(a word derived from caxer, which means lawful,) and which is prepared by Jews; if he pronounces the bahara or benediction when he takes the vessel of wine into his hands, and pronounces certain words before he gives it to another person; if he eats of an animal killed by Jews; if he has recited the Psalms of David without repeating the Gloria Patri at the end; if he gives his son a Hebrew name chosen among those used by the Jews; if he plunges him seven days after his birth into a basin containing water, gold, silver, seed-pearl, wheat, barley, and other substances, pronouncing at the same time certain words, according to the custom of the Jews; if he draws the horoscope of his children at their birth; if he performs the ruaya, a ceremony which consists in inviting his relations and friends to a repast the day before he undertakes a journey; if he turned his face to the wall at the time of his death, or has been placed in that posture before he expired; if he has washed, or caused to be washed, in hot water the body of a dead person, and interred him in a new shroud, with hose, shirt, and a mantle, and placed a piece of money in his mouth; if he has uttered a discourse in praise of the dead, or recited melancholy verses; if he has emptied the pitchers and other vessels of water in the house of the dead person, or in those of his neighbours, according to the custom of the Jews; if he sits behind the door of the deceased as a sign of grief, or eats fish and olives instead of meat, to honour his memory; if he remains in his house one year after the death of any one to prove his grief." It was in 1483 that Father Thomas de Torquemada, a Dominican and prior of the monastery of the Holy Cross at Segovia, was appointed the first Grand Inquisitor General of Spain. His name was most appropriate to his office, (perhaps it sounds still more so in Latin, de Turrecrematâ,) and it must be admitted that the Inquisition has frequently been lucky in the same way: thus we meet with Philip de Barbaris, as Inquisitor of Sicily; Gaspard Juglar, of Saragossa; Philip de Clemente, as Prothonotary of Arragon; Ximenez de Cinazas, as a Commissioner, and Cardinal de Judice, as Grand Inquisitor. Torquemada drew up the first instructions of the Spanish tribunal; they consisted of twenty-eight articles, and their general spirit may be dedueed from the fifteenth. "If a semi-proof existed against a person who denied his crime, he was to be put to the torture; if he confessed his crime during the torture, and afterwards confirmed his confession, he was punished as convicted; if he retracted he was tortured again, or condemned to an extraordinary punishment." In 1732 Donna Aguida, a lady of noble birth, and of great reputation for sanctity, expired under the torture. The charges against her were infanticide and compact with the devil; and of the truth of one of these, at least, very adequate proof seem to have been adduced. Still later, in 1781, a Nun was burned for a similar diabolical connexion. She was the last person who was committed to the flames by the Inquisition. In 1808 Buonaparte decreed the suppression of this tribunal: in 1813 the Cortes-General of Spain renewed the decree as on their own authority; and in the following year, turn and restoration of our then faithone of the first measures after the reful ally, Ferdinand, was the re-establishment of the Holy Office in its former power and privileges. We shall add in conclusion, Senor Llorente's calculation of the number of victims whom the Inquisition has sacrificed. From the data on which he professes to have formed them, they by no means demand implicit assent. The first statement, however, is furnished by the parties themselves, and, horrible as it is, its truth therefore must be admitted. In the castle of Triana, at Seville, wherein the Inquisitorial tribunal was held, an inscription, erected in 1524, imports that between that year and 1492 about 1000 persons had been burned, and 20,000 condemned to various penances. In the four years of the Marian persecution 288 persons were burned; so that Gardiner and Bonner exceeded Torquemada in zeal by a ratio of more than two to one. During the 300 years from 1481 to 1781, 31,912 heretics are said to have perished in the flames-and, adding to this period the years up to the present time, 17,639 effigies have been burned, representing such criminals as the Inquisition could not catch for more substantial vengeance-and 291,456 have been condemned to severe penances. REVIEWS. An Examination of Charges against the American Missionaries at the Sandwich Islands, as alleged in the Voyage of the ship Blonde, and in the London Quarterly Review. Cambridge: Hilliard, Metcalf, & Co. pp. 67, 8vo. WHEN the Frigate Blonde returned from the Sandwich Islands, after conveying to the natives the remains of their king and queen who had died in England, it naturally occurred to the wakeful mind of a London bookseller, that a profitable work might be wrought up from the incidents of a voyage under the conduct of Lord Byron, whose grandfather had been distinguished for his discoveries in the Pacific, and whose predecessor had immortalized the name, by the splendor of his genius, and his recent fall in the service of Greece. The journals of the Chaplain and of some of the under officers were therefore obtained; and a Mrs. Graham, a sort of literary redacteur, or intellectual mechanic, was charged with the office of preparing a regular narrative from these materials. Mr. Stewart, the American Missionary, being then in England, was applied to by this lady on the subject. He frankly told her that much of her information was incorrect; that the younger officers especially, being unacquainted with the language, had misconceived many things of serious importance. This, however, was of little moment. She was making a book to sell, and a spice of the marvellous was well suited to her design. A little abuse, too, of Missionaries and of Missionary efforts was adapted, she well knew, to please the public taste; and the admonitions which she had received from Mr. Stewart, had no tendency to conciliate the lady's favor. In due time, therefore, a splendid quarto was ushered into the world full of frivolous details, of half-information about subjects which she did not comprehend, and of erroneous statements respecting the conduct and designs of the Missionaries. The thing would have died, as such things always die, without doing the least harm, had not a writer in the London Quarterly Review sought to give currency to these calumnies, with new ones of his own, through the medium of that widely extended work. Under these circumstances, Mr. Stewart thought proper, some months since, to state the subject in its true light, in the Boston Daily Advertiser. In the pamphlet before us, which was originally, in part, an article in the North American Review for January 1828, the discussion is resumed, and the character of the Missionaries vindicated in the most triumphant man · ner. As an example of Mrs. Graham's total ignorance of the subject, on which she has undertaken to write, we extract the following. The account of the religion of the islanders, which is presented in the Voyage,' is totally unsupported by evmony of Mr. Ellis and the other misidence, and directly against the testisionaries. It is just such an account, as might with equal propriety be inserted in any other book of travels among a heathen people; and, in almost all cases, it would be directly opposed to facts. But let us look at one of these passages. "The belief of a Supreme Being, the author of all nature, and the peculiar prothe foundation of their creed, in common tector and father of the human race, was with that of all the tribes of men, who have begun to think of more than the supply of their physical wants.' p. 10. and placed between man and the SuThey deified the operations of nature, preme Creator, a race of intermediate and generally benevolent beings, to support and comfort them.' Ibid. Now it will appear, on a very slight examination, that the creed here men tioned is a mere fiction, without a particle of evidence to sustain it; though it has been so often repeated, that superficial writers and credulous readers believe it to be a reality. In some few tribes of North American Indians, there seem to have been traces of a belief in an omnipresent and all-powerful Deity; and in these tribes there was no idolworship. But among other tribes of our continent, there is not the slightest proof, that the conception of God, as a spiritual being, or as a being who takes an interest in human affairs, ever entered the minds of any of the people. And the same is true of almost all the human family, who have not derived their religious faith, either directly or remotely, from revelation. But to return to the Sandwich Islands. The natives had no idea of a Supreme Being, the author of all nature, and the peculiar protector and father of the human race,' nor of a 'race of intermediate and generally benevolent beings to support and comfort man.' In an account which Mr. Ellis gave of the religion of the South Sea Islands (which is literally applicable to the Sandwich Islands, and which is taken from a statement prepared by him with much care while in this country,) he says; The only controlling principle in their religion was fear. Their gods were confessedly evil, revengeful, cruel. No amiable trait of character was attributed to them. Consequently, they were never loved. And the system of religion resembled the gods. It possessed no amiable characteristics. It sanctioned every crime, and even required the practice of very many. Its rites were bloody. The king was chief priest. Hence the requisitions of religion were seconded by the civil power. One of the principal requisitions was human sacrifices, which was frequently made.' The only motives to religious worship, seem to have been a hope of averting the malevolent influence of evil deities, or of directing that malevolence upon enemies, in time of war, or of keeping the common people in a state of servility to the chiefs. The thought of support, or comfort, to be derived from these odious beings, or of moral accountability to a superior power, or of moral principle as applicable to the conduct of either gods or men, much less of a pure, spiritual essence, gov erning the world and pervading all things,-never entered the mind of a Sandwich Islander, till he derived it from European and American visiters. The ascription of sublime and enlarged thoughts of the Deity to the Polynesian tribes, is as mere a fabrication, as it would be to pretend that they were acquainted with the astronomical discoveries of Newton or Laplace. It is doubtful whether any of their deities were of a higher character than that of deceased kings and giants. Polyphemus and Enceladus would come up to their standard; and probably Hercules, certainly Neptune, would greatly transcend it. One great source of error, with writers on this subject, is, that they almost uniformly assume, that heathen nations are now, or have generally been, in a rising state. Thus it is said, in the tion of the Polynesian creed was held passage above quoted, that the foundaby the natives, in common with all the tribes of men, who have begun to think of more than the supply of their physical wants.' It is here taken for granted, that men gradually rise to juster views of the Deity, without the aid of revelation, by the operation of their own minds. We ask for the proof of this doctrine. All Scripture is against it. Much history is against it. The present state of the heathen world is against it. We have yet to learn, that there has been a single instance, upon the face of the earth, of an ignorant and heathen people making advances in the knowledge of God, unless they derived aid from some extraneous source. If there is such an instance, let it be produced, and let the matter be thoroughly investigated. On the other hand, the instances of deterioration are innumerable. They can be found in every period of authentic history. The Indians of our own continent are very striking examples. It can be proved from their languages alone, that they are descended from a highly cultivated race of men. But they have been sinking lower and lower, till, in regard to any theory of morals and religion, most of the tribes have sunk to the very bottom. Far from employing their minds upon such subjects, they never think of them at all. They are in a state of perfect moral darkness, so that, when asked the plainest questions, they reply without the least concern, We do not know; our fathers never told us; we never think about it. pp. 15—17. Equally erroneous is the Quarterly Reviewer's account of the character of the natives. He represents them as a simple-minded people;' meaning undoubtedly that they are honest, frank, and confiding in their intercourse with others. Now this is directly contradicted by the testimony of those who have known them best, and is opposed to universal experience as to the character of savage nations. Distrust and treachery are among the vices of almost all savages. For their distrust, however, they are not so much to be blamed; because it is the result of their painful experience. This universal want of confidence is perhaps their greatest source of torment; and it is the great evil with which missionaries have to contend, for a series of years, at the commencement of every mission. So much have savages usually seen, both among themselves and their visitors, of treachery, fraud, and villainy, that they do not believe it possible, that any man should be actuated by other than selfish and sinister views. They utterly discredit professions of disinterested friendship; though they do not always tell you so to your face. They know nothing, either from what passes within their own bosoms,or from what takes place within the range of their observation, which would make them think that missionaries should leave their homes, and reside in a foreign land, merely for the sake of doing good. But when they have looked on for a few years, and have witnessed the coincidence between professions and conduct; when they have seen missionaries labor patiently for the benefit of froward and heedless strangers; and when they exprience the salutary influence of such labors; it is not uncommon that they yield a confidence unlimited, in the same proportion as it had been pertinaciously withheld. The Reviewer, in the case before us, seeing this confidence reposed in the American missionaries, and not knowing how laboriously, and against how many obstacles it had been won, supposed it was to be accounted for by looking at the simple-mindedness of the natives. When the first missionaries arrived, in the spring of 1820, the mass of the people were in a state of ignorance, degradation, and misery, greater than always resided in a Christian councan be imagined by any one who has try. There is no doubt, that they were much more wretched than when the islands were discovered by Captain Cook. Two most frightful causes of calamity had been introduced by foreigners; namely, a loathsome disease, and the use of distilled spirits; and had been in such a state of aggravaboth these causes, with many others, tion, as to threaten the islands with absolute depopulation. It is believed, on good grounds, that the number of inhabitants had diminished one half, in little more than forty years; and that the downward course was never more rapid than at the time here alluded to. The common people were poor in the extreme, almost utterly destitute of clothing, living in hovels, with the loose straw on which they slept, and their matted hair, filled with vermin. To raise up such a people, from their degradation, did the missionaries devote their lives. But the moral condition of the islands cannot be more forcibly represented by any one fact, than by the notorious practice of celebrating the death of a high chief by Bacchanalian and Eleusinian orgies; or, in plainer language, by an unbounded license, extended through several days, for every individual to do what he pleased. One would think that now was the time for a kind-hearted people to show their kindness; and for an inoffensive people to do no harm; for here was no constraint of any kind. The theory of the custom, or what may be called the fiction of the law, was, that the grief of the people was so excessive, that they knew not what they did, and therefore they could not be held responsible for their conduct. In accordance with this fiction, immediately on the death of a chief being announced, a most ungovernable wailing ensued; all the people of both sexes crying, screaming, shrieking, and expressing their sorrow by most vehement gesticulations, and working themselves up to a most extravagant frenzy. They tore out their hair, beat their breasts, knocked out their teeth, cut themselves, and struck ary, who resided permanently at that themselves on the head, with clubs, or place. pp. 28, 29. any hard substance, which fell in their way. Then followed a universal, promiscuous, public, shameless prostitution of females, from which neither age nor rank was exempt. In these days of riot and debauchery, robberies were perpetrated, every old grudge was remembered, and murders were not uncommon. Language is inadequate to describe the scene. pp. 23-25. The first charge against the Missionaries, is, that when Lord Byron had his first public interview with the chiefs," Mr. Bingham, who loses no opportunity of mingling in every business, proposed prayers." If he had done so on an occasion so affec ting to the nation as that of receiving for interment, the remains of their king and queen, it would surely have been a pardonable offence. But the fact is, that prayer was not proposed by Mr. Bingham, but by Karaimoku, the Regent of the Islands. This was stated in the journal of the missionaries, written at the time, and since published in this country, and has lately been confirmed to us verbally, by one of them who was present. Soon after the formal introduction of Lord Byron, the delivery of the presents, and the reception of them with suitable acknowledgments, Karaimoku turned to Lord Byron, and, in a very respectful and dignified manner, expres sed himself in words, which were interpreted nearly as follows: "Would it not be well to unite in a prayer of thanksgiving to Jehovah, that he has inclined the king of England to show favor to us poor people, in sending to us the remains of our king and queen, and that he has preserved you safely during the voyage, and brought you to our islands?" To this proposal, which was made spontaneously, and without any consultation with the missionaries, Lord Byron readily assented. Karaimoku then requested Mr. Bingham to offer the prayer, which was a matter of course, as he was the only missionary present who had long been in the habit of speaking the native language; and, indeed, the only ordained mission A disposition to accuse and misarise from a settled hostility to the represent on such a subject, must Missionary cause in the Sandwich Islands. Such an hostility, our readers are aware, has existed for the last three years, on the part of many who visit those Islands for the purpose of traffic. The causes may be natives becoming civilized and intelreduced to three heads. First, The Missionaries, are no longer an easy ligent under the instructions of the prey to every sharper who may wish to deceive and over-reach them. under their influence, to enforce the Secondly, Laws have been enacted observance of the seventh commandthe writer whose work is before us, ment. And we blush to record, says that individuals, who call themselves gentlemen, and who went from a Christian land,-men who know very well the miseries which lewdness has inflicted upon these islanders, and how impossible it is to raise them to a state of comfort or civilization, while vices of this class are unrestrained,—should yet be held in such slavery to their brutal passions, as to be willing, for the gratification of these passions, to consign the natives, through all succeeding ages, to poverty, disease, and hopeless debasement. There have been sea captains and others, who have given their decided influence to the cause of morality and good order, and who have honorably distinguished themselves in this manner; but we are sorry to add, that these must be considered in the light of exceptions; and it grieves us still more to say, that there have not been wanting instances of the perversion of official station to embarrass the chiefs, in their efforts to promote morality among their people; and that the direct and known tendency of this perversion of influence was to make |