like that of other heathen nations, partakes of this character— not love, but fear."

To the same purport writes the Rev William Arthur, himself a missionary, and an eye witness to similar atrocities, in one of the most eloquent lectures it has ever been our lot to read-we are sorry we cannot add, to hear.* Speaking of the same coast, he says of its unhappy population, "Their Fetishworship is of a character which admits of no better description than blood and murder.' Men are supposed to hold the same station, and to feel the same wants, in the next world as in the present. Consequently, when a person of any importance is dying, a slave is kept at hand; and, in order that the master may not enter another world unattended, no sooner is the spirit fled, than the slave is decapitated. Then, after a few days spent in preliminary ceremonies, others are sacrificed, to a number sufficient to furnish the departed individual with a retinue, such as would have done him honor in life. In the case of a great chief, this requires several hundreds; and, it is said, that at the death of some kings, above 1000 have fallen. The king of the powerful country of Dahomi lives in a palace, the wall surrounding which is ornamented by a trelliswork of human skulls. When the erection of this horrid monument of barbarism (which is of modern date) had proceeded a considerable length, the architect reported to the king that he would be obliged to change the pattern, as he had not skulls enough to finish in the style in which he had begun; but the King simply ordered that a sufficient number of slaves should be killed to provide the requisite material. Kumasi, the capital of the neighbouring kingdom of Ashanti, may be soberly called the metropolis of murder. At the death of every great chief, and the recurrence of every national solemnity, the streets literally stream with blood, while hosts of carrion birds are constantly on the watch for the prey, which falls to them instead of to the grave."

"The Extent and the Moral Statistics of the British Empire. A Lecture delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association," published by our good friend Mr. B. L. Green, who, we are happy to find, is issuing a succession of cheap, admirable, and popular little works-little, often as regards their cost and size, but not unfrequently, as in the present instance, great in the highest sense which that word expresses.

But, to come back to the fertile subject of Hindoo idolatry, who can read unmoved the magnificent summary of its enormities, given by the author last quoted.

"You have heard, gentlemen, of Brahmanism, with its antiquity, its learning, its splendour, its refinement, and perhaps its sublimity. This system is taught in a multitude of sacred books, commonly distributed into four Vaydas, six Shastras, and eighteen Puránas, each holding a divine, though graduated authority. The number of gods recognised is three hundred and thirty millions, and the spirit of the system is to make every thing a god. India at large is one colossal illustration of the scriptural phrase, wholly given to idolatry." You can hardly look on an object that is not, in one sense or another, a god. The wind is a god, the sea a god, the earth a goddess, most of the rivers goddesses; while the planets, and "fowls of the air, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things," are all received into the swollen catalogue of divinities. Every caste has its peculiar god, every trade its patron celestial, every order of event, every phase of fortune, its divine president; every village has its temple, every house its protector, every man his selected guardian. You cannot look upon a scene, you cannot hear a narration, you cannot walk a street, you cannot witness an important transaction, without some forcible memento that the land is wholly given to idolatry.' The herd lowing in the valley, the banyan spreading on the hill, the monkey gambolling in the wood, the vulture flying in the air, the serpent crawling in the dust, all receive part of the homage due to God alone; but, by the fallen spirit of the Hindu, squandered on unworthy things.

“There is not a field in the wide champaign but is stained with the ashes of some victim offered to Bhoomi, the goddess of the earth;* there is not a planet in the deep blue sky, but shares the honors of godhead; there is not a mountain soaring in the land, though its own magnificence proves that "an idol is nothing in the world," but is a pedestal of some miserable competitor for the honors of the Great King; there is not a drop in the inexhaustible Ganges, but is turned into a rival to the 'Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness.' All nature stands united in one dark conspiracy to usurp the rights of the

Generally a goat, but in the Goomsoor country, a human victim.

Most High. On every hill the spirit of evil sits enthroned: he spreads abroad his dark wings, and two hundred millions of men sit under their shade, and die.

"You cannot tell the degradation of that idolatry. Images not bigger than an infant's plaything, forms more obscene than bacchanals, and more monstrous than the fancies of night mare, are worshipped with deep prostrations. I have heard a man, who could write poetry as fast as I am speaking, tell me, in a storm of indignation, that the serpent I had just killed was his god. I have seen a group of men, some of them poets, some astrologers, some tutors, some clerks, some schoolmasters, all Brahmans, with every head bowed, and every hand raised, in adoration of a kite. I have seen men with white hairs, falling down to the ground before the image of a bull; children of tender years bowing to the representation of a god in the act of sinning; artisans doing reverence to their implements, and men coming to a grove where monkeys were playing their antics, to present them with an offering. The man that, without deep emotions of pity and shame, can consider the fact, that one-sixth of the souls on earth are in a state so dreary, so fallen, so essentially debased as this, scarcely deserves to have escaped the same delusions. The Englishman whose breast does not warm with generous wishes to spread among these hosts of his fellow subjects the same blessed truths which have given freedom to our thoughts, joy to our homes, and sublimity to our faith, scarcely deserves to be free or happy, and is utterly incapable of being sublime."

We dare not, to this sublime, but fearful and accusing voice, add anything of our own. Let us, therefore, bring this paper to a close, with a further extract from the same powerful writer, to which we can only append our own fervent Amen!

“England! thou dost stand in the midst of the nations, and voices from afar urge thee to be holy! Hope has her eye on thee! The soul of the Red Man, held in misty doubt between the voice of the Great Spirit and that of dark goblins, is looking for light to thee! The soul of the Negro, gloomed with a thousand errors, terrified with gory rites, trembling at the suspicion of his immortality, bleeding before his Fetish, is looking for balm to thee! The soul of the Hindu, reduced to craven

equality with irrational things, expecting endless wanderings or

brother,' each monster, Mercy longing for the

sudden extinction, calling each reptile, 6 god,' is looking for truth to thee! millennium, heaven waiting for a fuller population, Immortality craving for countless heirs, all fix their gaze on thee! Thy responsibility rises far above the high, to the very terrible!

"The morality of Holland affects Holland, the morality of Belgium affects Belgium, the morality of France may affect Europe; but the morality of England affects THE WORLD."

MAN A SLOW LEARNER.

The animal tribes in our own world, for the most part, perform the varied, many of them the skilful, functions of their life without difficulty. The colt stretches its long legs to keep up with the pace of its mother, on the very day of its birth. The bee, without puzzling itself to solve a difficult problem, goes at once, and cheerfully, to the work of constructing its cells, according to the strictest rules of the most exact and perfect science. The bird, serves no apprenticeship to the builder, before it begins to rear its nest, and its first effort to prepare a home for its expected brood, is as easy and successful as any which it subsequently makes. Through the whole range of animal nature, ease and certainty are the rule, difficulty and failure are the exception. Through the whole range of man's history and experience, difficulty is the rule and law of his labor. If he shrink from it, and resolve to do nothing but what he can do easily, his powers become enfeebled, and his life a blank or a blot. An insect, performing the proper functions of its nature, may put him to shame. "Go to the ant thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." If he gird himself to meet and master the difficulties, as in succession they rise before him, his powers increase and grow by exercise, and his path may be "as the shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day."

When do the difficulties of human life commence ? Our memory does not go far enough back to take up the question at the beginning. But we know there was a time, when our own little feet had literally to commence the journey of life; and the diminutive stage, which was bounded by the floor of the nursery,

appeared to us not only formidable, but impracticable. How can I undertake it? was perhaps the first perplexing question, to which our infantile mind had to find a practical solution. We shrank, from what seemed to us to be the insurmountable difficulty, with fear and trembling; and required to be coaxed and urged, before we ventured on the perilous effort. The feet of Cæsar himself, which afterwards trod so many hostile lands, and crushed so many hostile powers, once faltered and hung back, as they were urged to cross the domestic floor. It was when, by mastering and surmounting difficulties, his powers had been developed and matured, he learned to say," Veni! vidi! vici!" -Stratten's Use of Difficulties in Mental and Moral Culture."

Enquiries and Correspondence.

Inspiration.-Hyperbole.

DEAR SIR,-You will greatly oblige me by making some comments on the following texts:

1. 1 Corinthians vii. 6, 12, 25; and 2 Corinthians viii. 8.

Are we to consider these Scriptures inspired? For St. Paul elsewhere says, in writing to Timothy, that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God."

2. Is not David's language hyperbolic in Psalm cxxxix. 8.

Yours gratefully,

DELIA.

1. Although it is true in a general sense that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, it must not be supposed that He is responsible for all the sentiments it contains. We see no reason why a good man, as Paul was, should be prevented from stating his opinion upon points not expressly revealed, any more than an individual of bad character or questionable piety, especially when he guards it by such confessions as are contained in the texts referred to. On this subject, we cannot do better than quote a remark from the preface to the book of Job, in the Pocket Paragraph Bible, now publishing by the Religious Tract Society. "It may be well to observe that, although the inspiration of the Book of Job is undoubted, it is clear that when he or his friends express erroneous opinions, or argue incorrectly by