecclesiastical prefix to his name, still lives.

mated and pronounced upon, in a scene where all worldly policy will be at an end-excepting in its retribution; and where so many millions will be awaiting that consignment, whatever it may be, for which they will have grown to a fitness as subjects of a false and depraving religion. Then will such men meet their account with the fabricators and imposers of false religions to serve their ambition, with apostates, and whatever other enemies of Christ will hear with despair the sentence, "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish." It can be of no use, we repeat, to admonish them; but we may urge it on the friends of true religion and the illumination of the world, that to this phenomenon of a zealous avowal and effort in favour of paganism, in this Christian country, in this stage of its knowledge, their contrary zeal and exertion should be what the living rod of Moses was to the serpents of the magicians.

It is at the same time to be acknowledged, that there is a great abatement of the public manifestation of this disposition to vindicate idolatry, and this animosity against all attempts

to reduce its dominion. However unallayed the rancorous sentiment may remain, it has been found that its unqualified exposure is a little incommodious on the score of character. Indeed, in the season of its most virulent eruption, some of the persons in whom it raged thought it worth while, (others were more bold or honest,) to endeavour to give it a disguised appearance. It was made to inspirit some argument of pretended political expediency. It was vented under the form of a representation, urged with every seeming of a most sincere and wrathful earnestness, that missionary proceedings, permitted but a very little while longer, would infallibly work the destruction of the British empire in Asia; although it is probable that some of these malignants laughed in private at such as might be simple enough to let themselves become, upon this representation, affected with this panic. Such assertions were hazarded in a sanguine confidence, for which it is a lamentable reflection on our country that there should have been no slight grounds, that the matter would not be suffered to proceed to the trial.

But a power from Heaven interposed, acting partly by the instrumentality of the zeal of the religious part of the community; the Government were decided to prolong the impunity of the reviled missionaries, which authority in their favour has silenced many that were incapable of feeling any restraint from the fear of God; and time and experience have brought contempt on all their rant of prognostication.

We have alluded to such men only to gain from them a service, for which we shall owe them no thanks. Religion should keep pace with physical science in the art of making noxious things contribute to salutary operations. No bad moral force, if it cannot be annihilated, should be left free from attempts to cheat it into a contrary action to what it naturally intends; and we wish to make the force of evil, emitted from these men's minds, act in coincident impulse with the motives which should carry the servants of God into a closer and still more animated conflict with the powers of heathen darkness.

THE PROGRESS OF MISSIONS ENCOURAGING.

This good cause has prevailed on the judgment, and obtained the practical aid, of the religious public, to an extent which we are willing to regard as an omen from Heaven, of great effects to be accomplished in its progress. But it is not improbable there may still remain, among a minority of good men, some feelings not quite reconciled to schemes of such wide scope, such interminable demands of assistance, and such a distant field of execution; schemes, too, which cannot be named but as amidst the echo of ten thousand voices, of men in repute for sense, hardly yet ceasing to pronounce them chimerical and fanatical; schemes but partially emerging from that general ridicule which leaves, though abated, such marks upon an object, that most men are long ashamed to entertain it.

There is much difference of mental constitution for receiving the impression of such projects. There is a class of good men naturally formed to be exceedingly sober, and cautious, and deliberate, and anxious for all