is promised to turn you from the error of your ways, and to renew a Right spirit within you. God willeth not your destruction: he commands, he even implores you, to take pity upon yourselves; to flee from the wrath to come; to lay hold of the hope set before you in the Gospel, and to amend your doings, that you may live and not die.

Blessed are those who, on seriously considering their ways by the directions of God's word, and, under the teaching of his Holy Spirit, have reason conscientiously to believe, that with whatever remaining sin and imperfection their ways are those of the true disciple of Christ; the ways that conduct to the mansions of eternal joy. Yet let even such continue to examine their own hearts; that what is right may be strengthened; that what is wrong may be corrected; and that what is trail and imperfect, as at the best are our highest virtues and attainments, may be pardoned through the blood of a crucified Redeemer.

Tothe Editor of the Christian Observer. ON Proverbs xxv. 20, As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs

to a heavy heart, Cruden remarks, "As vinegar being thrown upon nitre is a thing improper, for it renders it less useful, and not so effectual to take out spots or blemishes; so he that singeth songs to a heavy heart does that which is unseasonable and offensive, for his grief is thereby rather increased than diminished." If your readers will consult Poole and other commentators, they will find this and a variety of other equally strained and unsatisfactory solutions. The hypothesis of the nitre being rendered less proper for taking out spots seems to have been a favourite conjecture, and may be traced from commentator to conmentator, each borrowing it from his predecessor apparently as a very happy idea. The meaning of the passage is, however, perfectly clear, and very expressive, when we remember that the nitrum of the ancients was not what we call nitre (nitrate of potass), but natron (carbonate of soda) which effervesces violently with vinegar. Like an acid upon an alkali is a merry song to a heavy heart-far from amusing or soothing, it only irritates the mind and aggravates the grief.

H. L.

NEGRO SLAVERY.-No. V. CONDUCT AND TREATMENT OF MISSIONARIES IN THE WEST INDIES.

No one can have read the newspapers during the last three or four months, without having witnessed the unceasing efforts which have been made, by some of the WestIndian party, to blacken the character of the Missionaries who are engaged in the benevolent work of instructing their slaves. They have not scrupled in the most unqualified terms to describe them as incendiaries who have been stirring up the slaves to rebellion, and in particular CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 265.

to attribute to their insidious suggestions the insurrection which has occurred in Demerara. This charge was in the first instance preferred, without reserve or distinction, against all the Missionaries in that colony, being four in number; and so deeply rooted was the prejudice entertained against them, that, prior to the possibility of receiving any credible evidence of their guilt, they were at once pronounced guilty by the colonial public.

Two of these Missionaries, however, belonging to the Wesleyan connexion, did not long remain under this imputation. One of them

D

had been arrested indeed, but was almost immediately liberated, and no distinct charge has been preferred against either. The loose and general accusations in which they were at first involved have since been most triumphantly disproved. And it has appeared, that out of 1216 persons, chiefly slaves, who were members of their society in Demerara, only two were even suspected of being at all concerned with the rioters; and the innocence even of these individuals has since been fully acknowledged.

The other two Missionaries, Mr. Elliot and Mr. Smith, belong to the London Missionary Society, and have experienced a much harder measure, at the hands of the colonists, than their brethren of the Wesleyan connexion. They were taken into custody: but one of them, Mr. Elliot, after being kept a prisoner for about ten days, was set at liberty. No disturbance having taken place in that part of the colony in which he resided, there did not exist the shadow of a ground for his protracted detention. All

the vehement accusations, therefore, which had been poured forth against the Missionaries generally, were at length confined to Mr. Smith alone, the scene of whose labours happened to be that part of the colony where the tumult had taken place. Against Mr. Smith the most extravagant and incredible charges were confidently preferred. It was even affirmed, that, on the evening before the disturbance, he had preached to the Negroes from the following text, taken from the 149th Psalm: "Let the saints be joyful in glory let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a twoedged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;"and that he had employed the sacrament of the Lord's Supper as a bond of confederation among the insurents, to secure their fidelity to

each other in the meditated work of destruction.

The utter falsehood and absurdity of such statements are so manifest, that it is astonishing any one should be found to give them currency. The doors of Mr. Smith's chapel were open not to slaves only, but to all who chose to enter. Some Whites usually attended his service; and he never could be certain that they might not attend.

And while these and a thousand other calumnies, equally groundless, have been heaped upon Mr. Smith, he has been denied the opportunity of communicating with his brother missionaries, or of writing to his friends and employers in England; and the utmost pains seem to have been taken to draw from the condemned slaves, stimulated by the hope of pardon, matter of charge against him. The following statement, which has appeared recently in the newspapers, and which was probably selected for publication because it contained what were deemed the strongest indications of Mr. Smith's guilt, will shew to what miserable expedients the colonists must have been reduced, in order to support the semblance of any thing like fairness in even putting him upon his trial.

On Tuesday the 2d of September, 1823, a slave, named Telemachus, was tried as having been a chief in the rebellion. He pleaded guilty, it is said, of rebellion, "but denied being a chief or leader." The following is given as his confession with respect to Mr. Smith.

"I was not one of the first members of the Church; I am one of the last in Mr. Smith's book. Any particular orders which Mr. Smith had to give, he gave to the deacons of the Church, and they repeated them to us: he desired the deacons to arrange the people in a line as they came into church, before he came himself, and one of us teachers to every bench to instruct them. About two years ago, after morning prayers, about 10 o'clock, Mr. Smith and Quamina were in a little room

off the chapel by themselves: I was going in to buy a catechism; as I opened the door, I observed them together: I heard Mr. Smith tell Quamina that he had just come from town, and that no good could ever come to the Negroes unless they took it themselves. I am ready to repeat it before Mr. Smith's face. Quamina came one morning about five weeks ago, and called some of the members who were standing under a tree close by the church, and told us that Mr. Smith said something good had come out for the slaves. The Sunday after that, Quamina told us again, that Mr. Smith had told him that freedom had come out for the slaves, and that they ought to have been free six months ago. Jack afterwards said, that one of the Governor's servants sent to call him to town, and told him that he overheard the Governor saying that something good had come out for the slaves; that the Governor's servant asked, why the country Negroes were so foolish as never to seek to know any thing. The servant said, that if Jack would get friends in the country, he could get friends in town; and in particular, he knew a man who could get fire' (meaning some man about the Governor's house, who could be seen with fire without suspicion the powder magazine is near the Governor's house), and that would set fire to the powder*. When Jack returned he told his father (Quamina) this: I did not hear Jack, but I knew it was done. The deacons afterwards laid the plan together as to how they were to rise; and Jack, Quamina, and Bristol told Joseph the whole story, and that if the Negroes wanted their freedom, they must take it, as Mr. Smith had said they ought to have been free six months ago. Quamina told Joseph, that when they did begin, they must break down all

• The Governor's servant, thus circumstantially arraigned, has nevertheless been fully acquitted. This shews the little reliance to be placed on such evidence.

the bridges to prevent the people coming from town, and bringing their big guns (this was done), and that on every estate they must put the White men into the stocks, and take away their arms and ammunition; that they must not hurt the White people; that he understood. from a sensible person (meaning Parson Smith), that they were so to act. I was not present at church on the Sunday before the revolt. On Monday I saw Sandy and Paris come to Joseph Prince's house. I was there. They said they were: going up to all the upper estates as far as Dockfour, to tell the people what had passed on Sunday in the. church. When they had gone, I asked Joseph what it was they hadheard in church on Sunday. He answered, the Parson had spoken very plain, that if any thing belonging to you was in another man's possession, and you did not take it, you were a fool;' and that they had settled the whole business at Success Middle Path as to the whole rising on Monday night. Joseph called us together, and told us that whoever did not go with us should be killed. Jack (who was present) said, that freedom had come for the slaves, and that Mr. Hamilton told him, that it was of no use buying his wife (meaning a black girl kept by Mr. H.) as she would be free. Both Mr. Smith and Mr. Hamilton told them these things very plainly, and that the people must not be afraid. This (namely, what follows) was after Colonel Leahy, had spoken to the slaves, and requested them to lay down their arms; and it was when the people were about to obey the Colonel's order, that Jack told him of this. I heard the Colonel speak to us. I left them along with another Negro, named Stephen, of Bachelor's Adventure. Whilst Colonel Leahy was speaking to us, Quamina went to Parson Smith, and asked what we were to do; and Mr. Smith replied, we must not give it up. Quamina told all the people so: I

heard him myself, and the Negro witness who appeared against me to-day knows it. I did not put any White person, or order any one, into the stocks: on the contrary, I assisted to save our overseers. I gave myself up to Mr. Parson Austin, who was at Paradin, and who I heard was speaking to the people there, and desiring them to be quiet; I went to him, and he desired me to return home: when I returned home I found the three overseers whom I had saved from the stocks; and they gave me a letter to Mr. Austin, merely to say that I had behaved well to them.-[He wanders from his subject here, to give a distinct idea how far the Governor's servant was connected, in reply to some questions by the Court.] Sandy told us, in my presence, that the Governor's servant said we must leave the town to him; and that, before we allowed any of the soldiers to return to town, we must pull out the sluices, and burn the estates, and cut through the back dams: that the Governor's servant added, to leave the town to himhe knew what to do. Sandy and Jack said, the Bush Negroes, 1,000 strong, were expected to join the Negro camp a-back of the town."

After this confession, the prisoner, it is added, threw himself on his knees, and begged hard for mercy, But his solicitations were unheeded; and even his confessions, which have been deemed of sufficient importance to be published as evidence of Smith's guilt, but which were plainly drawn from him by the fear of death, and the hope of escape, proved equally unavailing. He was executed on the following Saturday. Let us, for a moment, look at this vidence, by publishing which, previously to his trial, the prejudice, already sufficiently strong, against Mr. Smith, must have been greatly increased, and at the circumstances under which it was given. There is only one assertion in the whole detail which is more than the loosest hear say. A poor creature, in the hope

of saving his life, states, not on oath, that one Negro tells another, that Mr. Smith had made use of certain words; and these are gravely put forward by the planters of Demerara, as pregnant cause of suspicion against him. Two years indeed before the insurrection, Telemachus says, he overheard some words drop from Mr. Smith, in conversation with another slave. These words, broken off from their con- . nexion, are intended to refer to we know not what, to which his accusers would trace the insurrection ; but they prove nothing except the inveteracy of the prevailing prejudice. And when, with these circumstances, we connect the strong motives which this condemned slave evidently had to frame some story by which he might hope to disarn the hostility of his judges, by inculpating Smith, we shall at once see, that to give a moment's heed to such testimony is an outrage on all our notions of justice.

The reader will observe in this detail, the names of Quamina and Jack. The former was a member of Mr. Smith's congregation, and the father of Jack. What Jack's confessions have been, or what has been his consequent fate, we have yet to learn. Quamina, the father, who seems designated by Telemachus as the chief actor in this affair, has been shot, it seems, in the woods; so that no contradiction is to be apprehended from that quarter. In a case, however, where rumours, and rumours of the most vague and incredible description, have been allowed to usurp the place of proofs, in condemnation of the Missionaries, we may be permitted to quote a single passage from a private letter, received by a highly respectable gentleman in London, from a person on whom he places implicit reliance, in which some information is communicated respecting the slaves, Quamina and Jack. "I have known Quamina," says the writer, "for fourteen years, a humble, quiet, peaceable inan, and always a peace-maker

and should as soon suspect Mr.

of exciting the Negroes to rebel. He must either have had unsupportable provocation, or it is a plot of the greatest envy against his life. I am confounded, and could weep tears of blood." Of Jack's character, all he says is, that he was "a wild youth;" but he adds, "He was married to a young woman on a neighbouring estate some years ago, by whom he had two children; but a White man took her to be his wife. This is all I know of the history of Jack."

It at least merits investigation, to ascertain whether the suspicions entertained against Quamina, and through him against Mr. Smith, may not have originated in the share which Jack, goaded to revenge by such an injury, may have taken in the disturbance.

Telemachus speaks, in his evidence, of its having been agreed not to hurt the White people; and we learn from the same correspondent, whose letter we have just quoted, that it was so evident the Negroes did not intend to shed White blood, that that very circumstance was most perversely taken by the Colonists "as a proof," not that Christianity had softened their minds and manners, but "that the Missionaries had some hand in this insurrection; for they argue, that other wise the Negroes would have massacred all the Whites, as in former insurrections."

A farther elucidation of this case will be found in a statement just published, under the authority of the Directors of the London Missionary Society, from which we extract the following passages:

"The Directors have at length the satisfaction of informing the members of the Society, that they have received a letter from Mr. Elliot, dated October 18, enclosing a copy of one written to the treasurer on the 25th of September, but detained in the colony; besides communications from other persons.

"The letters of Mr. Elliot assert

the innocence of the Missionaries of all participation whatever in the crime of the insurrection; and the Directors entertain no apprehension of advancing that which they shall have to retract, in saying they give full credit to the declaration. They will quote the terms in which the assurances are made to themselves, convinced that the manly feelings of conscious integrity which shine through them, will carry to the bosom of every impartial reader a conviction of the veracity by which they are dictated.

"Numerous false reports have been sent forth against Mr. Smith'(Mr. Elliot might have added against himself also)-but assure yourself and all the Directors, that whatever reports you may hear, the only crime that the Missionaries have committed is their zeal for the conversion of the Negroes. They have neither been so weak nor so wicked as to excite the Negroes to rebellion. The Missionaries want justice only; they have no favour to ask; they have nothing to fear. The Missionaries have not degraded their holy calling, nor dishonoured the society of which they are members, by sowing the seeds of rebellion instead of the word of life. The real causes of the rebellion are far, very far, from being the instructions given by the Missionaries.' He adds,

We are not cast down; the Lord our God supports us; and we are persuaded that He who protected Daniel in the lion's den, will support and protect us."

"The colony of Demerara is divided into the East and West coasts by the Demerara river, the former, including Mahaica, being on its right bank. Mr. Elliot is stationed on the West, Mr. Smith on the East coast, about twenty miles distant from each other.

"It appears that the insurrection was entirely confined to the East coast, so that no commotion whatever took place on the estates on which Mr. Elliot labours; and not one of the Negrocs under his in