rage near fourteen hundred thousand copies a year; in the third equal period, near twenty-nine hundred thousand; in the fourth period, (which ends this century and runs into the next,) more than fifty-seven hundred thousand. But as the issues will need to be greater in the latter than in the former part of each period, by the year 1895 they ought to amount to more than sixty-two hundred thousand. Thus before the close of this century, according to these data, our issues ought to amount to more than a hundred and twenty times our present number, and the demand continually increasing without end. And all this to supply only the inhabitants of these States. Now look to South America and to the islands, and what a work is before us. What a call for the exertion of every faculty, and for the consecration of every cent. The day for sleep is past; the day for avarice to hoard, and to harden itself against the miseries of man. The time has come when HOLINESS TO THE LORD should be written on all our powers and on all our possessions; when the people of these States should arise as one man, to a mighty and continued effort, and never rest till they have lodged a Bible in every house from Canada to Cape Horn.

And they will arise. The harp of prophecy has announced it. A little while and those scenes shall be displayed which glowed under the pencil of enraptured seers. Not always shall wealth be regarded chiefly as the means of power and pleasure; but the rich shall account it the highest happiness of their distinction, that they have something to give to him who created and redeemed them. We, or if not we our posterity, will regard the silver and the gold as the Lord's, and will cast into his treasury such offerings as past ages never witnessed. The rich shall bring their thousands, and the poor their willing mite. The gold of Ophir and the topaz of Ethiopia shall be brought; the flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth shall be devoted. The Bible shall have dominion over the world; a dominion more extensive than that of Alexander, and more benignant than that of Alfred. Under its holy and pacific reign, "officers shall be peace" and "exacters righteousness." "Violence shall no more be heard" in the land, "wasting nor destruction" within its borders. "They shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." You, Sir, will see it, but not here. That morning shall chase the darkness from a thousand lands. The day shall pour its radiance into the cells of Hindoo superstition, and into the midnight of poor unpitied Africa. The light, breaking from Mount Zion, shall glance from the Appennines to the Andes, and thaw and irradiate the poles. "The light of the

moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold as the light of seven days;" and "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Every man shall then possess a Bible, and every man shall press the Bible to his heart. Then shall be known the mighty work which the word of God was sent on earth to accomplish, and the prodigious influence on the happiness of men which it exerted. Then may you see the work of Bible societies lying finished by their side. And when this glorious consummation of their labours shall appear, then may they come in and meet in a common centre, from America, and Russia, and China, and the Southern Islands, and sing their triumphs on Mount Zion.

SIR

To the Editor of the Christian Herald.

"A SLAVE HOLDER" IN ANSWER TO "CLERICUS."

Last Sabbath morning when my slaves were dressing with ruffles and fashionable hats, I tried to persuade them to go to a meeting a mile distant, where I know a minister is accustomed to preach Jesus and him crucified, and who, from a conviction that his Master's kingdom is not of this world, is averse to bringing any terrestrial polity into the pulpit: but I could not succeed; they would rather go eight miles to hear a negro preacher and meet a negro congregation, where no white persons attended, and where, of course, they had no bench behind for themselves, nor part of a gallery, but the whole house. I did not like it, remembering that a few years ago Christian masters, near Camden in South Carolina, had permitted such congregations to meet until a conspiracy was ready to break out. But I left them to their choice, although not without serious reflection and uneasi, ness for the future.

On the next post day I received your Herald of August 5th, which contains" Clericus's" answer to my last communication, and you will see, of course, that I was not prepared to admit what he says:-"facts do not justify" "having separate churches for slaves." It however afforded me some pleasure to find that the subject has excited attention, and I am confident that my Rev. friend "Clericus" will unite in opinion with me, that before the Lord will be successfully implored for direction in such an important cause, we should walk very circumspectly, as fearing to tread upon nettles.

I am exceedingly glad to learn from "Clericus" that “great numbers [of blacks] do in fact belong, as communicants, to the different churches throughout the south;" but it is owned that there is a line of distinction at the celebration of the Lord's supper, between the black and white throughout the land, whether the former are free or not. Is it not far better then, that they

have their worship entirely to themselves, in a separate church and under the charge of their own minister?

In cities, and many parts of the states, blacks can appear decently dressed in churches-but where are the hundreds of plantation negroes and children?-can they go to churches?-ought they not to be visited and shown the road to heaven? Give me leave to offer some reasons why I prefer a different plan from that of a general missionary to whites and blacks.

1st. I have studied the nature of the poor uninformed race many years, and know, that if no true conversion follows conviction, they are more than any others guilty of hypocrisy, and they are generally the first who cry out glory, glory. Now a general minister, let him be ever so pious, has no opportunity to speak to and reprove many individuals. The blacks, once received to the communion are permitted, in most churches, after their first admission, like the other communicants, to approach that solemn ordinance after a general preparatory meeting. Now, as they cannot have the same scientific knowledge of its importance as the whites, I think every one ought to be spoken with before each communion, and zealously led to the friend of sinners,-a dying Saviour.

2d. Many different persuasions preach differently on important points, and oftentimes ministers of the same persuasion are not agreed. Among the inquisitive whites this does no harm; but how can the blacks discern? (I speak of the majority.) Thus, one corner of a county will follow Paul, the other Apollos, the third Cephas, and perhaps all lose Christ. With very little attention it will be found, that what Dr. Griffin said, in your beautiful extracts from his sermon to the Missionary Society, may be applied in this case with peculiar propriety. "With very little sanctification we may pursue the ordinary round of duties at home. A thousand considerations of a private and personal nature may impel us to build up the church among our own people. Every head of a sect may wish to see his own kingdom extended by domestic missions. Leading men of every denomination may be zealous to enlarge their own church. But to go beyond all these considerations, and labour for an interest which can bring nothing to ourselves; to feel enough for man stript of every extrinsic circumstance, to find him out in distant regions, and to extend to him the most exalted of all charities; this requires something more."

3d. When the blacks are formal Christians only, they are worse than heathen slaves, and more apt to revolt than they : they think themselves equal to their masters; therefore they ought to be under distinct church discipline. The true Christians are happy in the station in which christianity found them.

4th. I have known preachers of some churches whose general rule is not to admit the blacks to all Christian privileges, openly VOL. VII. 2 T.

denying that the blacks are of Adam's race; of course the second Adam, Jesus Christ, by such doctrine, cannot help them, and such preachers do not naturally encourage their whites to commune with them.

These are some of my reasons for desiring to have a mission to slaves only, not interfering at all with what other churches have done; except, perhaps, to receive helpers out of their flock. When the United Brethren, nearly a hundred years ago, (according to Oltendorf's history of their missions to the West Indies) made a beginning on a Danish island, they had nothing, and hired themselves out, and worked as slaves, in order to find opportunities to proclaim to the slaves salvation. The masters opposed them bitterly; and, poor men, they suffered persecution under the idea, that when the slaves were christianized they would be free! But firmness and dependence on their Lord caused them to stand it out.-Now see the consequence; thousands of them are imperfect Christians here, as the best of us are; and thousands are perfected above. And those here are faithful slaves, acknowledged by governors to be their best security against revolt: each individual is attended to by the ministers and helpers; they enjoy all Christian privileges in their own churches, and are excluded from communion or society whenever the master has cause to complain, or their general conduct betrays their want of connexion with Jesus. Can you act thus with them when they are united with a mixed flock of whites, where the minister must suffer the tares to grow with the wheat?

My plan would then be to begin upon a small scale; and the first step perhaps ought to be, to send an humble, yet warm and stedfast, but polite friend of Jesus and of immortal souls, through the thickest slave-holding counties; let him attend to the probability of succeeding, and report to the society which should send him; let it be a missionary society of the state, (which would be best) or the Foreign Missionary Society. If it appears that success can as reasonably be expected as when the first missionaries went to Otaheite, let a separate society be formed by ministers of different persuasions, and others who show vital religion, and are not tenacious of forms, and yet revere all means of grace, and administer them as commanded by the Lord. Let them name the new church, perhaps Mission Church, and no doubt six or seven different ministers, of as many different persuasions, from Maine to Georgia, and among whose churches very little difference exists as to form of worship, will agree as brothers. Let the missionaries sent by them be charged to follow the established scriptural rules of admission and dismission, and be distinctly charged not to concern with any worldly polity, and hold their office only for the blacks, with privilege of course, to admit white visiters to their meeting, but only in the gallery. The rules and manner of gov

ernment of such a congregation, the utility of which has been proved these 80 years, can easily be obtained from books and residing missionaries.

I regret to see sectional differences mentioned, although it is no doubt true, that "a northern missionary to slaves might alarm the best people at the south, and it would be very strange if, in the exercise of unguarded zeal, he did not do a serious mischief." But with respect to the conversion of the slaves, the Christians in north and south are one body and one soul; a hint only, of sectional distinction published, might check the spark of latent zeal, and prevent assistance in the glorious cause of Jesus, for which not every state as yet can, or will, furnish sufficient subjects. I know that if a Christian minister, such as I have described as necessary for such a work, viz. " polished, having Christian experience and zeal, with unbigotted fervour and humility," arrived in the Carolinas from Canada or Otaheite, Vermont or New-York, every gentleman there would receive him with their renowned hospitality and condescension. And if he meddled not between master and servant, in any, even extra points, as things belonging to this world only, he would receive much support and respect from professors of religion, as well as from other honourable citizens in all slave holding states; so that the persecution which he must be prepared to expect and endure on some plantations or sections, will be sweetened and healed in the next.

I will not take up more room of your excellent Herald now, and will conclude by praying all masters of slaves to read the last extract from Dr. Griffin's sermon to the Foreign Missionary Society.

"But when we contemplate those heathen as immortal, the subject swells into a magnitude beyond the ranges of imagination. Every one of them will be an angel or a devil millions of ages after the funeral of this world. Each of them will experience happiness more than all heaven have yet enjoyed, or misery more than all hell have yet endured. To think of the perdition of one pagan soul, is enough to awaken the deepest sympathy of the whole human race. But to contemplate the ruin of the hundreds of millions now on earth, whose numbers are to be renewed once in twenty or thirty years, what heart can fail to dissolve in grief and vehemently to cry out for help to God and man? The fashion of this world is passing away, the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and you and all the heathen nations will be before his bar. Then, I ask you, whether it will not appear of more importance to have converted a single pagan, than to have amassed the treasures of the Indies? I behold one of those heathen brought along in chains to receive his doom, and looking down to an eternal lake of fire. Ah me!' says he, and am I born to this?' He casts an eye of anguish on those who once composed the American church, and raises his piercing lamentations: