no one's interest to lay before the house and the country in such a manner as to win their attention and excite their sympathy. It was not so when the talents of Burke, Fox, and Sheridan were directed to the exposure of Indian misrule. It would not now be so, if the talents of Brougham, Mackintosh, Burdett, Tierney, and others, were exercised on the same great subject. And why are they not? it will be inquired. Was the philanthropy of Burke and his colleagues more active than that of the patriots of the same school in our own days? Certainly not. But there was then a hope of defeating and displacing men in power, and a consequent admission to vacated offices, which animated the bosoms and inspired the tongues of the impeachers of Warren Hastings; without which, notwithstanding the truth of the charges against him, their denunciations would probably never have been heard. There is no such hope to be indulged from any agitation of Indian questions now; and therefore they are not agitated, except by an occasional and unsupported effort of some disinterested and benevolent individual, who, belonging to no party, is left helpless and alone in his career. But though that stimulus of hope cannot be applied, the equally powerful one proposed is fortunately still practicable: as at any moment a score of highly-gifted individuals might be found, who would readily accept a seat in Parliament on condition that, while so holding it, they should be free to exercise their own discretion on topics of general interest brought forward for discussion, provided the emancipation of India from the fetters that now bind her in civil and political slavery should form the prominent object of their united labours to achieve. Such seats are as purchaseable as any other commodity in the market: and the means of having any great public cause advocated in Parliament are, therefore, as accessible to all classes who possess wealth and have the disposition to unite their contributions for the common good, as are the means of prosecuting any suit in a court of law. In the latter, indeed, the payment of the established fees will procure the ablest men at the bar to advocate any side of a question proposed to them by their client, whom, whether right or wrong, they conceive themselves bound by their fee to defend. In the former, however, such exact stipulations, and such entire abandonment of judgment on the part of the advocate, would not be necessary. It would be enough to choose the avowed friends of the freedom and improvement of the human race, to purchase their admission to the House, without giving them any fees, on condition that, among their other duties, they should make the interests of India their peculiar study and care; and the rest might be fairly left to their discretion. We have no hesitation in saying, that if only a portion of the money spent in useless and pernicious objects in the East, to say nothing of the vast sums sacrificed every year to prosecute appeals against unjust judgments and abuses in that distant country, were applied by some unanimous effort to the end here proposed, the people of

India would receive, in three years, more solid advantages from such an expenditure than they have ever yet done from every attempt hitherto made to improve their condition.

With such a measure as this, we should see all the duties of that great country fulfilled, and its interests carefully guarded and promoted. We should see its agricultural and commercial resources developed; its institutions purified; its rights and privileges defined and protected; its wealth, intelligence, and power, continually increased; and its people respected, free, and happy. These are the greatest of all duties which man in any state of existence can perform-the greatest of all the interests which his efforts can promote. The means are chiefly in the hands of the people of the colonies or dependencies themselves; and if the mother country has not wisdom enough to perceive, or virtue enough to carry into execution measures necessary for advancing the welfare of her settlements (in which must be included the greatness of her own parent state) it then becomes the imperative duty of the dependent country to think and act for itself, and endeavour to enforce from its unwilling parent the fulfilment of its sacred obligations, by gentle and persuasive measures as long as these may avail, but when these are met with indifference and scorn, by such more commanding resources as God and Nature have placed at the disposal of men and nations for their own protection and defence.

THE BETRAYER.

THE rose had lent its brightest hue
To Laura's lip of fire,

And Heaven had given its chastest dew

To cool impure desire.

But man betray'd, while virtue slept
In love's seductive spell;

And the warm tear that beauty wept
Unseen, unpitied, fell.

Oh! weep no more, sweet injured maid,
For each repentant tear

To Heaven has told thy faith betray'd,
And seal'd thy pardon there.

Thy sorrowing eyes' imploring ray
Will bring from Mercy's brow
A smile to chase thy fears away,
Bright as the mountain snow.

And angels, when they write the line
On Truth's recording roll,

Will stamp the guilt, no longer thine,
On thy betrayer's soul.

ON THE EXTINCTION OF CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.

AMONG the bad qualities of religious persecution, incapacity to effect its object is very often enumerated; it being generally supposed that no kind of opinion, however absurd, has ever been put down by force. Perhaps this mistake has no evil tendency; but that it is a mistake may, we think, be proved with the utmost clearness. The human will, we allow, is difficult to be subdued; but there are modes of suffering, and degress of pain, which, skilfully contrived, and relentlessly administered, would wring compli ance from almost any thing in the shape of man. The honour of martyrdom is much more frequently owing to the precipitation of the persecutor than to the courage of the sufferer. Publicity, too, has its share in contributing to increase the fortitude of persecuted men. Solitary dungeons, and the silent mining of want, embittered occasionally by fearful infliction of torture, by horrible forebodings, by tremendous suggestions to the fancy, would dissipate any degree of courage, could the body be made to withstand the perpetual presence of agony, until the mind had lost its elasticity. Thousands succumbed in the vaults of the Inquisition, who, in open day-light, would have braved the impaling stake and the fire. It seems probable, likewise, that many sects of Christians were swept away in the early ages of the church by the unceasing persecutions of the orthodox; and it is very certain that the stream of orthodoxy itself, so far from widening, as some have pretended, and growing stronger from being put under the superintendence of the public executioner, shrunk, narrowed, and almost disappeared during the fierce bursts of persecution. It was something very different from the violence exercised towards it, that gave energy and effect to the principles of Christianity, but what that something was, it is not our present business to inquire: we merely propose giving a description, in as few words as possible, of the extinction of Christianity in Japan, an event which, properly viewed, may give rise to many useful reflections.

The first communication that ever took place between the Japanese and any Christian people happened very early in the sixteenth century; for the Portuguese, at that time, all-powerful in the eastern seas, contrived to open a traffic with them through the medium of the Chinese and the people of Siam and Camboia. About the year 1549, the Jesuits began their operations for the conversion of Japan: at first, they experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining belief in the few dogmas they propounded; the pagans stood up stoutly for their gods; reasoned acutely; and only gave way when vanquished by superior subtilty. It is thought, indeed, that even the little success which Christianity experienced in that Oriental Herald, Vol. 11.

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country was chiefly owing to the countenance of an Epicurean sect of philosophers, who thought it less absurd than the received superstitions. However this may be, the Jesuits laboured in their mission with indefatigable zeal, and succeeded, in the course of a few years, not only in converting a great number of ignorant people, but several governors, also, or tributary kings. Nay, they proceeded so far as to obtain in one whole province the prohibition of every other religion than Christianity. They saw rich and numerous congregations springing up about them, and to give greater eclat to their faith, and greater consequence to their followers, they erected, in various places, very splendid churches. They were still, however, but ill satisfied with their good fortune, while they could behold, from the doors of their churches, innumerable worshippers thronging around the temples of Budha or the Kami, and evincing the greatest satisfaction with their idolatry. The temples of the Japanese, as well as their houses, are built and roofed with wood, cut into shingles, which lap over each other like tiles. On this account they are very combustible; as well as from the number of straw mats, piled up here and there, for the worshippers to kneel on, while repeating their orisons. It is well known, also, that Roman Catholics are so partial to candle-light that they even assist the sun-beams with tapers, on particular occasions. In Japan they turned them to account in a different way-they set fire to pagodas, and enjoyed the delight of beholding the idolators wailing over the cinders of their gods. But whatever be the deities men may happen to worship, there are few who would be pleased to see their temples set on fire by the priests of a foreign country and another religion; more particularly if these pious men proceed to such extremities before they have rendered themselves masters of the country. It should be a rule with those who think the destruction of other religions necessary, to subdue the people first, and then burn their temples and their gods;-for the gods of a vanquished country may almost always be burned with impunity, although it is not an easy matter without previous conquest.

This desperate step was not, we believe, attributable to the Jesuits; at all events, the Japanese Government was first provoked to severities by the indiscreet zeal of certain holy friars from the Philippines. Previously to this, however, the Jesuits and their noble converts had come to a rupture on the subject of polygamy, the latter not being able to see why they should divorce their wives because they had changed their opinions; and the former insisting that those who embraced their faith ought to have but one wife. The Japanese nobles, feeling the religion of the missionaries insinuating itself farther into the business of life than they thought proper, and observing that it threatened to interfere with the laws as well as opinions of the country, withdrew their protection from it; and immediately Government issued a decree commanding the instant departure of the Jesuits. Nevertheless, no severities were

exercised towards them, nor was the decree put in force, in fact. The Jesuits merely kept themselves quiet, and awaited the passing of the storm. However, when the pious friars arrived, and commenced operations anew, with more zeal than wisdom, the spirit of the Japanese Government was aroused, and they found, to their cost, that although Catholicism was orthodoxy in Portugal and Spain, it was heresy in Japan; and was to be repressed with physical arguments, hardly equalled in cogency by the racks and pullies of the Inquisition. They might as well have gone on a mission to convert the Boa Constrictors, or the Caymen of South America. A hell of tortures started up suddenly around them; for, about the same time, the Japanese Government either discovered, or thought it discovered, proofs that these friars were only the pioneers of political invasion. Arms were found in a Portuguese vessel taken near Orudo; and the captain, having boasted of the vast conquests of his countrymen, and being interrogated on the means, replied: "That these were made by sending missionaries, who converted a large proportion of the people, after which an armed force was landed, and, being joined by those converts, soon made themselves masters of the country."

These words sealed the fate of Christianity in Japan. The emperor, enraged beyond conception at the cajoling instruments of a policy so nefarious, determined on plucking up the new faith, though its roots should bring up with them the heart's blood of his subjects. Undoubtedly the wish of Caligula, in miniature, fluttered on his lips; he would have been happy had the hated sect had but one neck, that he might have struck it off at a blow. Jesuits, friars, proselytes, all were marked out for extermination; and the business of destruction was commenced in a spirit so fierce and bloody, that the horrible legends of the ancient martyrs seemed tales of humanity in comparison.

It is conjectured that the number of Christians in the Japanese islands, at the breaking out of the persecution, amounted to upwards of forty thousand; in which number were included persons of every condition, age, and sex; petty kings, gentlemen, peasants, with their wives and children. The burning of a few half-starved Jews or heretics at an auto-da-fé in Portugal was nothing to what the friars now witnessed: men, women and children were gathered up from the earth, like so many poisonous reptiles, and subjected to tortures, and pains, and anguish, which even now, at the distance of two hundred years, curdle the very blood in our veins. They cannot now be described, though a hard Dutch pen was found at the period equal to the task. Conceive the most horrid chapter in Fox's Book of Martyrs,' adorned with new cruelties and torments, and you may form some conception of the sufferings which thousands underwent in Japan for differing in matters of opinion from the established church. At all events, we must leave the details of