Church, but as a feeler on the part of Lord Melbourne of how much she would endure. He finds the experiment will not bear repetitionat least, not yet.

But let not the elevation of Dr. Longley pacify Churchmen, and make them feel secure. THE ENEMIES OF THE CHURCH HAVE ITS HIGHEST APPOINTMENTS IN THEIR HANDS; whatever temporary use they may make of this power, it is surely not for Churchmen to slight the fact. Nay, the statute of 25 Hen. VIII. is written in blood, and too foul to bear the light of the present day. Can any thing be more infamous than that a Dean and Chapter, for refusing to elect, or that a Bishop, for refusing to consecrate a Socinian, infidel, or otherwise objectionable person, should be liable to forfeiture of goods, imprisonment during pleasure, and deprivation of the rights of a citizen? What would be said, if such a statute could be enforced against dissenters? We should indeed hear of persecution! and we trust, not the noisiest dissenter in the realm would exclaim more loudly against it than ourselves. All the "grievances" of the dissenters combined are ludicrous in comparison with this. If these are the kind of privileges which are to distinguish the "Established Church," all we can say is, the sooner it ceases to be established, the better. Let the public petition earnestly for the repeal of this disgraceful statute. The public, we say-not Churchmen alone; for we would not be so illiberal as to deprive the dissenters (whose respect for the rights of conscience is so notorious) of their share in a work of justice. Let Churchmen add the prayer, that the King would be pleased to be advised in ecclesiastical appointments by the Bishops, or by his faithful Convocation, instead of by ministers, who may be Papists, and are anythingarians. The restitution of the last-mentioned right is, at all events, indispensable. We trust it will be granted. It cannot, of course, if it is not asked: but if generally sought, we are satisfied it would not be refused. Give us THE CONVOCATION; and let the enemies of RELIGION keep their Melbournes, O'Connells, Russells, and as many more of the same class as they please.

ART. II.-Six Months of a Newfoundland Missionary's Journal, from February to August, 1835. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1836. 8vo. Pp. 264.

THIS is one of the most interesting and affecting volumes we have ever read. It is a narrative of a Missionary Archdeacon's visitation through the almost desolate island committed to his charge, and well illustrates the hardships, the cares, the encouragements, and the value

of the missionary. If the book had no other merit than that of making the reader better acquainted with Newfoundland and its inhabitants, it would well repay the perusal; but however great the interest with which we follow Archdeacon Wix through the toils and dangers of his journey, it fades in comparison before the moral charm which pervades the work, and the impressive practical lesson which his facts convey.

Travelling over the snow in Newfoundland is less difficult in the month of March than walking over land at any other season of the year. The Archdeacon, therefore, attended by his guide, and carrying a knapsack, in which were fourteen pounds' weight, left St. John's, Feb. 17th. They soon missed their way; but by observing the juniper, or larch trees, whose branches always point to the east, they regained their path some time after dark, and reached the house of a respectable planter, on the south shore of Conception Bay, at ten o'clock. Next day he crossed through the "slob ice," which was very thick in Conception Bay, four leagues in three hours, to Port de Grave.

It may give some idea of the difficulty of communication in the winter, even in the neighbourhood of St. John's, if I state here that gentlemen at Port de Grave had not seen a St. John's newspaper for a month, when I arrived amongst them; and that in Trinity Bay, I found that the sum of forty shillings had been, on a late occasion, demanded, and twenty-five shillings actually paid, for the casual conveyance of a single letter over land by one of the cross-country guides.-P. 17.

From this time the Archdeacon's journal presents a succession of hardships. Sometimes he obtained the luxury of a bed; more frequently he had to share with the poor inhabitants the miserable accommodation afforded by their "tilts," or winter huts.

Every hole and corner in the cabin which I first visited in Placentia Bay, that was not taken up by the human inmates, being occupied by pigs, ducks, fowls, sheep, or dogs, I was glad to find a more roomy and a cleaner retreat in another tilt; here, though the door did not close by at least a foot, to prevent the inconvenience of smoke, which is almost universal in these winter houses, I sat upon a chest until dawn.-Pp. 27, 28.

One tilt was visited by me in this island, the dimensions of which were only twelve feet by ten, and I found living in it a man and his wife,—the master and mistress of the house,-two married daughters with their husbands and children, amounting, in all, to fifteen souls!-P. 54.

To add to the discomfort, these tilts are constantly filled with wood smoke, the pungency of which is well expressed by the epithet given to it by the inhabitants, "cruel steam," and from the mode of their construction they are very liable to take fire.

My eyes, which have been much tried by the glare of the sun upon the snow, and by the cutting winds abroad, are further tried within the houses by the quantity of smoke, or "cruel steam," as the people emphatically and correctly designate it, with which every tilt is filled. The structure of the winter tilt, the chimney of which is of upright studs, stuffed or "stogged" between with

moss, is so rude, that in most of them in which I officiated the chimney has caught fire once, if not oftener, during the service. When a fire is kept up, which is not unusual all night long, it is necessary that somebody should sit up, with a bucket of water at hand, to stay the progress of these frequent fires; an old gun-barrel is often placed in the chimney corner, which is used as a syringe, or diminutive fire-engine, to arrest the progress of these flames; or masses of snow are placed on the top of the burning studs, which, as they melt down, extinguish the dangerous element. The chimneys of the summer-houses in Fortune Bay are better fortified against the danger, being lined within all the way up with a coating of tin, which is found to last for several years.-Pp. 64, 65.

Even this wretched accommodation could not always be obtained, and the travellers were sometimes obliged to pass their nights in the open air.

The snow being at least ten feet deep, a rude shovel is first cut out of the side of some standing tree, which is split down with a wedge made for the purpose. Snow does not adhere to wood as it does to an iron shovel, consequently a wooden shovel is preferable for the purpose of shovelling out the snow. The snow is then turned out for the space of eight or ten feet square, according to the number of the company which requires accommodation. When the snow is cleared away quite to the ground, the wood is laid on the ground for the fire. About a foot of loose snow is left in the cavern round the fire. On this the spruce or fir branches, which break off very easily when bent hastily back down:vards, are laid all one way, featherwise, with the lower part of the bough upwards. Thus the bed is made. Some of these boughs are also stuck upright on the snow against the wall of snow by the side of the cavern, and a door or opening is left in the wall of snow for the bringing in during the night the birch-wood for burning, which is piled up in heaps close by for the night's supply, that any who may be awake during the night may bring it in as it is required. Here the traveller lies with no covering from the weather, or other shelter than the walls of snow on each side of his icy cavern and surrounding trees may supply. Of course as the laborious exercise during the day is sufficiently heating, and he is unwilling unnecessarily to increase his burden, he has no great coat or cloak for wrapping up at night. A yellow fungus which grows on the wich-hazel supplies tinder to the Indian, who is never without flint and steel, and he is remarkably expert in vibrating moss and dry leaves and birch bark rapidly through the air in his hands, which, soon after the application of a spark, ignite and make a cheerful blaze. One who passes a night in the woods in the winter must halt by four P. M., for by the time the hole in the snow is dug, and a sufficient number of trees are felled, and cut up to serve for the supply of fuel for the night, it will have become dark.— Pp. 90-92.

Among other inconveniences of this kind of winter travelling, the difficulty of procuring water is not inconsiderable.

At this season, if a lake or rivulet chance to be near your resting place, it is, in all probability, protected from invasion by so thick a coat of ice that it would require some hours' labour with a hatchet to get at it. A draught of water, obtained at such a price of labour, to guides already overwearied with carrying his burden and hewing his wood, a humane man would relish as little as Sir Philip Sydney would have relished a selfish draught at Zutphen, or David from the well at Bethlehem. (2 Sam. xxiii. 15-17.) I contented myself, therefore, with water supplied by snow melted by the smoky fire. This water, together with the wind, had the effect of parching and cracking my swollen lips to such a degree, that, when on getting out of the country on the 10th, I again saw my face, after an interval of eight days, in a piece of broken glass, I had some difficulty in recognising my own features.-Pp. 104, 105.

In travelling over the deep snow, it is often necessary to wear rackets or snow shoes, which add much to the fatigue and pain of a traveller who is unaccustomed to them.

Being thirty-three inches in length, and eighteen inches broad, and weighing each of them twenty ounces, even before they are saturated with wet, they occasioned me many falls and disasters. This was especially the case in descending very steep hills, or going upon the thin ice of Long Pond, which broke in under our weight. The water, which had collected to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half on the top of ice of some of the large lakes, had its own coat of ice, and although the safety of the traveller is not endangered by the weakness of this upper ice, his expedition is very much impeded.-P. 90.

The difficulties of the traveller were rather increased than lessened when the season became milder, and the thaw commenced.

Monday, April 13.-Started over the rotten ice, which let me through once, as I leaped from pen to pen. Went to Conne Head, across Conne River, where the water was nearly knee-deep, upon the ice to Jean Michael's wigwam, and waited there for low tide that we might walk on the beach. At Brand's Point, we crossed the nick through the woods, and over barrens to Little River, which we had to ford, high as our waists, and reached the winter house of a man who in the summer lived at Grand Jervis. There I slept.

Tuesday 14.-Up at three, A.M. I had a very bad walk of ten miles down Little River, partly hopping from one pen of ice to another, and partly wading through the deep water round the points. To escape one or two of these points, I rafted myself upon pieces of floating ice down the stream.-Pp. 110, 111.

In the beginning of April the Archdeacon and his two guides were all attacked with snow blindness. To add to their misfortunes, their provisions were just out. On the 8th they divided their last portion of bread dust and crumbs, the whole amounting to not more than two biscuits. It was determined, therefore, to return to a spot where they had buried a quantity of venison.

A black gauze veil, which I had kept over my eyes when the sun was at its height, and the resolution to which I adhered of not rubbing my eyes, had preserved me, perhaps, from suffering so much from sun-blindness as my companions. Maurice Louis, the Indian, would open his eyes now and then to look at my compass-we could not see for fog more than 100 yards; he would fix on some object as far as the eye could reach, and then shut his eyes again, when I would lead him up to it. On reaching it he would open his eyes again, and we would, in the same manner, take a fresh departure. It was literally a case in which the blind was leader to the blind.-Pp. 102, 108.

We have extended our extracts much beyond what we had proposed; but, in truth, the whole narrative is so full of interest, and the occurrences and labours of each day are related in so simple and unpretending a manner, that it is difficult to select. To bring the Archdeacon's toils and dangers to a close, we may state, that on the 27th of July, a schooner in which he was returning, was met by a cutter which had been fitted up and dispatched in quest of him by his wife and friends at St. John's, who, having heard nothing of him for three months, entertained very serious apprehensions for his safety. On the 4th of August he rejoined his friends.

In a country where travelling is so difficult, and the population so thinly scattered, the spiritual destitution of the settlers must be lamentable. On this subject the Archdeacon's journal abounds with anecdotes and facts of the highest interest. It is a valuable testimony to the civilising, or, we should say, the humanizing influence of religion. In a few spots, where the miserable inhabitants were living without God and without hope, the picture of depravity and degradation is appalling. These, however, are happily the exceptions. More commonly we find that the good seed which had been sown in the hearts of the first settlers, had continued, with God's blessing, to be fruitful through successive generations, even under the most unfavourable circumstances. A few simple anecdotes our readers will thank us for extracting. We may add that they bear a valuable testimony to the efficacy of creeds, catechisms, and forms of prayer, in preserving the faith alive in the absence of all the ordinary means of religious instruction.

Saturday, February 21.-This day was spent in visiting the people of New Harbour, and the adjoining settlement of Dildo Cove, with Charles Elford, the lay-reader, who has, for some years, been employed under the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The church of St. George's, New Harbour, which was opened for divine service in 1815, is neat, and in a very picturesque situation. It had been decently painted last summer, through Mr. Bullock's exertions. I gave notice of my intention of administering the holy communion in it on

Sunday 22. (Sexagesima Sunday) There were fourteen communicants after morning service at church, and I also administered the same sacrament to an aged person, a man of seventy-seven, in his own house, who remembered the French being in Trinity Bay in 1766. I held two full services, baptized two children at church, and one in private. As there was no stove in the church which could be lighted, and the weather was exceedingly cold, we suffered much during the service. After the two services I walked to Dildo Cove, by a churchpath made by the people, which is very creditable to the devotional feeling of the settlers. Here the weather detained me at the house of Samuel Pretty, a respectable old planter. It was delightful to hear this old churchman contrast, with gratitude, the spiritual condition of the people in this part of the island now, with what it was when he first came out from Chard, in Somersetshire, sixty years ago:-"It is bad enough now, Sir; but then, twelve months and twelve months would pass without our hearing a word of a book, or any talk about a church." New Harbour and Dildo Cove are places which present fine scenery to the admirer of nature; yet I learned that, before Mr. Pretty came thither, they had been the scenes of some very savage murders, into which, such was the imperfect state of the magistracy of Newfoundland at that period, no inquiry whatever was made.*—Pp. 20–22.

Was up before day-light, and after full service, administered the holy com

About fifty years ago a man was condemned at St. John's, Newfoundland, for a most savage murder, but no one could be found to carry the sentence of the law into effect. The commandant of the troops was applied to, but declined to interfere; and the murderer would probably have escaped, but for the late Lord Exmouth, who then commanded a frigate on that station, and who landed a party of marines to conduct the execution. The day was most tempestuous, and just before the criminal was executed, he looked up and said, "If any thing could reconcile a man to going out of the world, it would be such a day as this."