avarice of the white man, and sold to the slave-dealers on the coast. After enduring the most cruel hardships, prior to the sailing of the vessel to her destination, and especially during the horrors of the "middle passage," he was happily rescued, he said, by one of the British Cruizers and brought to England. Since that period he had worked as a sailor on board of an English merchant vessel, and had recently been discharged at Whitehaven, the principal seaport in Cumberland. Being unable to obtain another situation, a benevolent lady, resident in that town, had given him a large parcel of tracts to sell about the country, by which, she told him, as he simply related her Christian expressions, "he might relieve his own necessities, as well as those of others of a still more urgent description, obtaining for himself the bread of this world, while he offered to them the bread of the world to come." After commiserating the hard fate of this poor destitute African, they interrogated him as to his own knowledge of what the tracts contained which he was selling; and as to those better hopes of a happier existence, where there will be no slaves nor slave-dealers,-"There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor;"*-where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain."+ After putting these questions, and receiving a more satisfactory reply than they could well have expected, Mr. and Mrs. Gracelove selected a dozen of his tracts, giving him five times their amount in value; with which the poor fellow, with tears in his eyes, and gratitude in his heart, like the Ethiopian of ancient days, "went on his way rejoicing."‡ * Job iii. 17, 18. + Rev. xxi. 4. Acts viii. 39. This little incident," said Mrs. Gracelove, as the poor black man departed from them, "is precisely of that nature which, if asked the question, I should have wished to have occurred in our morning's ramble. Nothing sweetens the enjoyment of pleasure half so much, as when we can unite with our own personal gratifications the higher moral charm of relieving the distress of a fellow creature, and thus making him, in some degree, participant in our own happiness. Bright and clear as is the sky, I must acknowledge that this simple circumstance has seemed to cast a purer gleam of sunshine over the landscape than it possessed before. And when we sit down to the dinner which is preparing, will it not give an additional flavour to the provisions placed before us, when we remember that we have supplied the craving wants of a wretched human being for whom Christ died, as well as for ourselves, though dark his countenance, and an outcast on the world's cold charity? 66 'My dear children," continued the tender-hearted mother, "bless God that you were born in a Christian land, and of Christian parents; and let your fervent gratitude to your gracious Creator, for such an inestimable benefit, be exemplified in your earnest endeavours to communicate the grace of God to others less favoured than yourselves; while, at the same time, you administer relief to their temporal necessities. "But remember, my beloved children, how boundless is the sphere of action, and how few are the labourers. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.' Remember how many 'dark habitations,' scattered throughout this wide world,—the plaguespots of heathenism, are still unvisited by missionary zeal and love; unenlightened and unwarmed by the instruction and the charities of Christianity. Think what appeals are continually made for help, and how many still abide in darkness and the shadow of death. "From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand; From many a palmy plain,— Their land from error's chain. Shall we, whose souls are lighted The lamp of light deny ? The joyful sound proclaim, Till each remotest nation Has learn'd Messiah's name. Waft, waft, ye winds, his story, It spreads from pole to pole; In bliss returns to reign.' "And now," observed Mr. Gracelove, as he sat down on a soft sunny bank, while the rest followed his example, “let me turn your attention, for a moment, to the excellent Society from whose inexhaustible stores of love and mercy these precious little papers proceed. There are but two religious institutions, in my humble opinion, that can take precedence of the Religious Tract Society, with regard to extensive * Heber. usefulness, indefatigable Christian energy, and unwearied industry; these are the Bible and Church Missionary Societies. "There can be no doubt whatever, that the first of these two, as being the great depositaries of that holy book which is the only solid foundation of all religion,-claims the preeminent place in our hearts and affections. Without the Bible, an impenetrable veil of darkness would overshadow our moral horizon, which no human hand could withdraw. Deprived of its inspired knowledge, and its redeeming grace, through Jesus Christ, man would be little better than the beasts that perish. "But as the Bible is the foundation, so missionary exertion, in all its extent of moral and spiritual instruction, may be represented as the superstructure of the religious fabric. For, as the Supreme Being condescends to employ the instrumentality of his creatures, it becomes needful that men should be found, of Christian minds and attainments, who will devote themselves to the pious work of carrying the Bible to the remotest corners of the globe. Unaided by such a powerful and blessed co-operation, the world could never be evangelized, and brought to a saving knowledge of the truth; and the inspired volume would be confined to the place where it was first promulgated. "If, however, the Bible and Church Missionary Societies are to be esteemed the two first and noblest institutions in the world, the Religious Tract Society, as a most zealous and efficient auxiliary to the others, appears, to my humble judgment, to challenge the third place in the sphere of religious usefulness. "How many thousands, nay, tens of thousands among mankind, are first aroused from the fatal lethargy of sin and infidelity by the awakening voice of a simple tract! The daring blasphemer has been arrested in the full career of his reckless impiety;-the profligate, in the midst of his debaucheries; the carnally-minded, in the practical denial of his Maker, seeking to gain the world while he loses his own soul. All this has been, and is daily, in the course of being accomplished by these little messengers of truth and peace. "The same man," he remarked, "that will scorn to take up the Bible; hostile as he is to its holiness, as well as deterred from its perusal by its voluminous contents; will, nevertheless, read a tract that may fall into his hands, and for the following reasons: First, because he is attracted, as is not unfrequently the case, by the startling title which it bears; inducing a curiosity to know what it means, or what can be said on the subject; and sometimes impelled by a latent apprehension of the error of his ways, which, for the moment, he feels induced to satisfy. The second, and principal reason, however, is, that the paper in question requires but five minutes, in many cases, to ascertain its contents, while the sacred volume requires months of deliberate and patient perusal. "So full of spiritual life, and Bible-truths, are these little unpretending publications; so full of energy, deep reasoning, affectionate expostulation, solemn warning, and, often, of the most winning and eloquent language; so replete with Gospel promises of forgiveness to the penitent, and awful denunciations against the reprobate; that, in the impressive language of the poet, they that sat down to scoff, remained to pray.' "Thus awakened, on the instant, to a state of mental uneasiness, like a man starting up from a feverish dream of undefined visionary objects, yet still most disquieting,the reader lays down the perused paper with a suspicion, excited perchance for the first time, that all is not as it should be; and with a consciousness that if the tract be right his conduct is awfully in the wrong. He perceives that continual |