"Whilst these amusements engaged the attention of our party, scenes of a very different nature were passing in the same apartment, which must have convinced the greatest sceptic of the thoroughly immoral condition of the people and if he reflected that he was in the royal residence, and in the presence of the individual at the head of both church and state, he would have either concluded that their intercourse with the Europeans had tended to debase rather than to exalt their condition, or that they were wilfully violating and deriding laws which they considered ridiculously severe."-Beechey's Voyage, p. 210.

Let it not be forgotten that this picture applies to a period full five years subsequent to that at which the deputies were induced to entertain such favourable expectations of the Tahitians, and when, for the purpose of perfecting the conversion of that people, they added extraordinary means to those of a very efficient kind already existing.

It must not be understood that the people were more firm in their loyalty to the Christian faith. They blundered with its lights in a way, that makes the heart of every feeling man bleed for his nature. What did a party of converted islanders do, about the time of Captain Beechey's sojourn at Tahiti? They, with the most consummate treachery, seized upon the British ship the Dragon, plundered it, arrested the crew, bound the captain hand and foot, went back in a body to the Christian church, devoutly returned thanks there to God for their victory! and brought the ship's bell to ring in the church, supposing that its sound would make their prayers more acceptable. Nay, a council of war was forthwith held, whether or not they should eat the captain's body! and Mr. Beechey states, that in all probability a horrible cannibalism would have been perpetrated on our countryman but for the interference of one of their chiefs, " for the Zeokeans are still reputed to be cannibals, notwithstanding they have embraced the Christian religion."-(Ibid, p. 207.)

So much for Tahiti, of which we have still a great deal to say, though other stations now imperiously demand our attention. The language which Captain Beechey employs, after a calm and conscientious investigation of the state of Tahiti, ought to be written on the walls of every missionary committee in the empire.

"In general those who were missi-narees or converted, had a proper respect for the book (the Bible), but associating with it the suppression of their amusements, their dances, singing and music, they read it with much less good will than if a system had been introduced which would have tempered religion with cheerfulness, and have instilled happiness into society."

He adds the expression of his conviction, that had the penal code of Pomare been limited, had the amusements of the people been restricted instead of being suppressed, had they been taught only such parts of the Christian religion as were intelligible to their weak understandings, and would have been most conducive to

their moral improvement and domestic comfort, then the objects of the missionaries would have been nearer attainment than they are.

The same authority to which we have so often referred, gives but a dismal picture of the effects of missionary influence in the Sandwich Isles. Bold, precipitate, and unthinking, the missionaries lost all sense of the policy of being prudent; they seemed to have never known any thing of that extreme tenderness which is due to the human mind, whilst it may be said almost to be in its feetal state in the human forms that vegetate on the coral grottos of the farthest seas. They literally sought to inflict upon the simple Sandwicher-the climbing and roaming species of man-as a sentence, that way of life which Parnell made his hermit endure, Prayer all their business-all their pleasure praise.'

They forced on the contemptible being who was called the King of the Sandwich Islands, the ten commandments, as the only statute book by which he must abide, and by extremes of the most revolting character, they succeeded in producing a re-action against Christianity, such as they at least never will be able even to mitigate.

The truth is, that no dependance is to be placed on the apparent adoption of religion in the savage islands. They present their bodies at an assembly where they expect to see something that will vary the lassitude of their indolent lives, but as to any sober conviction being impressed on their minds, as to any thing like a process of reasoning taking place amongst them, it would be ridiculous to expect it. The principles of the Christian religion are not altogether so closely allied to the nature of axioms, that mere untutored instinct will unhesitatingly receive them. The greatest nicety therefore is required in conveying religious instruction to such destitute beings: but as we read the report of missionary proceedings, it strikes us that the plan of religious education adopted by missionaries is not calculated to diminish the difficulties of comprehending all its claims to our assent. Occasionally a trifling anecdote will be carelessly related in one of those journals, which gives a clue to the state of the convert's mind on the subject of religion. For example, a chief of Matavai, after he was baptized, addressed one of the missionaries in the following strange manner: "What are you teaching us? And why do you not instruct us in English, and other things besides religion?" On another occasion we are told that an ignorant old man, who had made no decided profession of religion, had been guilty of swearing in the presence of one of the converted, saying that he "would kill and deliver him to be eaten by his God." Mr. Tyerman relates that a man came to him one evening, who had for some time belonged to the congregation, and put to him this question, "I saw a great many fishes in the weir (a stone inclosure in a river), and being afraid that they would escape before morning, I put a few large stones at the entrance to prevent them from getting out

have I done wickedly?" The dreadful act, it seems, was perpetrated on a Sunday evening, when this unfortunate man should, according to Kotzebue, have been lying at home on his belly, howling and reading the Bible. At some other place, the deputies were required to resolve the following knotty point, by which some speculative consumer of raw meat had his conscience blocked up for a season. "Would it be right," said he, "to eat fish which had been caught in a net made by men who broke the law?" This must suffice, and we think it ought to be adequate to satisfy every man that, whatever be the plan of teaching, the plan of receiving and digesting what is taught requires a slight temporary visitation from the pervading spirit of reform that is now abroad.

The missionaries take the utmost credit to themselves for having, by the diffusion of the Christian faith, nearly altogether abolished some of the most abominable of the customs of the island savages. They appeal to the extinction of infanticide in the South Seas, of parricide, of polygamy, of all those barbarous and antisocial habits, which had been cherished amongst them from time immemorial. We are rejoiced to hear that a change so important has taken place: but we are very far from attributing it to any extensive influence, which mere religious feeling may have upon the islanders. All these atrocities are too well defined in their hideousness, not to revolt even a Tahitian, the moment that the smallest spark of intellectual light dawns upon his soul. The surprise and horror of even the few missionaries who visit them occasionally, at their unnatural practices, must have been expressed in a way to make a deep impression on the minds of the perpetrators. The moral effect of the most limited contact of civilized beings with savages, particularly if that effect be supported by the countenance of authority, would be quite sufficient to do away, in a short time, with, at least, the more outrageous excesses of which they were habitually guilty. The painful operation of tattooing, for instance, was given up with facility, for the poor creatures were but too happy in finding that so much suffering as it required, was not necessary to their well being. But where a vicious custom is not opposed to instinct-or rather when it is prompted by natural appetite, what is the case in the South Sea missions? "I do not believe that I exceed the bounds of truth," observes Captain Beechey, "in saying that, if opportunity offered, there is no favour which might not be obtained from the females of Otaheite (Tahiti) for the trifling consideration of a Jew's harp, a ring, or some other bauble."

We cannot accompany the deputies, we regret to say, to the various stations which they visited. Our commentary upon the case of Tahiti will be sufficient to exhibit, at least, the opinion which some cordial friends of the true principle of missionary diffusion, entertains on the system that is now in such extensive action. With respect to the East Indies, to which a great portion of these volumes is devoted, we have found neither a fact nor even

a suggestion that justifies us in diminishing our confidence in the universal feeling, that our missions to India have been, and will continue to be a dead failure. It is the merest waste of time to be transporting emissaries of the Gospel to a community of Hindoos, who have so many reasons rooted in their nature, to induce them to reject all innovations of the kind. We have given evidence of the most irresistible character on this head. We have recently stated Mr. Baber's strong expression on the inutility and folly of missions to India, and it so happens that, in the hour at which we write, a new report from the East India Committee presents itself, "all dewy" from the printers, in which we find another eye-witness giving his testimony to the cause of truth.

Thomas Bracken, Esq., a partner in the house of Alexander and Company, of Calcutta, and residing in that city for fifteen years, after having been examined upon miscellaneous questions connected with commercial matters, is asked

"Is the knowledge of the English language extending among the natives ?-In Calcutta it is very much, and there are day schools where the children learn it.

"Is the Christian religion extending amongst them ?—I do not think that there is much extension of that.

"During your residence of fifteen years in India, do you know of a single instance of the real conversion of a native of India to the Christian religion?-I cannot say that I know individually any person who has been converted, but I have heard a clergyman of the name of Hill* say that he has seen one or two villages in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, in which the inhabitants have shewn a disposition (!) to become converts to Christianity. I conceive that the higher class of natives of Calcutta are getting rid of Hindooism-but I do not know that they have adopted any other religion." Mr. Bracken had but just returned from India when he was examined, so that his may be regarded as the latest authentic intelligence on this important subject.

It is very far from our intention at this moment to enter into our own view of the causes why the missionary enterprize, so gigantic in its preparation, and so well sustained in its resources, should have been attended with such little comparative benefit. But we cannot suppress our feelings as to one part of the machinery, by which the society seeks to execute in detail its benevolent and admirable intentions. In reading the story of the persecutions which unhappily too uniformly attend the first efforts at spreading the Gospel, we have been often struck with a sense of the very important advantages which the single Catholic missionary enjoyed, as compared with the protestant married one. We leave out of the question altogether the abstract point of the celibacy of the clergy, and desire to have nothing to do with it. But when we speak of advantages,

VOL. III. NO. I.

*Mr. Hill is a missionary.

H

we mean to the missionary cause. The priest was an isolated being-he had no powerful sympathies tearing at his heart strings -his sufferings were concentrated in himself he was a free agent, and he was not fettered by a recollection of the hazard that his conduct, whatever it might be, would bring any body else into trouble besides himself. It needs no great stretch of fancy to conceive how the various and critical requisitions of a missionary life may be much more efficiently answered by an agent, so perfectly disentangled from secular affairs as a priest of the Catholic church, than by a person who, however beneficent his intentions, already stands responsible for the discharge of the duties of a husband and a father. Let us take the few facts illustrative of our views, which we have casually gleaned from the volume before us. Mr. Crook, a resident missionary in one of the Society Islands, has a family of nine children. Mr. Mundy, a missionary in Chinsurah, north of India, we are told, when visited by the deputation, was "" still very low, on account of the loss of his late most excellent wife." Mr. Ellis, the eminent missionary, who had laboured so diligently in the vineyard of the Society Islands, and who, as he was about to lay the sickle to the ripe harvest,-the fruit of his own skilful cultivation,-was compelled to leave his interesting charge and return to his native land. Why?-Mrs. Ellis's state of health required that she should be brought back to England. The poignant grief, the general disturbance of body and mind-the consequent incapacity for performing any active duties, which supervene upon domestic losses in a missionary family, are painted by this gentleman with a truth, which only he who felt them could reach.

"When death enters a family, and removes a wife and mother from the social and domestic circle, though every alleviation which society, friendship, and religion can impart are available, there is a chasm left, and a wound inflicted on the survivors which must be felt in order to be understood: when death repeatedly enters in this way a family connection, the distress is proportionably augmented: but it is impossible to form an adequate idea of the desolateness of the mission family (for such it might be called) at this time, and the cheerless solitude of those thus bereft of the partners of their days and the mothers of their children."

We cannot add to the effect which such evidence as this must produce on the policy that ought to govern the selection of missionaries, and we have felt it right to point out, for solemn consideration, those sources of embarrassment which tend so much to cripple the energy of the ministerial office; at the same time, we are not insensible to the advantages which the co-operation of women may produce, in the multifarious duties of the missionary life.

Having now dismissed the important subject of missions from our minds, we eagerly recur to the unalloyed pleasure which we derived from the miscellaneous portions of these volumes. They