THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH. upon the heads and the homes of its infatuated | efficacy of Christian principles, when we labour to supporters, and at length bring it to be denounced, effect reformations on the lower ground of utility by all but savages, as a nuisance in the world—a nui- or of temporizing expediency.-Lectures by Isaac sance insufferable,to be swept away at whatever risk. Taylor, Esq. A parallel instance of the gradual efficacy of the Christian ethics in removing inveterate evils by the slow expansion of principles, rather than by express prohibition, is that of War. The amiable friends of universal peace seem, although diametrically opposed in everything to the upholders of slavery, yet to have fallen into a similar misapprehension of the spirit of the Christian code. For while the apologists of slavery are looking into the New Testament for what may serve to palliate their horrid doctrine, in the way of apparent connivance, the friends of peace are searching for that which we presume they will not find-direct prohibitions of war; although they may easily find that which must, in its season, and perhaps at no very remote period, relieve the world of this scourge, and for ever. Let but a Christian feeling pervade, even if it were only three powerful communities of the civilized world, and there would be no more war in any corner of it. Now, in any instance in which the patrons of prescriptive evils run to the Scriptures to find either precedent for them, or the absence of formal prohibitions, they might be told, not merely that, in taking such a part, they show themselves to be destitute of the mind that was in Christ, but that they totally misunderstand the very structure of the Christian system as an ethical code, and which we are bound to regard always in its power and purport, rather than in its prohibitions; and especially when we have to do with immoral usages, peculiar to countries or to times. The reprovers of such usages should therefore be peculiarly careful not to stake a good cause upon the interpretation of single texts; but should rather bend their utmost endeavours to the work of promulgation, in the purest form, those first truths before which nothing that is malign, unjust, or impure, will be able to stand. It is a circumstance deserving to be noticed, that those who have the most signalized their zeal in opposition to special evils, have not often been remarkable for their cordial regard to the great truths of the Gospel. This practical error, so often fallen into by Christian philanthropists, unfortunately gives countenance, indirectly, to the course pursued by men of an opposite temper, who, in quoting Scripture (as Satan quotes it), in defence of impiety and wrong, plant the Gospel in the Gospel's own path; and doubly obstruct its triumphant progress, first by upholding what is wicked, and then by loading Christianity with the disgrace of seeming to support it. Let the Gospel, in its energy, pervade a community, and each ancient abuse which attaches to it will come, in its turn, to be questioned and rebuked, and will at length yield to this sovereign influence. We confide too little in the heavenly THE barb'rous, dwarfy Uskee natives died, LONDON: To whom all future Orders and letters from correspondents should be addressed; ALSO BY J. MENZIES, Edinburgh; GRIFFIN and Co., Glasgow; CURRY and Co., Dublin; SIMMS and DINHAM, Manchester; SLOCOMBE and SIMMS, Leeds; W. WEBB, Liverpool. BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRIKTERS, WHITEFRIARS. No. XIX. PRICE 3d. THE JOURNAL OF CIVILIZATION. PUBLISHED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF CIVILIZATION. upwards of one hundred and forty children; and the congregation which assembles on the Sabbath-day is seldom less than three hundred and fifty. Within an easy walk of the chapel, there are several large plantations of coffee, and sugar estates, to most of which this is the nearest place of worship. The steeple, and the small room partitioned off at the side of it, form the residence of the assistant missionary. The balcony opens on a lovely prospect, within which Kingston Harbour and Port Royal may be seen. There has lately appeared some necessity for enlarging the accommodations; and with this view, the late Rev. John Wooldridge purchased ground in the vicinity. The position in which the mission is located is perhaps one of the most beautiful spots in the island. On one side rises the magnificent cotton-tree (Bombax Ceiba), as it is called by the natives, although not the plant from which the cotton is made; and round it cluster the bamboo, the cocoa-nut, and the various species of palm which are so luxuriant in Jamaica. With a spirit worthy of the elder architects, men who built to bring down the early barbarism of Europe, the missionary has selected his dwelling. If we look through England, Germany, France, or Italy, we shall find no green nook of the wooded and well-watered valley, more lovely than its brothers, in which the monk has not dwelt; we shall find no winding of the broad river, more delightful than another, in which the ruined stones of the grey monastery do not tell their tale of past learning and piety, as well as after grievous corruption. Beauvais, Tintern, Nonnenwerth, Lahneck, Bath, Netley, Fountains Abbey, &c., are spots which may rival any known portion of the world in individual beauty, even at the present hour; and we may well conceive what they were when the fresh hand of Nature scattered her beauties unchecked over them; when the tree and the brake grew unlopped and unpruned; when the willow dipped its branches in the stream, and the cattle drank beside it. Nor was the architecture of these palaces of religion and learning without its peculiar beauty and impressiveness. The abbeys and colleges of old England were, in those days, centres from which many civilized branches spread abroad. Their architecture became the model of imitation; their charity, the theme of admiration. The baronial hall borrowed its characteristics from their cloistered retreats. The eagle nest of the neighbouring chieftain, perched high amongst rock and mountain, gave place to the more ornamented castle, whose towers were built for war, but decorated for peace. The house of the farmer and the residence of the serf gradually became more spacious; the illuminated manuscript was sometimes to be seen upon the table of the lady of quality,-nay, occasionally found its way into the hut of the lower orders. Agriculture became a general instead of an individual employment, for | the cultivation of the abbey gardens had made it an honourable pursuit ; until at length the press came to complete the work, and a purer religion bore abroad the seeds of a thorough improvement in the condition and civilization of the human race. Exactly in the position which the religious architect of the middle ages held with regard to the rest of the human race, does the missionary stand now with regard to the uncivilized creatures with whom he is brought into contact. With the same wise and prudent spirit, he has selected the most beautiful spots for his residence; he has taken up his abode amidst the loveliness and the glory of Nature. Nor does he exercise a light moral influence upon the natives amongst whom he lives: not only do they examine the course of his life and the influence of his religion, but they watch his private arrangements, his domestic comforts, and they watch them often with an admiring eye. That such minute attention is paid to the proceedings of the missionaries, is evinced by the immediate imitation of the natives. When they build, the infant settlement silently and gradually assumes a similar character to that which the previous buildings have taken. In proof of this, we have only to point out the fact that soon after Mr. Buzacott's residence at Raratonga was built, the king had one commenced in direct imitation. Nor is it only in architecture that the ingenuity of the natives is called out by missionary contact. At the same place, the instruction in writing was of a limited order, arising from the difficulty of procuring slates; this, however, was removed by the pupils themselves, who, with considerable labour, rubbed down flakes of rock to a smooth surface, staining them to a dark colour with the purple juice of the mountain plantain. The next difficulty was to obtain pencil. The place of this they supplied with the spines of the echinus, or sea-egg, which were burnt slightly to make them soft, and prevent their scratching. This ingenious substi tution enabled the task of instruction to go on with great rapidity. The truth is, for the missionary to become of the greatest possible use to the settlement he is located at, he should be, as we are pleased to know that he very often is, a man of general and varied attainments; he should be not altogether ignorant of the elegant arts, and a slight knowledge of architecture would be of primary utility, indeed, we had almost said, would be indispensable. This is perhaps more eminently required in such settlements as Raratonga, than in the parts more thronged by Europeans. Here Mr. Williams has, in his modest and unassuming narrative, detailed the improvements that he was able to introduce amongst the natives. He taught them to work at the forge; to erect better houses; and to make articles of furniture for their own use. His next step was to construct a turning-lathe, with which he turned the leg of a sofa; this ex MISSIONARY LOCALITIES AND ARCHITECTURE. 291 cited such universal admiration, that one of the chiefs, in an ecstacy of delight, strung it round his neck, and perambulated the settlement, whilst many of the astonished inhabitants, looking on it as a marvel of ingenuity, asserted, that had it been seen previously to the introduction of Christianity, | it must inevitably have become an idol. The next useful thing to which Mr. Williams turned his attention, was the construction of a sugar-mill, which he had shortly after the satisfaction, not only to see imitated, but also kept in constant work. A rope-machine then succeeded, and the bark of the hibiscus was converted into a useful and necessary article. After this, the art of growing tobacco for exportation engaged his attention, and would have succeeded, but for the prohibitory duty placed on it by the governor of New South Wales. These are but a small list of the improve- | ments which may be brought about by one man, and only confirm us in our opinion of the import- | ance to the world, that the missionary should be more than the mere pious man, and that cultivated intellect, as well as Christian spirit, is eminently desirable in the preacher of the gospel to peoples and tribes, when European civilization comes not in contact with their own barbarism. At Aro-vations of every kind, and dangers of every deranga, we find one of the strongest instances of the influence which missionary architecture has had over the minds of the natives. The site of the settlement is a large piece of flat land, stretching from the sea to the mountains. A few hundred yards from the beach, and embedded in the rich foliage of the Barringtonia, and other trees that gird the shore, the houses are placed so that they receive the freshness of the sea-breeze. The village is about a mile in length, and perfectly straight, with a wide road running down its whole length. On either side of this road, the plume-like heads of the tufted to-tree, covered with their delicate and lovely blossoms, afford a delightful shade. The cottages are built in regular lines, about fifty yards from the border of this broad pathway, and about the same distance from each other; every house has doors, and Venetian windows, which are painted partly with a lamp-black, procured by burning the candle-nut, and partly with red ochre and other preparations. The contrast between these colours and the snowy whiteness of the coral lime, gives an inexpressible liveliness to the colour of the And as all the houses are new, and of nearly equal dimensions, the settlement possesses a chaste uniformity of appearance unusual amongst those of the South Sea Islanders. The school house and chapel, which stand in the centre of the village, by their prominence, both in size and situation, are readily distinguishable; and from their similarity in appearance to the rest of the houses, at once tell whence the architectural peculiarity of the settlement originated. The ground between the pathway and the house is either, as it is gene rally done, laid out as a garden, or strewn with black and white pebbles. In fact, as far as we can gather from the accounts given, the place has an English air of comfort and respectability, rarely to be met with in parts that were so lately uncivilized. In “Dumont d'Urville's Voyage de l'Astrolabe," we find many instances of native architecture given, and we cannot help commenting on the difference evinced in those instances where the natives have come enough in collision with Europeans, and more especially with the missionaries, to profit by the examples of greater comfort and purer taste. At the conclusion of this voyage, we find him reflecting in a manner so natural, that we cannot forbear translating a portion of his remarks, and applying them to the subject of missionary enterprise. After mentioning the claims which men of letters, and those who minister to the refined enjoyments of their fellows, have on them, he goes on to say :-" And shall a less generous feeling be shown towards men who, in the exercise of their profession as sailors, estranging themselves from all which is dear to them, condemning themselves to an exile of many years, vowing their life to a continual contest with pri scene. scription, constitute themselves, in some measure, the general and special discoverers of knowledge, and investigators of science, and frequently fall martyrs to their toils? Is it nothing to trace out shores scarcely known before; to discover the manners, language, and customs of people isolated in the island reefs of our huge ocean? &c. &c. Do these conquests, so novel and precious in themselves, acquire no new value when we reflect that they have been made at the price of a thousand sacrifices and a thousand perils; and that the vessel in which such conquests over ignorance have been made was condemned to pass years under the moist heat of the equator, or amid the tropical terrors of the hurricane ?" Dumont d'Urville cannot put forth the claims of the sailor more strongly than we are disposed to acknowledge them: but in the same, and in far stronger terms than he has pleaded the cause of the discoverer, must we speak for the missionary : he, who not only goes forth to toil, but often goes forth alone, goes to isolate himself for years, perhaps for life, amongst the barbarians of the uncivilized island; he who makes his bed at the side of danger, and dwells in the midst of fear; he who consecrates himself, not to the pursuit of worldly honour or worldly renown, but to the toil and the labour which Christ commands, and the happiness his fellow-creatures need. It is to awake an independent sympathy for him, that we bring him so prominently forward; it is to show that he belongs to the whole world, that we again recur to the subject of his labours, and tell of his efforts to better and improve those with whom his lot is cast. We would draw the picture of the humble settlement; we would tell of its homely but comfortable architecture; of the balmy winds sweeping through the trees; and, talking of the God of Nature, the God of the Bible, we would make those who read fancy they hear the bell, as it summons to prayer on the Sabbath; we would make them see the humble scholars in the school-room, attaining the knowledge which saveth the soul, and the instruction that benefits the body: in one word, we would become the medium of communication between missionary enterprise and the whole of mankind; we would have the preacher become, as he deserves to be, the object of love to every philanthropist, as well as the object of veneration to every Christian. We now leave the drawing to speak for itself; we bid the reader remember, that the spot derives an additional interest from its association with the interests of humanity, far superior to its own picturesque beauty; that it is not to be looked upon as the mere cottage or dwelling-place situated in the lovely valley; that we are to look upon it as the centre of civilization; the fountain whence the waters of life spread abroad, in what had been, despite of its physical beauty, but some brief space since, a spiritual desert. Under this view, it as sumes new charms and new attractions. With a promise that we shall return to this subject at a future time, we now desist. C. R. VILLAGE IGNORANCE AND SUPER- "THAT superstition abounds will appear," says a correspondent," when you hear that if a person cuts himself, or is stung by a bee, or otherwise hurt, he goes to a person who professes to bless in the name of the TRINITY; and, as he supposes, obtains a cure. If illness come upon them, (there are some exceptions of course,) they imagine that they are overlooked, as they call it; or, if their cattle die, they think that some one has ill-wished it. I was talking with a man some time since whose potato-crop had failed, and he told me that it was in consequence of his having offended a woman whose ridge was next to his, and he believed that she had cursed his, and so injured them! Talk of the superstition of the Hindoo, of the Catholic, and others, we are, even in this professedly Christian island, surrounded by gross darkness. But here the light is shining, and I trust that it will enter many a dark and enslaved mind, by which will be seen the folly and absurdity of such practices, the necessity of abandoning such things, and trusting alone in the living God. Those who hear the word listen to it with much attention, which is a pleasing sign; and though many do not at present manifest anything like a change of heart, we may hope in due season to 'reap if we faint not.'" Another says:-" I called upon five families and told them I would pay them if they would let me have a bit of bread and a drink of milk, but the only thing they could offer was a raw potato. A population left without schools for the rising generation, and no gospel ministry, might be expected to grow up in ignorance, vice, and superstition. The instances have been numerous of superstition, not to say anything of the former evils. As a missionary and pastor, I have had frequently to attend the funerals of some of my flock, where families kept one or more hives of bees; you may judge of my astonishment, the first of the kind I attended, not aware of the usual thing,' of immediately turning the hive the moment the body is raised to the shoulders of the bearers. I was greatly disturbed and considerably agitated to find that I was surrounded by a cloud of bees. The poor women were better prepared than the men folk but all were much afraid, and many with myself made a hasty escape. When we had got about a mile, the little family that had been disturbed gradually left us; and I said to a friend,' What was the reason of the bees coming out?' 'Oh, sir, it is the usual thing here to turn all the hives when the coffin is taken from the door, or else the bees will all die, so they say." "A few weeks ago," says a third correspondent, "I was out in the vicinity of F-——, and there I was struck with an instance of imposition and weakness. A young woman, unable to read, I found near her end; she had been brought home because of affliction, that she might have parental care. At the head of her bed she had suspended a bullock's heart, thickly covered with pins and thorns. I asked her mother the meaning of that. The dear child is witched, and that, sir, keeps off the evil spirit from tormenting the child.' 'How do you know the child is witched?' She replied, Oh, the wise man was round here and said so, and mother has had him at her house for ten days, but he cannot bring the woman that has done it; he is coming again next week.' And can your mother afford to keep the man? perhaps he will stay some time.' Why, he must live well, for it's dreadful hard work to call up, he says, so mother could not have him longer.' "After speaking of the sin and folly of such conduct, I desired the bullock's heart to be removed, as a favour to me, while I remained. At this moment the grandmother made her appearance. She had no objection to the heart being taken away. I opened my Bible, read, expounded, and prayed. Then I asked the young woman how she felt, if the removal of the heart had disturbed her? She said, No, ch no; I am happy now?' To which the aged grandmother said, 'No evil spirit where you are, sir; but it will come when you are gone, unless that sign is brought."" A fourth correspondent writes:-" During the |